What kind of Collector are You?

[trigger643]

What kind of collector are you and why? I mean, why do you collect what you collect and what exactly do you collect?

I consider myself a generalist. I like crisp, clean representative examples of historical military arms 1900-1970 that are better than 80%, but less than 100%, so that I don't feel guilty shooting them occasionally. My father and most of his peers were WWII Veterans. His father's brothers were WWI veterans, so these two conflicts hold specific interest. My brother was a SEAL and participated in Desert storm, Desert Shield and many other small conflicts of the '80s and '90s, so arms in this period also hold my attention. I'm also a tangent collector. I'm advanced enough now that I generally avoid junk, but still occasionally fall in with Gem or Turd.

As a Generalist collector, here are some examples from my collection: Military: HK91, HK93, USP Tactical, Type 56s and Colt SPII.

As a tangent collector, here are some examples: 1937 S/42 P.08, byf 43 P.38, C96 "red 9", Sig 226 (the tangent: all 9 mm German issue). I've had, and will have again a Radom and HP to round this out.

Threads like this run all through my collection, where relative pieces are tied together by my slimmest of whims. Sort of a 3 degrees of separation deal. But my attention span can be short and I can easily exhaust my interest in just one type of arm (as I did on Springfield '03s). I usually know just enough about something to start the conversation and rarely am I encyclopedic enough to finish one.

So what do you collect and why?