Besides stamps what other hobbies do you have?
As January is promoted as the National Hobby Month in some parts of the world, I think this is a great time to tell and share something about my other hobbies. As You can guess, many of these are (or relate heavily) to collecting.
For starters, I do collect coins and other money. I would definitely not call myself as a numismatic, as what I have is just a random accumulation of odds an ends around the world and I don’t actively work in order to grow the collection. Most of the time these coins just lie on closed album… I think this hobby of mine roots to my parents, who had saved some coins and bills from their childhood.
Some worldwide coins from my collections. On top left are my oldest coins, 1903 Finland 1mk Silver coin and 1874 Finnish 2mk silver coin. On the right some worldwide coins.
Besides stamps, one of my first passionate hobbies was comic books. As a kid I read a lot of European comics (like Asterix,Oumpah-pah, Alix etc) and classic Donald Duck stories by Carl Barks. In my teens I was heavily into superheroes; first Marvel, but then DC and independent ones. And at adult age I’ve matured to like pretty much everything.
In my teens (and early twenties) I bought a lot of comics (both Finnish and original titles), but these days I pretty much focus on reading, preserving and enjoying the comics I have.
I must have been a good boy, as Santa brough me the latest of Don Rosa's Donald Duck hardcovers.
My non-collecting hobbies are possibly not so interesting… As a geek, I’m somewhat interested in programming and computers. Though I do work with both for living, I still like to play with both of them on my free time.
Photography is something I enjoy quite a lot as it allows me to join my interest towards wonders of nature, architechture, collecting and playing with technology.
A nice detail from our backyard in may 2009.
And finally there’s food… I love good food and cooking. Personally I prefer fish, white meat (chicken, poultry), vegetables and lots of herbs and spices in my cookings. The fresher and more local the ingredients, the better IMHO… And I’m definitely nut for different kinds of cheese.
But now it’s your turn…
PS. As many know, my wife’s also a collector. Stamps we share together, but she has few hobbies of her own too. Besides reading, knitting, gardening and taiji, she’s fond of collecting advertising (promotional) pens and sugar (pouches, bags etc).
My stamp collection basically lies dormant in a closet although I still consider myself a collector as I do tear stamps off of envelopes (how few they have become).
My most active hobby right now is blogging, although I consider my blog part of my business platform.
I also collect anything that interests me– If I see it and like it, I throw it in the closet or garage. Someday I’ll etiher organize it all or throw it out.
Lee
I love stamps collecting too (as I’m sure you know
), as well as coin collecting. Since I love history, both of these hobbies are great. They teach me some of the history I don’t know yet.
I live in the USA and coin collecting is much more developed than stamp collecting, and it’s very interesting to go to shows, you can always learn a great deal!
Besides these two hobbies, I like stereoscopes, and have a lot of View Masters.
@Arlee… Blogging (and writing) can be VERY attractive. I know. LOL.
@AdA…I totally loved View Master as a kid.
As a child I was taught to save coins in a “piggy bank” so I had lots of coin savings. Sometimes I would come across unfamiliar old or demonetized coins which I would place in a separate container. As I grew older, I came to realize that it was more fun collecting these unfamiliar stuff than the ones in circulation. Such is the beginning of my coin collection. It was a fun way of learning history, geography and culture. A coin from some foreign country would make me run to the library to learn more about that country. This was when internet has not even been dreamt about yet. This also led to stamp collecting.
Greast story Linella… Piggy banks bring a lot of good memories as in my childhood the Finnish Postal Savings Bank had a “Golden piggy club” for child and youth members of the bank. It was hugely popular at the time with monthly club magazine, competitions, annual greetings postcards etc. Nowadays these piggies (and related memorabilia) are of course collectors items.
I’m also a banknote collector, besides stamps.
In my free time, I like playing Diplomacy (mostly online) or running.
Best,
Pablo.
Reading, writing, photography (mostly nature, some portraiture), jigsaw puzzles, gardening, walking/hiking, hanging out with friends, visiting galleries and museums. I enjoy grocery shopping and cooking, but it’s more of a responsibility than a hobby. Volunteering, but that’s not a hobby, either. My husband has an old comic book collection and likes to collect little rocks for his pockets.
Food, definitely food. I’ve been called a “foodie” more than once. Wine of course goes right along with that. I used to have a really nice wine collection in my basement, but since having kids it has stopped growing. In fact it has shrunk considerably (imagine that). Wine collecting is one of the few hobbies where it is more fun to “lose” an item than to gain one
I would say my wine collection has been reduced to a wine label collection.
I was into baseball cards as a kid, had a small coin collection, and a huge Star Wars collection but stamps are the only childhood hobby that has stuck with me.
Photography is another that I enjoy. I garden as well, but that is to my supply my food hobby.