Noun

Singular collecting

Plural uncountable

collecting (uncountable)

1. A hobby including seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining whatever items are of interest to the individual collector.

Verb

collecting

1. Present participle of collect.

The hobby of collecting includes seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining whatever items are of interest to the individual collector. Some collectors are generalists, accumulating merchandise, or stamps from all countries of the world. Others focus on a subtopic within their area of interest, perhaps 19th century postage stamps, milk bottle labels from Sussex, or Mongolian harnesses and tack.

The items collectors collect may be antique, or simply collectible. Antiques are collectible items at least 100 years old; collectibles are less than antique, and may even be new. Collectors and dealers may use the word vintage to describe older collectibles. Most collectibles are man-made commercial items, but some private collectors collect natural objects such as birds' eggs, butterflies, rocks, and seashells.

Collecting is a practice with a very old cultural history. The Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty collected books from all over the known world at the Library of Alexandria. The Medici family, at Rennaisance Florence, was the first effort to collect art as private patronage, this way artists could be free for the first time from the money given by the Church and Kings; this citizenhip tradition continues today with the work of private art collectors. Many of the world ´s best museums - from the Metropolitan in New York City to the Thyssen in Madrid or the Franz Mayer in Mexico City - have collections formed by the generous collectors that donated them to be seen by the general public.