The other day, in the course of looking for something else, I happened across an essay by Walter Benjamin on book collecting. He wrote it in the 1930s, it's called; "Unpacking My Library. A talk about book collecting." And some of it struck me as pretty appropriate to the habit and practice of collecting generally, and of course in our case, collecting old games.

I'll not post the whole thing, but here are a few extracts:

"The most profound enchantment for the collector is the locking of individual items within a magic circle in which they are fixed as the final thrill, the thrill of acquisition, passes over them. Everything remembered and thought, everything conscious, becomes the pedestal, the frame, the base, the frame, the lock of his property. The period, the region, the craftsmanship, the former ownership -- for a true collector the whole background of an item adds up to a magic encyclopaedia."

"By no means all of the most important purchases are made on the premises of a dealer. Catalogues play a far greater part. And even though the purchaser may be thoroughly acquainted with the book ordered from a catalogue, the individual copy always remains a surprise and the order always a bit of a gamble. There are grievous disappointments but also happy finds."

"I am not exaggerating when I say that to a true collector the acquisition of an old book is its rebirth. This is the childlike element which in a collector mingles with the element of old age. … To renew the old world -- that is the collector's deepest desire when he is driven to acquire new things, and that is why a collector of older books is closer to the wellsprings of collecting than the acquirer of luxury editions."   

[This passage reminded me of when I moved a few games to re-order a shelf, of course then I had to move a few more, and then …]
"Nothing highlights the fascination of unpacking more clearly than the difficulty of stopping this activity. I had started at noon, and it was midnight before I had worked my way to the last cases."


Anyway it is a great read and easy to find online. And also illuminating as to what collecting is often really about …

Wow is that guy spot on.