QUEER COLLECTORS

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 68, 17 September 1927, Page 20

QUEER COLLECTORS

LIFE STUDIES OF BTEANGE

SUBJECTS.

■ Collecting can be either an expensive ;or. a cheap hobby. It is generally the expensive hobbies that we hear about. But for tho man with the true collector's instinct nothing is too trifling to collect (writes W. Bedpath-Scott in the "Daily News"). One of the mo"st : economical collectors I know—and one of the most enthusiastic—acquires catalogues, which are nsually given away. He possesses thousands' of catalogues dealing with almost every conceivable subject,, from farmhouses to fortresses.

Another acquaintance whose hobby costs. him nothing but the labour of writing them down collects facts, which are stubborn things once he has them in black and white. He keeps his facts in a series of black pocket-books, which he regards as so valuable that" he has had them insured.

. A Manchester man cultivates ono of the queerest hobbies. He makes a hobby of the Ship Canal. He is an authority on that wonderful waterway and possesses a collection of postcards or other photographs running into thousands of practically every ship that has ever berthed in Salford Docks. Bach day he watches the list of "arrivals and sailings," and when he spots a ship that is new to the canal his joy is as great as the joy of the book collector who has discovered some rare lirst cdi-< tion., There is not an interesting fact about the Ship Canal that he does not know. Although his business'is not in any way connected with the canal he has made a life study of it. ■•'