The British love to collect things. Whether that’s fine art and antiques or fridge magnets!
The Royal Mint did a survey on collecting as a hobby and found that 83% of people have gone out of their way to accumulate some sort of item in their lifetime, with 57% of adults still going strong with their collecting!
Deciding the best way to store and protect your prized collections can be tricky though, especially if your passion is for larger items or valuables you prefer not to leave lying around.
There’s also the prospect of moving to a smaller home or a shared accommodation and you need to make room without selling your much-loved collection!
Weird, wonderful and high value collectables
Clearly, if your hobby is collecting autographs or photos, you are unlikely to have storage issues.
However, a woman in Birmingham gathered a collection of 5,000 different bars of soap. She certainly would be ‘foaming at the mouth’ if that lot got wrecked by moisture!
Another British chap amassed 1,000 different Daleks (from the Dr Who TV series). Other examples of creative collections include traffic cones, toothbrushes, coke cans and all things dalmatian, frog, pig or elephant-related. To name but a few!
(source: https://www.leedsbuildingsociety.co.uk/knowledge-base/home-buyers/11-weird-and-wonderful-collections/)
Then, of course, there are the collectors who seek out items of value from car boot sales and online selling sites, such as watches, stamps and coins that can command a high price at auction if you patiently store them for a while.
Some valuable collections start out with no monetary aim. For example, a former Royal Butler called William Tallon hung on to letters, photographs and gifts over his years in service. When he died, international interest in buying his collection was phenomenal. So much so, the catalogue outlining William Tallon’s belongings is now a collector’s item!
Another example of how items can gain value over time is the auction of a lot of pipes and smoking paraphernalia that sold for over £75,000 in 2017!
(source: https://www.reemandansie.com/private-collections-estate-sales/)
Best way to store & protect your prized collections
Some avid collectors are fortunate to be able to dedicate complete rooms or outbuildings to storing and displaying their items. Though in some cases, this presents a security risk or puts precious belongings in line for accidental damage.
Having lockable vaults or safes in your home is sometimes the only way to protect items of value, and stay within insurance criteria. However, self-storage lockups can still be considered, as long as the security standards are high.
Certainly, if the size or nature of your collection makes space an issue, the best way to declutter and keep your prized collection safe involves researching self-storage options.
Not least, as you can then access your belongings whenever you want to. In fact, you could even change the pieces on display at your home regularly, making sure all other collectables are stored in a safe, remote location.