There's a meme in my car model building circle...
"If you think building models is childish, Remember there are adults running around searching for Pokemon"
Typical over-simplification by the press ( of any country) pandering to people's ignorant prejudices !
Children are trainspotters, stamp collectors and butterfly collectors.
Adults operate real railways, are philatelists or biologists specialising in lepidoptera.
The strangest hobby I ever came across was a guy who collected Barbed Wire - and funnily enough he was an American ! ( and I don't think he was the only one - apparently there is a club).
Glass houses and stones come to mind !
Malcolm
I have a friend who's a very serious barbed wire collector. He has almost 100 examples that date anywhere from the American range wars to the razor wire used during WWII. Collectors prefer 18" pieces and I've contributed a couple of different ones that I picked up around old homestead sites that I was metal detecting. The history of barbed wire is actually kind of fascinating.
WB
I fall into the trainspotting category.The railway line was at the end of our street,there was not much traffic in the winter as we were a seaside town ,but in the summer months we had excursions coming in from the midlands.The town next to us they were joined Grimsby was a very busy fishing port and had a lot of goods traffic to chase.
We would even go for miles on our push bikes to get to the nearest mainline station in the hope of seeing an A4 (streak) or an A1 or A3 IE: Doncaster or Retford.
A trip to London was a real treat saving my paper round money to pay for the ticket ,just the chance to get to all the different regional stations ,each with it's own locos was really something special.
Ah the good old days ,times were hard but we were kids.
Brian
I was a bus-spotter once ( as a result of the dieselisation of the railways ) Some weird hobby - except that I ended up running a bus company (not my own unfortunately - just as Manager on behalf of the owners).
I never ceased to be amazed by the number of quite senior managers of bus companies who were enthusiasts as children ( although not all would admit it, except in an unguarded moment ). Of course your emphasis would change as you became more professional - but it has to be said that the unsocial hours, and stress on family life meant that non-enthusiasts were unlikely to choose transport ( in all it's forms ) as a career. I spent 30 years of my life in road passenger transport and I can honestly say I was never bored ( frustrated, annoyed, angry,stressed,infuriated yes - but never bored !). Even now if a bus,train,aircraft,truck,tractor or ship comes within sight I cannot bear not to look !
I guess I am still a little boy at heart.
Malcolm
I just learned on one of my Facebook groups that people even collect, and pay good money for, old carbon-zinc dry cell batteries. Here are examples of some SOLD listings:
It is amazing what people will collect.
As part of my working ears, I was an attorney with a bank trust department and handled all kinds of estates over the years. The main thing I found was that somebody collects everything. When we cleaned up estates for sales, we hired good quality auctioneers and the first thing they said was do not throw anything away. Somebody will buy it for their collection. The British are not the only ones with odd hobbies. What is even worse is I had heirs fighting over these collectibles. At the time I charged $100 per hour for time working with heirs. In one estate I spent 8 hours at the deceased's condo while the heirs fought over the personal property such as collectibles and even bedding. After that time, we took all estates to auction and gave the heirs credit at the sale equal to their share of the estate and then turned them loose. People would spend unreasonable amounts to keep another relative from getting something. Those who didn't want anything loved it as it drove the value of the estate up.
stampmanjack
" ... Glass houses and stones come to mind ! ..."
Stones, I can understand,
I have an accumulation of rocks I have gathered
from national parks such as thee Red Rock Canyon in Nevada,
the Grand Canyon and the sides of Moana Loa and Haleakala.
There is one from the slope of Mt Fuji as well as several
other interesting places.
When ever I saw a highway cut through a hillside as I drove along,
I'd stop and look at the exposed geological levels and try to find
a small chips from the side of the cliff. At one time I had more
but one box was lost when be moved to Florida.
I never did much with them as a collection but it made an interesting
decoration to a shelf in our living room.
But, I am puzzled, how would you collect "Glass Houses"?
I borrowed this from another web site. You need to read the entire story.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/world/europe/britain-butterfly-killer.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0
“Britain is a nation of eccentrics, and people engage in odd hobbies like train-spotting, stamp collection and collecting butterflies,”
It seems that I, as well as others on SOR, fall into this same category.
re: Odd British Hobbies
There's a meme in my car model building circle...
"If you think building models is childish, Remember there are adults running around searching for Pokemon"
re: Odd British Hobbies
Typical over-simplification by the press ( of any country) pandering to people's ignorant prejudices !
Children are trainspotters, stamp collectors and butterfly collectors.
Adults operate real railways, are philatelists or biologists specialising in lepidoptera.
The strangest hobby I ever came across was a guy who collected Barbed Wire - and funnily enough he was an American ! ( and I don't think he was the only one - apparently there is a club).
Glass houses and stones come to mind !
Malcolm
re: Odd British Hobbies
I have a friend who's a very serious barbed wire collector. He has almost 100 examples that date anywhere from the American range wars to the razor wire used during WWII. Collectors prefer 18" pieces and I've contributed a couple of different ones that I picked up around old homestead sites that I was metal detecting. The history of barbed wire is actually kind of fascinating.
WB
re: Odd British Hobbies
I fall into the trainspotting category.The railway line was at the end of our street,there was not much traffic in the winter as we were a seaside town ,but in the summer months we had excursions coming in from the midlands.The town next to us they were joined Grimsby was a very busy fishing port and had a lot of goods traffic to chase.
We would even go for miles on our push bikes to get to the nearest mainline station in the hope of seeing an A4 (streak) or an A1 or A3 IE: Doncaster or Retford.
A trip to London was a real treat saving my paper round money to pay for the ticket ,just the chance to get to all the different regional stations ,each with it's own locos was really something special.
Ah the good old days ,times were hard but we were kids.
Brian
re: Odd British Hobbies
I was a bus-spotter once ( as a result of the dieselisation of the railways ) Some weird hobby - except that I ended up running a bus company (not my own unfortunately - just as Manager on behalf of the owners).
I never ceased to be amazed by the number of quite senior managers of bus companies who were enthusiasts as children ( although not all would admit it, except in an unguarded moment ). Of course your emphasis would change as you became more professional - but it has to be said that the unsocial hours, and stress on family life meant that non-enthusiasts were unlikely to choose transport ( in all it's forms ) as a career. I spent 30 years of my life in road passenger transport and I can honestly say I was never bored ( frustrated, annoyed, angry,stressed,infuriated yes - but never bored !). Even now if a bus,train,aircraft,truck,tractor or ship comes within sight I cannot bear not to look !
I guess I am still a little boy at heart.
Malcolm
re: Odd British Hobbies
I just learned on one of my Facebook groups that people even collect, and pay good money for, old carbon-zinc dry cell batteries. Here are examples of some SOLD listings:
re: Odd British Hobbies
It is amazing what people will collect.
re: Odd British Hobbies
As part of my working ears, I was an attorney with a bank trust department and handled all kinds of estates over the years. The main thing I found was that somebody collects everything. When we cleaned up estates for sales, we hired good quality auctioneers and the first thing they said was do not throw anything away. Somebody will buy it for their collection. The British are not the only ones with odd hobbies. What is even worse is I had heirs fighting over these collectibles. At the time I charged $100 per hour for time working with heirs. In one estate I spent 8 hours at the deceased's condo while the heirs fought over the personal property such as collectibles and even bedding. After that time, we took all estates to auction and gave the heirs credit at the sale equal to their share of the estate and then turned them loose. People would spend unreasonable amounts to keep another relative from getting something. Those who didn't want anything loved it as it drove the value of the estate up.
stampmanjack
re: Odd British Hobbies
" ... Glass houses and stones come to mind ! ..."
Stones, I can understand,
I have an accumulation of rocks I have gathered
from national parks such as thee Red Rock Canyon in Nevada,
the Grand Canyon and the sides of Moana Loa and Haleakala.
There is one from the slope of Mt Fuji as well as several
other interesting places.
When ever I saw a highway cut through a hillside as I drove along,
I'd stop and look at the exposed geological levels and try to find
a small chips from the side of the cliff. At one time I had more
but one box was lost when be moved to Florida.
I never did much with them as a collection but it made an interesting
decoration to a shelf in our living room.
But, I am puzzled, how would you collect "Glass Houses"?