Saint Jovite Youngblood shines light on human drive to collect and its evolution

There are collections of pet rocks and baseball cards, Pez dispensers and unique pencil sharpeners, beer mugs from bars, coffee cups and shot glasses from all corners of the earth. Some people collect hats and others porcelain figurines. Collections can run the gamut from the simple to the exotic, creepy to stunning.

“You shouldn’t have to shake the family tree too hard to find a collector. There is at least one person in every family who has a collection of unique things,” said Saint Jovite Youngblood, who runs a company that deals in rare metals and collectable toys.

From Dolls to Dinosaur Skulls

The United Federation of Doll Clubs has been going since 1945. A nonprofit charged with celebrating and educating people about dolls, the organization claims that doll collectors make up one of the largest hobby groups in the world.

Arguably, the 1998 film “Bride of Chucky” did not help the psyche of anyone who has a family member who is a doll collector. Collections often become so extensive they spill into guest bedrooms, yet not all collections fit into the home.

Comedian Jay Leno’s Big Dog Garage famously houses 181 cars and 160 motorcycles at last count and is valued at around $450 million.

Leno purchased his first vehicle – a 34’ Ford pickup that didn’t run – for just $350 when he was 14 years old, using money he saved from summer jobs. His dad told him he had two years before it needed to run, so he had better get busy fixing it.

Once he learned the mechanics of it, the seed was planted – he would one day become one of the most prolific car collectors in the world, with a 122,000-square-foot garage situated next to the Burbank Airport.

Actor Nicolas Cage found himself in financial ruin from extravagant purchases. He reportedly bought an octopus, a nine-foot-tall burial tomb, “shrunken pygmy heads, a $150,000 Superman comic and a 70-million-year-old dinosaur skull, which he later had to return to the Mongolian government,” according to CNBC reporting. The purchase of these items in addition to dozens of homes and a few castles is what reportedly drove him to bankruptcy.

Books, and his study of philosophy and mythology, he told CNBC, are what compelled him to find certain properties.

Despite the resulting financial struggle from his collections, he claims he does not regret all of his purchases.

“You have good investments and bad investments,” he said. “The good investments came from personal interest and my honest enjoyment of the history.”

Saint Jovite Youngblood notes that what is rare is often valuable.

“While Cage’s collection can seem odd to many people, he found incredible value in the eclectic and the scarce,” Youngblood said.

The Psychology Behind it All

What is the compulsion to collect? Why do people choose certain things and not others? These questions have been the subject of extensive research, because the answer to those questions is valuable. Understanding what drives people to make purchasing decisions is a cornerstone of marketing, and an important query in a capitalist economy.

Stanford Graduate School of Business Professor Itamar Simonson sought to answer that question in a study conducted with Leilei Gao of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Drexel University’s Yanliu Huang.

Their findings challenge assumptions about what drives the compulsion to collect. Previously held beliefs about the start of collections were that people like the characteristics of a certain item and want more or because they own and appreciate one item, they procure others that are similar.

However, the researchers discovered that consumers are not always so strategic in collection building. People can often exist in relative comfort owning one of an item, but owning two makes them feel uneasy, like they are redundant or wasteful. A collection helps ease that discomfort because it provides justification.

A New Way of Looking at Marketing

This is something that companies can use to their advantage, Simonson explained. They need to find a way to initially get two of something into consumers’ hands and convey a gentle message that consumers don’t need to start a collection, they should just acquire a couple of something. That, in turn, will launch most people into collecting mode. This does shift when items are perceived as rare and valuable – where owning one is often enough for most people to want more.

“I started collecting and dealing toys years ago,” said Saint Jovite Youngblood. “Collections often grow when friends and family know that you have one going. It is an easy go-to for holiday and birthday gifts. Once collections are started, they usually keep expanding.”

According to Forbes, though, a plan needs to be in place for collections that people really care about. Some mistakenly believe that they will easily pass their collections off to a museum, when in reality, only around 20% of what is donated to museums is actually displayed, the rest is stored at a costly price tag by the nonprofit.  Others believe that their executor will find an eager buyer and their heirs will reap the benefits, but they need to make sure the executor is knowledgeable of the collection. Still others hope that someone in the family will develop an interest, but that can lead to tension if the collection is valuable and passed to just one heir.

“I’ve seen all these different scenarios play out, people really should plan appropriately and begin planning sooner rather than later with regard to their collections,” Youngblood said.

Beauty – and value – are in the eyes of the beholder. Now, collectors are eyeing what hails from the heavens for more unique items.

Rich and Famous Now Venturing to Deep Space for Collections

Just a couple of years ago, Christie’s auction house held a “Deep Impact” auction, which touted “meteorites embedded with gemstones and others [that] have suffered such an impact from blasting through the atmosphere at up to 160,000 mph that they resemble sculptures by Alberto Giacometti or Henry Moore,” according to The Guardian reporting.

Verification gets scientific as the meteorites are now analyzed for composition to determine deep space origin.

Celebrity collectors like Cage, Elon Musk and Steven Spielberg have pushed the price of meteorites up tenfold over the last decade, per the article.

A 30-pound meteorite from the moon that crashed into the Sahara Desert is valued at $2.5 million and also to be sold by Christie’s.

The theory is that the rock was likely knocked from the moon’s surface after a collision with an asteroid or comet. It then traveled “at least 239,000 miles through space” before settling in the Sahara Desert via an impressive meteor shower from which 30 meteorites have been found in Northwest Africa. 

Christie’s said that Lunar meteorites are incredibly rare, and just about 1,500 pounds of them are confirmed to exist on Earth.

“As someone who has admired and traded rare metals my entire adult life I can absolutely see the draw to meteorites. The space is a place we ponder from childhood into adulthood. We always find ourselves looking at the stars and wondering, ‘What else is out there?’ That mystery and that beauty is, I believe, a driving force behind humanity. To own a piece of space is to own something that is largely unknown. That will always have value, even beyond the monetary,” Youngblood said.

The Sentimental Nature of Many Collections

Does that extend in the broader sense to all collections? Does the eclectic pencil sharpener collection have the same personal value as the baseball card collection pieced together over a lifetime or the doll collection that started from a birthday gift and then a Christmas present? Many  collectors vie for the distinction of making it to the Guinness Book of World Records for having the most of something. Demetra Koutsouridou, a resident of Florina, Greece, amassed a collection of 8,514 different pencil sharpeners over the course of six years – to secure the record.

While collections can logically start from the discomfort of two, many collectors can link their beginning to a family member or a dear friend, some who are no longer here.

“Past memories prompted by sentimental, gifted items, can be a connection to who we once were and who we hope to become,” said Saint Jovite Youngblood. “Ask anyone who has their great grandfather’s cowboy chaps or their grandmother’s wedding ring – those items serve as a reminder of connections that span across generations; connections that extend beyond life itself.”