Somebody else on the planet collects them, but I save the front page of the newspaper when some historical events occur. In my home office, I have the Houston Post front page from the day Nixon resigned, the Houston Post front page when the Rockets won title #1, and the Houston Chronicle front page when the Rockets won title #2, all framed and hanging on the walls. In boxes, I have the Houston Post front page from the day Saigon fell and the LA Times front page from the day after OJs low speed chase.
Antique books dealing with French History. I have a 40+ volume of Dumas novels, a set of memoires published in the 1800's from Philippe de ... COMMINES who lived during the reign of Louis XI of France. There are several more memoires on my 'to get' list, but they are all expensive.
I take a jar to the baseball games and collect the air from that night. I have air from the night Cal Ripken pased Lou Gherig's consecutive game streak. It sits on a shelf with a sticky label. I don't let people touch the jar, you know, because the air was electric that night. At least that's what they say. I have another jar of air from the night oil can boyd spit at the umpire, but if fell down and broke. It was 50% chance of rain that night. So every night I tremble, because that air mixed into my house air. and now I always have a 50% chance of rain. It's not easy to sleep like that.
It's funny, I never thought of collecting anything, but when I use to travel the world, I went to every Hardrock and got shot glasses and Hurrican glasses...I didn't just buy them, I literally took a shot and drank something...I also collect cards and dice from various casinos...This is from vegas, and over seas...I have some stuff from the philipines, south korea and sydney...
I collect playing cards with unusual backs. It started with a deck of Cards of Color my wife got me that had an African theme. I've got some cool decks now, but I also have some lame ones, mostly from my old boss who'd get me a crappy tourist deck from every town she'd visit.
Vox and Hiwatt are lesser known???? Pfft, the prices on these sure don't give me that impression. If you know where a bunch of cheap Hiwatts and Vox amps are lying around, give me the address and I'll go there now. I'll buy them all and give one to you as thanks for leading me to the treasure. Alamo amps are cool, but they use weird tubes which makes them impractical. Still, a 70s Alamo bass amp had the best low end response of a small combo I've ever heard. Jack White actually uses a Selmer, although this is hardly a secret amp anymore (the Zodiac combos with croc skin tolex and the blinking tremolo eye sell for as much as an AC-30). But the Silvertone and Airline amps are pretty cool for certain purposes. The best buy for vintage amps are Traynors. They were built like tanks with good parts (Hammond transformers), sound decent and can be easily modded to sound outstanding. And you can pick up Bassmaster heads (which are essentially Fender Bassman/Marshall Super Lead knockoffs) for between $300 and $500. You're right that the Japanese knockoffs from the 70s are far superior to most Gibsons and Fenders made after 1975. The best knockoffs were made by Greco. If you're really into Japanese guitars, go to Guitargai's website. I've almost pulled the trigger on a couple of Greco Thunderbird basses, but really want to try one first. And if you like Sound City amps, I'll sell you my L120. Never could get a decent tone out of the thing. Besides music gear, I also collect a Marvel comic series called Rom Spaceknight. I'm not too serious about this, but if I come across a Rom comic book in a 2nd hand comic/bookstore that I don't have, I'll usually buy it
