Collections

לעברית, קליק פה.

As far as I'm aware at least two of my ancestors liked to collect things. Though on a small scale.

My maternal grandfather collected coins. Only a few. I inherited a small and rather heavy box from him. But it always amuses me quite a bit to see, alongside those of his own country, a surprising coin with Greek writing (in the photo there's two of these, to show both sides), or one with writing that looks (to my untrained eyes) Arabic. Or (which is possibly more probable) Turkish.

By the way, in the photo I included a Russian coin (the one of 1924 with someone wielding something that looks like a hammer) and the top bronze German one.

Unlike granddad, my father collected stamps. Though that's hardly surprising. In his days inter-family communication had to rely on letters, sent and received by Air Mail (does anyone remember it still?). But photographing stamps is not that interesting. And needless to say that both these collections have stopped growing, right?

Well, no. That's not entirely accurate. It has happened that one passed to another (who passed on to me) coins resembling local ones, that on closer inspection turned out to be in one case Hungarian, in the other – unknown (I'd hazard a wild guess at Chinese or Japanese. It's the one with flowers in the above photo).
Let's assume these were simple mistakes, but what else can I do with these coins other than add to the collection?

But my newest friend here on WordPress reminded me of my dad's other collection. Also a small one and mostly packed away. Yet I lately liberated my three favorites.

And here I am capable of a bit more detail:

The blue one – Rolls Royce Silver Shadow, Corgi Toys, made in Britain. I've already said (here) this was my dad's absolute favorite.
The golden one – No. Y-15 1930 Packard Victoria, Matchbox, made in England.
The green one – 1911 Renault No. 2, made in England (and my favorite of the three, even if I would never wish to drive it. And one of the ones I was allowed to play with, which explains its' condition).

However, if I could start a new collection…
And despite my lack of liking to no-roof (that is in real cars), I may have been tempted to start it with this… (though maybe on condition that together with it the collection will include a whole car, or as a friend I once knew used to say – an umbrella/air-conditioning with wheels).

L

Details about the Audi can be viewed here.