Back in the day I wasn't a collector of anything really.  I tried coins, stamps, rocks, but didn't stick with any of them.  I was an avid role player but didn't buy much beyond D&D boxed sets and then the hardback AD&D rule books, primarily due to limited availability where I lived and even more limited funds.  Modules were of little interest to me.  I always figured I could do a much better job designing and populating dungeons myself.  

In high school I largely abandoned TSR due to a bad taste left in my mouth by the volume of products that seemed to do little more than complicate the system.  Instead I embraced White Wolf's World of Darkness because the rules were much simpler and you only seemed to need one or two books.  I also dabbled in WEG's Star Wars, but it had much to narrow a scope.  

I got back into AD&D about seven years ago after about a ten year hiatus.  I was quite impressed by my DMs collection particularly items like the Encyclopedia Magica and Wizard/Priest Spell Compendiums.  Since I had much better finances than I had as a child I decided to pick up a few useful items and I discovered Ebay.  Originally I had very modest goals; a handful of 2nd edition AD&D items.  As I learned more about the volume of products that had been made, I got bit by the collecting bug.  It expanded to all AD&D items.  Then all D&D items.  Then to all TSR items.    Then it sort of creeped into include game systems that looked interesting or I found cheap.  I realized things were getting a bit of hand as I started to run out of space, so I'm trying to scale back the creep and stay primarily focused on the TSR items.  

Not counting the Marvel Super Hero stuff, there are still about 100 items I still need to be "complete" and some of these I may not ever be able to obtain like an orange B3 or a Planescape Sketch Book.   Fortunately I'm not a print run junkie.  I just wish I had been more concerned with condition when I started collecting.   When I started collecting, my entire collection could fit in a backpack; now it takes up four filing cabinets and about 75' of shelf space.

My wife thinks I'm nuts, but at least she's supportive.

Interesting the stages collector's go through; I think I'm towards the end of the collecting stage of my life; the "winter" of my hobby as it were.

I bought all the TSR stuff as it came out, so by the end of the 80s I had one of everything except for the super rares (this included lines like Boot Hill, Top Secret, Star Frontiers, and Gamma World).  I would have been satisfied there, but two things changed my life: I got a copy of Lawrence Schick's Heroic Worlds, and I got online for the first time. Both roughly occured in 1992, and for once in my life I not only had a list of all those cool products I had never even heard of before, but I finally had a means to get them!  I started completeing sets of various non-TSR items that appealed to me, like Judge's Guild, Warhammer RPG, Runequest, MERP, and completed quite a few. I then got interested in the oddball items like Midkemia, The Companions, and other one-shot goodies that were hard to find.

My collecting probably peaked in the late 90's; at this point, I had about everything I'd ever wanted (I had no desire for the super rares, never have, unless it's to resell them).  I still dabbled in certain lines or sets I hadn't been interested in before (TSR coloring books, Imagine magazine, etc) but for the most part my collecting has been in a downward cycle as there were less and less items I needed/wanted.  I finally finished my Dragon, Dungeon and Polyhedron collections in the early part of the century, and pretty much had everything ever published by TSR, in all their lines, for a short period of time. However, shortly after achieving this, it was also the time I started divesting myself of all the SW goodies I had, as I realized I would never open them.  Then slowly certain lines I never used (Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Al Qadim) hit the sale pile; followed by more and more random items I neither read, needed, or used.

Now, I'm definitely in a downswing, as I get about a box full of items everytime I go to the attic and proceed to price them and add them to the Ebay store.  I have over a hundred PDFs, as well as the Dragon CD rom and the Core rules CD, so this gives me a fallback should I want to look at anything or run it for a group.

I've realized the longer I collected that I'm really only interested in stuff I'll personally use; whereas I used to be motivated by the "pure" motives of collecting just to complete sets, now I'm more interested in how much I can sell the items for.  Once you have one of everything, and you've had it for a few years, it's almost a hollow feeling as you feel you have accomplished all your goals.  Maybe part of the point of selling a bunch of my collection off is thinking of the thrill of perhaps finding and collecting it again at some later date!  

Mike B.

'Collectors Creep' - very common amongst members of this foum I would imagine!

As it goes 2008 has been a year of more self control for me, though I do occasionally pick stuff up on a whim, I generally quickly sell it on again.

My collection is basically as follows.

Forgotten Realms*
White Dwarf/Imagine**
Traveller***
Dragon, Dungeon & Polyhedron****
AD&D Rulebooks*****
OD&D******
Other stuff*******

* As it says on the tin - I love the setting, and should I ever start gaming again I will be well set! Looking for about 10 items but in no particular hurry. (Every 2 weeks or so I scour ebay and bid on them all - though if I were really interested I could have most of them on a BIN tomorrow)
** Core form BITD -WD  issues 20-60 - have them except 20 - occasionally half heartedly look. Imagine - have them all bar the special
*** Have most LBBs lots of TNE, some assorted odds and sods - collection on hold until I decide to get into it properly or sell up
**** Have loads but am bored of them - if it were worth while I'd probably sell what I have!
***** Have all I need - basically a PH/DMG/MM and a s/b PH/MM (and a rules cyclopedia cos it's the best rule book ever!)
****** OD&D - still looking for a couple of supplements - see* above for strategy used to attain!
****** Novels, books, nonsense, dice - have loads of tat and crap - worthless and pointless - really must have a clear out!!

Add to that a current interest in Warhammer/40K (My sons are both just getting into it) and I am just about gamed out.

All of this stuff is stored safely and securely in my loft in about 12 large boxes, and is frankly a pain in the backside to get to -  I have a core of 'reading' stuff in the bedside cabinet at any one time which I occasionally update/rotate.

This year I have sold more than I've bought - bye bye to Spelljammer, Car Wars, Loads of Wargaming stuff (Forgot to mention Wargaming - another vague, half-arsed interest), modules and magazines.

I think I am probably at about saturation point with collecting - in real terms I'd be happy to see the FR/OD&D collections sorted, but am unwilling to pay premium prices (I'll get them cheaply enough one day , it's not as if any of it is rare).

The only thing that I can see changing my habits would be a serious cash windfall - we are talking lotto win style of thing here - if that happened then I would go mad - proper games room a la Vince Overlord and fill it to the gills - money no object is the key here.

But as the above is just a dream I will stick to a bit of reselling - that way I get to have stuff, but it doesn't clog up my remaining storage space forever!!

Similar on my part.  I didn't collect so much as accumulate.  I never really considered myself a collector until all my "real" books had been moved to the storage room to make room for RPGs.  Found I had valuable things that I just picked up over the years.  Some of my rares originally belonged to a friend who gave them to me so his mother wouldn't burn them back in the '80s.  Heck, I still have several folders of his notes and characters that I've carried back and forth through 6 or more moves.  

I (no hitting in the face or crotch, please) like 3.x and d20 games and have a crapload of them.  Midnight, Ptolus and Mutants & Masterminds are my current loves.  I run a 3.5 game for and play in a BECMI/RC game with one of my first players (since 6th grade '83) and his two sons.

I have no interest in 4E and almost don't mind closing the door.  Like I said about the cancellation of Dragon, I have the first issue and the last, now it's all filling in the gaps.  Same with D&D as a whole (OD&D-3.5).  As far as my collection goes, I've pretty much got everything I ever wanted and I'm pretty content with that.

First things first: hello again. I'll probably disappear again shortly, but hey...

I collect everything. I'm a lost cause. I collect RPGs, a few CCGs (mainly the old METW), miniatures and board games. The main collection is the RPG one, which simply started as a list of all the games I bought because I was interested in trying them (never got around to try as much as 1% of them, of course). A few years ago I started collecting "seriously".

I usually go in cycles. There are years where I aggressively look for a particular set of items, and years where I just get fed up and stop buying anything. Sooner or later the urge comes back, though.

It always does.