Welcome to the world of collecting! Collecting can be both fun and rewarding. There is nothing like the feeling of having a big collection of the collectibles you love. If you are looking into starting a collection, however, one of the big issues stopping people from starting a collection is Space. Unless you have a big house or a huge garage, a big collection might cause you to run out of room. If you are looking for space efficient items to collect, here are some suggestions to get you started.
Stamps: For decades, people have collected stamps from many different countries. Stamps take very little space! In fact, I would say they are the most efficient space saving collectibles. You can fit hundreds and even thousands of stamps in a single album, which fits nicely in a single drawer of a single room. Of course, you don’t want to get carry away. There are hundreds and thousands of stamps from hundreds of different countries, and if you aim to collect all of them you will have to buy tens and hundreds of stamp albums and will eventually run out of room as well. The best suggestion is to focus on a single country you like and collect stamps only from that country.
Coins: After stamps, coins are also very space efficient. While there are coins that are bigger in size, most coins are small and many fit nicely into a single coin album. Try to avoid those big coins and focus on the small coins – you will be able to expand your collection greatly before having to worry about space. As with stamps, I would recommend not getting carried away and instead focus on collecting coins from a single country.
Video Games: If you are concerned about space, I would recommend collecting games for hand held systems such as the Nintendo Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Atari Lynx, Sega Pico, Nintendo DS, Play Station Portable, and more. The cartridges of the games mentioned here are very small and take up very little room. Chances are, you will be able to fit an entire collection in a single drawer! Another advantage of collecting video games is that you can also have a lot of fun playing them! If, however, you decide to go after one of the larger video game systems such as the NES and the SNES, be warned that the cartridges are a lot bigger and can quickly take up all the room in your house.
Trading Cards: Due to their size and flatness, trading cards are also a natural choice for those worried about having enough space. And there are many choices where it comes to trading cards: You can collect any of the various sports cards such as Baseball cards, Basketball cards, Football cards, Hockey cards, and more. Or you can try one of the trading card games such as Magic: The Gathering or YuGiOh. Whichever cards you choose to collect, it is easy to organize your collection efficiently. In your local hobby shop you should find special storage boxes that will let you store thousands of cards in a single box. Again, if you are worried about space, it is important not to get carried away and instead focus on a single category of cards. If you try to collect all the sports cards in existence, for example, you will probably need room equivalent to ten big stadiums!
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Kyle Logan is a long time collector of video games, including Atari 2600 games. He often hangs out on RarityGuide.com, giving help and advice to fellow collectors in the forums.
