SMALL children collect shells or marbles; older ones comic books, dolls or toy cars. Grown-up children collect vintage cars, or paintings, or a huge range of other things, from the sublime¹ to the ridiculous. Even birds do it. In the mountains of Papua New Guinea, the male bowerbird collects flowers, moss³, berries and man-made items, and fashions them into a bower² to attract a mate.

小孩子收集贝壳和或是弹球；年长些的孩子则收集连环画，玩偶或是玩具车。成年人们收集老爷车、字画、或是其他范围甚广的物品，从庄严的到可笑的。甚至鸟类也会收集东西。在巴布亚新几内亚的山上，雄性园丁鸟收集花、苔藓、浆果和人造物品，将这些东西放进窝里来吸引搭档。

Collecting, by one definition, is “the process of actively⁴, selectively and passionately⁶ acquiring, possessing and disposing of valued things, often removed from ordinary use and perceived as part of a set.” Hunting for them excites the collector, and taking possession of the object of his desire can be a moment of pure passion, sometimes literally⁷. Don Juan, with his 1,003 conquests in Spain alone, was an archetypal collector. His hunting ground was half the human race, so he could never hope to complete the set. Most collectors pursue less ambitious goals, merely wanting to acquire every first edition by an author or every denomination⁹ of a stamp, and love putting the last piece into place.

收藏，根据定义来说，是“积极、有选择地以及强烈需求的过程，它持有和处置有价值的物品，经常被从日常使用中剥离，而被当做一个集合中的一部分。”搜集它们让收藏家兴奋不已，有时候，他们想要占有目标时简直纯粹是激情主宰。唐璜，独自在西班牙拥有1003个掠夺物，是收藏者的原型。他的狩猎场是半个人类世界，所以他从不希望结束收藏。大多数收藏家追求不那么野心勃勃的，很少想要取得一个作者的初版书籍或是一套邮票的每个面额，并热爱收藏最后的那块。

Some people think the urge to collect may be related to man's origin as a hunter-gatherer. Others have looked for Freudian explanations: compensation for a loveless childhood, or an attempt to impose order on a chaotic¹⁰ world. (Freud himself possessed¹¹ over 4,000 antiquities¹², many of which look distinctly phallic.) A broad rule of thumb is that one in three people will remain collectors even in adulthood¹³.

一些人认为怂恿人们收藏的可能源自人作为狩猎采集者的出身。其他人则寻找佛洛依德学说的解释：作为对缺乏爱的童年的补偿，或是一个强加规则给混乱世界的尝试。（佛洛依德自己拥有超过4000件古董，其中许多看起来明显是表达阳物崇拜的。）一个适用很广的经验法则是三个人中有一个即使到了成年仍然会保持收藏的习惯。

They are a heterogeneous¹⁴ bunch, says James Stourton at Sotheby's, who is writing a history of art collecting after 1945; but those he meets often share certain characteristics. They are very intelligent, predominantly male, typically Jewish, often childless, sometimes homosexual. They see their collecting as a highly creative activity, and know their subjects backwards¹⁵. Some stick with the same specialism all their lives; others get bored and turn to something else. But they rarely give up collecting altogether.

他们是异于常人的一群人，苏富比拍卖行的James Stourton说到，他在写着一本1945年后的艺术收藏史；但他见到的那些人通常都有着某些一样的特征。他们非常聪明，主要以男性为主，典型犹太人，通常没有子嗣，有时是同性恋。他们将他们的收藏视为高创造性活动，知晓它们背后的学问。一些呆子终身从事同样的工作；其他人感到厌烦并转向其它东西。但是他们很少放弃收藏。

Most serious collectors are not motivated by money, but by a fascination¹⁶ with the objects themselves. Sometimes they go over the top, like Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872), an Englishman who declared that he wanted a copy of every book in the world. He acquired around 50,000 books and 60,000 manuscripts, piled them high in his house and ran up huge debts. But of course he never got the complete set.

大多数严肃的收藏家并不是以金钱为目的，而是因收藏品本身的魅力而着迷。有时，他们超过了限额，就像Thomas Phillipps爵士（1792-1872），这位英国人生前希望得到世界上每一本书的副本。他获得了大约50000本书和60000份手稿，将它们高高堆积在自己的房内，并欠下巨额债务。但是当然他从没完成完全的收藏。

A modern, and happier, example of a passionate⁵ collector is Robert Opie, who as a teenager took an interest in consumer-goods packaging. This came cheap, because it was designed to be thrown away. He now has a collection of over half a million objects which he markets as an image bank and a repository of advertising¹⁷ history and nostalgia¹⁸ items. It has taken over his life, but perhaps this is not surprising. His parents spent theirs collecting children's games and nursery rhymes.

一个现代、而更欢乐些的例子是一个叫做Robert Opie的热情的收藏家。他从少年起开始着迷于消费品包装。这花费很便宜，因为设计时就是用来丢弃的。他现在拥有了超过50万个物品的庞大收藏，他将其当做一个图片库以及广告史和怀旧物品的储藏室来出售。收藏占据了他的生活，但也许这并不让人惊奇，因为他的父母收藏儿童游戏和童谣。

Wonders of the world

世界奇观

Whatever the motives¹⁹, collecting has been around for a long time. King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon kept statues from the period of the kings of Ur which at the time were already hundreds of years old. The Roman empire developed a craze for antique statues, paintings and other objects from Greece, which were plundered²⁰ and brought to the capital for sale to Roman collectors. For much of the Middle Ages, collecting in Europe was mainly done by the Church, which kept treasuries²¹ of artefacts made from gold, silver and gems²² (not to mention alleged²³ parts of saints). But by the early Renaissance²⁴, princes and nobles in Italy became interested in collecting art and curiosities, and the habit rapidly spread northwards. By the start of the 16th century, every self-respecting European ruler had his own Wunderkammer stuffed with rarities from the animal, plant and mineral worlds, as well as works of art. In 1556 a Dutchman, Hubert Goltzius, listed 968 such collections all over Europe.

不管动机如何，收藏已经持续了很长时间。古巴比伦国王尼布甲尼撒二世（Nebuchadnezzar II）保存有距那时也有数百年之久的乌尔时代遗留下来的雕像。罗马帝国产生了对古老雕像、绘画和其它传承自古希腊的物品的狂热，这些物品作为战利品被带到罗马都城，出售给那些收藏家们。在中世纪的大部分时间，在欧洲国家收藏行为主要由教会进行，他们保存这些金制、银制和宝石（更不用说所谓的圣人之物）做成的文物宝藏。但是在文艺复兴早起，意大利皇室和贵族们对收藏艺术品和古玩产生了兴趣，这一喜好迅速传到了北方。在16世纪早期每个有自尊心的欧洲统治者都拥有自己的陈列室，其中装满了罕见的动物、植物、矿物，以及艺术品。在1556年，一个荷兰人Hubert Goltzius，列出了遍布欧洲的968种收藏。

omebody loves me

有人喜欢我

From the late 16th century, the wealth and political stability of the Netherlands brought a passion for collecting among a middle class that had the money and opportunity to indulge it. Rembrandt kept over 2,000 weapons and pieces of armour²⁵, as well many paintings and prints, ethnographic specimens²⁶ from Asia and the Americas and lots of other items. Among the many things that well-to-do 17th-century Dutchmen collected were outlandish fruits and strange flowers, most famously tulips, which probably first arrived in Holland from Persia or Turkey in the middle of the 16th century. The flowers soon became fashionable and the search for rare and beautiful specimens turned into a craze. In 1623 a tulip collector, Nicolaas van Wassenaar, bought a single bulb of an exquisite²⁷ red-and-white striped variety for a sum that at the time would have bought eight oxen. The collector's instinct had become mixed up with speculation²⁸, greed and fear.

从16世纪晚期，荷兰的财富和政治稳定为中产阶级带来了对收藏的爱好，让他们有钱也有机会沉溺于此。伦勃朗持有了超过2000件武器和盔甲碎片，以及同样多的绘画和图片，来自亚洲和美洲的土著标本和大量其它东西。在许多东西中，富裕的17世纪荷兰人收藏的有稀奇古怪的水果和奇特的花，其中最著名的是郁金香，它可能是自16世纪中叶从波斯或是土耳其传入荷兰。花很快变得流行起来，搜寻稀少和漂亮的花种演变成为一股狂热。1623年一个郁金香收藏者，Nicolaas van Wassenaar，买下来 一个纤美的红白条纹种的郁金香鳞茎，其总价足以买下八个牛津城。收藏家的本能开始和投机、贪婪和恐惧混淆起来。

Like all bubbles, the mania²⁹ subsided³⁰, leaving many a speculator ruined. But interest in the rare and exotic survived, soon to be fed by another craze: the grand tour. Well-to-do Europeans started travelling south, mostly to Italy, to visit the sites of classical civilisation³¹ and buy up antiquities and paintings to take home. Some of these acquisitions formed the core of great museums, such as London's British Museum and Oxford's Ashmolean. A grand tour of another kind, Napoleon's military progress around Europe, yielded the first collection for the Louvre in Paris.

和所有的泡沫一样，这股狂热平息下来，只留下投机者的一地鸡毛。但是对稀有和异域的兴趣存留下来，很快演变成为另一股狂热：修业旅行。富裕的欧洲人开始前往南方旅行，大多数是去意大利，去参观古典文明并尽可能地购买古代史和绘画带回家里。其中一些收购形成了伟大博物馆的核心，比如伦敦的大不列颠博物馆和牛津的Ashmolean博物馆。修业旅行的另一种形式，就是拿破仑踏遍欧洲大地的军队，完成了巴黎卢浮宫的首批收藏。、

By the 19th century, the collecting habit had started to pass from rulers and nobles to merchant princes such as Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Mellon, Pierpont Morgan and John D. Rockefeller. In his book “Collecting—An Unruly Passion”, Werner Muensterberger, a psychoanalyst, recalls how Nelson Rockefeller once told him: “You see, in my position I must collect. My mother did it, and my grandfather did it. It is an obligation. After all, the Medicis did it too.” In Europe, magnates such as Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, Sir William Burrell and the Rothschild family developed a similar sense of duty, and many such collections ended up in their own museums for all to enjoy.

到了19世纪，收藏的习惯开始从统治者和贵族转向诸如安德鲁•卡耐基(Andrew Carnegie)、安德鲁•梅隆(Andrew Mellon)、皮尔庞特•摩根(Pierpont Morgan)和乔治•D•洛克菲勒(John D. Rockefeller)这样的富商。在其著作《Collecting—An Unruly Passion》中，心理学家Werner Muensterberger,回忆起纳尔逊•洛克菲勒有次告诉他：“你看，处于我的位置，我必须收藏。我的母亲是这样做的，我的祖父也是这样做的。这是义务。终究，美第奇家族也这样做。”在欧洲，像Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza，William Burrell爵士和罗斯柴尔德（Rothschild）家族这样的工业巨头同样衍生出相似的责任感，许多收藏品最终在他们自己的博物馆为大众所享。

When rich men want something, they usually get it. A London art consultant³² who has met lots of them, Peyton Skipwith, tells a story about Stavros Niarchos, a Greek shipowner, who saw an exhibition of orientalist art and resolved to buy the lot. When he was informed that some of the pictures had already sold, he said: “I always regard red spots as meaning ‘negotiate’.”

当富人想要某物时，他们通常会得到它。一个经常见到这种人的伦敦的艺术咨询顾问，Peyton Skipwith，讲述了关于一个希腊船主Stavros Niarchos的故事，他看见了一场有关东方艺术的展览，于是毅然全数买下。当他获悉其中一些绘画已被卖出时，他说：“我总是以红点来意味着‘谈判’。”

Even very rich men, however, cannot lay their hands on treasures that have already come to rest in museums or the private collections of other plutocrats. Great paintings still turn up in the salerooms from time to time and fetch great prices: last year Picasso's “Boy with a Pipe” was sold at Sotheby's for $104m. But such opportunities are few and far between.

虽然如此，即使是非常有钱的人，也不能得到已经陈列在博物馆或是其他富豪私人收藏的藏品。伟大的画作一次又一次出现在拍卖场，创下惊人的价格：去年毕加索的 《拿烟斗的男孩》以1亿4百万的售价在苏富比拍卖行售出。但是这样的机会并不常碰到。

One way round this supply problem is to buy something new. Alistair McAlpine, a British collector, remembers how in 1964 he paid £2,000 for a painting by Mark Rothko which his friends thought was dreadful. This year another work by the same artist dating from 1964 was sold at Christie's for over $10m. Lord McAlpine, who has formed some 100 different collections in his time, subsequently moved on to rare chickens and now collects cyclads, a variety of tropical plant. They have yet to appreciate in value the way the Rothko did, but he says he collects for love, not money.

供不应求的一项解决之道是去买新东西。一位英国收藏家Alistair McAlpine，还记得在1964年他如何花2000英镑买下了Mark Rothko的一幅他朋友们都认为很可怕的画作。今年这位艺术家自1964年的另一幅作品在克里斯蒂拍卖行以超过1千万美元的价格售出。Lord McAlpine，拥有100件不同收藏，后来转向了稀有鸡类，现在收集各种各样的热带植物。它们还像Rothko的作品一样升值了，但他说他收藏是因为热爱，而非为了金钱。

Another way to avoid disappointment is to collect something nobody else wants. A few decades ago Victorian art was unfashionable, but once enough people had discovered its charms, prices went up. Likewise, ethnographic art held no appeal for collectors in the 1920s when James Hooper started buying it, so although he had little money to spend, he was able to build up a splendid collection. When the rest of the world caught up, starting in the late 1950s, it became very valuable.

另一个避免失望的方法是收藏其他人不愿收藏的东西。几十年前的维多利亚时代，艺术并不流行，但是一旦足够多的人发现了它的价值，价格就涨了上来。同样，在二十世纪20年代，对收藏家而言民族艺术毫无吸引力，所以当James Hooper开始购买时，虽然没有多少钱，但他依然能集出一套灿烂夺目的藏品出来。在二十世纪50年代晚期，当其他人开始着迷时，民族艺术变得非常值钱。

But the best way for a collector to ensure he can find what he wants is to develop an interest in something machine-made. Mass production has democratised collecting and brought it within reach of ordinary people. Once something could be made in a workshop or factory—a print, a piece of china, a candlestick—the supply became much more elastic³³. Not too elastic, though, because even a mass-produced item can become rarer and more valuable if it has a flaw or a slightly different colour from the rest. And there is always the device of a limited edition. During a craze for Beanie Babies toys a few years ago, some versions were made only in small quantities, which persuaded people to queue up and pay high prices for these “rarities”.

但对于收藏家而言，确保能找到想要藏品的最好方式是对机械生产的东西开发出兴趣。大批量生产推广了收藏并将它带向广大群众。一旦东西能在车间或工厂中生产出来——一幅绘画，一块瓷器碎片，一个烛台——供应变得更有弹性。但是，不要太有弹性，因为一旦有缺陷或是和其它稍有不同颜色，即使是物品来自于大规模生产，也会变得稀有而更加昂贵。此外，总是会有限定版这种设计。在几年前，豆豆娃娃（Beanie Babies）玩具风靡一时，这期间，一些版本只是小量生产，诱使人们排队等候并为这些“珍品”付出高昂的价格。

The biggest change in the world of collecting in the past decade or so has been the arrival of the internet, though television has also boosted the habit. There is no end of websites that cater³⁴ to collectors, offering information, specialist books and magazines, valuations, search engines for wanted items, auctions³⁶, framing, shipping³⁷ and insurance services, and much else besides.

收藏界过去十年来最大的改变是互联网的出现，虽然电视已经提升了口味。有无数的网站可以迎合收藏家，提供信息，专门书籍和杂志，估价，搜寻期望物品的搜索引擎，拍卖，取景，运输和保险服务，以及其它各种东西。

To get an idea of the range of things that engage collectors, go to collectingchannel.com, which offers information on about 50 categories, from clocks, postcards and militaria to fire engines and dental equipment. One of the more bizarre specialist sites is devoted³⁸ to moist towelettes. It features a gallery of the best-designed examples and tells you where you can get your own made. It sounds like a spoof³⁹, but the site's editor, Michael Lewis, says he has 2,000 of the things and his interest is absolutely genuine.

想要获得吸引收藏家的物品的范围，请前往collectingchannel.com，它提供了大约50个类别的信息，从钟表、邮票和军品到消防车和牙科设备。其中一个十分奇特的分类页面专门显示湿巾。它突出了一个最棒设计实例的画廊，告诉你哪里你可以拥有自己的收藏。它听起来像是一个恶作剧，但是网站编辑Michael Lewis说他有大约2000件东西，而他的兴趣绝对真实。

Even at the conventional end of the trade, the internet has made an enormous difference. Abbotts, an auction³⁵ house in the east of England which holds fine-art sales every few months, used to publicise them by advertising in the papers, sending out catalogues and telephoning dealers⁴⁰. Now it puts its catalogues on the web, complete with photographs, and finds it gets inquiries⁴¹ from much farther afield.

甚至在交易的传统末尾，网络也有巨大的差异。Abbotts，一所位于英格兰东部的拍卖行，每隔几个月就会召开精美艺术品拍卖，过去通常是通过在报纸上登广告、发放拍卖品目录和致电买家来宣传。而现在它将拍卖品目录连同照片放在网页上， 发现它得到了更广范围的咨询。

Auction results too are posted on the web, so it is easy to find the prices achieved around the world. This is useful for collectors, but not necessarily for dealers buying on behalf of clients, who find their trade secrets exposed. Andrew Patrick, who used to run the Fine Art Society in London's Bond Street, says many dealers prefer to buy privately⁴² to preserve their mystique.

拍卖结果也会被传到网上，这样搜寻世界各地的成交价就变得轻而易举。这对收藏家来说有其作用，但对于代表客户的交易者来说并不必要，因为他们会发觉交易机密被泄露了。Andrew Patrick曾经在伦敦的邦德大街上运营美术协会， 他说许多交易者更喜欢私下购买来保持他们的神秘感。

The same sort of transparency is available on eBay, the online auction house that in a mere⁸ ten years has won over 150m registered users and expects a turnover⁴³ of $40 billion this year. EBay sells mundane⁴⁴ things, from clothes to cars, but also has a large section of “collectables” that offers a wealth of more esoteric fare. Would-be buyers browsing⁴⁵ the site can see a description of the item, a photograph and the highest bid offered so far, and if they trump⁴⁶ it they may soon get their purchase through the post. It may lack the theatrical⁴⁷ excitement of raising your hand at Christie's, but it is wonderfully efficient, as hordes⁴⁸ of hoarders have found.

同样的透明度可在易趣上见到，仅仅不到10年历史的线上拍卖行已经拥有了超过1.5亿注册用户，并期待今年营业额超过400亿美元。易趣出售日常物品，从衣服到汽车，但是也有一大部分“收藏品”提供了大量秘密收入。可能成为买家的人在浏览网站时可以看到物品的描述，一张照片和目前最高的出价，如果他们赢得了拍卖，他们也许很快就会通过邮件收到东西。这也许缺少在克里斯汀拍卖行举起手时的戏剧性和激动人心，但是它有惊人的高效率，就像有一大群囤积者