{"id":4144,"date":"2026-05-22T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/?p=4144"},"modified":"2026-05-22T05:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T05:00:00","slug":"the-psychology-of-why-we-collect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/?p=4144","title":{"rendered":"The Psychology of Why We Collect"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is it ego, completism, or a thirst for legacy? Is it a need to curate and to seek order amid the chaos? Or do we just like beautiful things? Aleks Cvetkovic analyzes the drivers behind an age-old desire.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"why<\/div>\n

For Noah Wunsch, a 36-year-old New Yorker, collecting is in his blood. His late grandfather was E Martin Wunsch, an engineer and prolific collector who accumulated more than 700 pieces of early American furniture, paintings, silver, ceramics, and folk art. These now form the core of the Wunsch Americana Foundation, which lends historical objects to museums and funds educational initiatives across the United States. <\/p>\n

Wunsch himself collects contemporary design, furniture, and photography (he\u2019s drawn to Robert Mapplethorpe, Nan Goldin, and Ryan McGinley, among others), and his motivations are layered. Collecting, he says, is about \u201ccultivating a taste and aesthetic and kind of a worldview,\u201d but also \u201can excuse to learn more and to follow my curiosity.\u201d There is pleasure, too, in the chase: \u201cIf you feel like you\u2019ve gotten one over on the market, it\u2019s really exciting,\u201d he admits. <\/p>\n

\"mid
Chris Mitchell has an exquisite collection of mid-century furniture \u00a9Chris Wallace<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Why do we collect things that are rare and precious, then? What motivates collectors to spend thousands, or millions, shaping troves of inanimate and sometimes bizarre objects across a lifetime? Is this an articulation of self, a bid for status, a form of custodianship, or simply a sophisticated way of keeping score? <\/p>\n

According to author Luke Burgis, whose forthcoming book The One and the Ninety-Nine explores what it means to shape a stable identity in today\u2019s fractured and noisy world, the need to collect has multiple drivers: \u201cOne bad, one neutral, and one good.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Carla
Carla Sozanni has a collection that spans over 6,000 garments and more than 600 photographs \u00a9Lorenzo Sodi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe bad motivation is mimetic warfare, driven by the need to acquire a certain sense of identity,\u201d Burgis explains. \u201cOnce basic needs are met, desire doesn\u2019t disappear; it just gets weirder. We start competing for rivalrous totems \u2014 objects that signal discerning taste or absolute status.\u201d<\/p>\n

Attend a major auction of rare objects or fine art and the combative atmosphere can often feel tangible. Record prices continue to be reached. In the theater of an auction room, it\u2019s easy to see how collecting can become competitive or performative.<\/p>\n

But Burgis is careful not to moralize too quickly. His \u2018neutral\u2019 driver for collecting is simply an acknowledgment of how capital behaves. There are four levers around wealth, he says: save, invest, consume, or give. \u201cPeople often pathologize luxury consumption, but for someone with a massive balance sheet, a $50,000 watch isn\u2019t an excess, it\u2019s a rounding error. A billionaire buying a $1m vintage Ferrari isn\u2019t any more mimetic than a minimum-wage employee buying an Apple Watch or taking out a high-interest loan for a Tesla just to look the part.\u201d<\/p>\n

See also: This Dutch Collector Turned His Home Into an Incredible Fossil Museum<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Ron
Ron Janssen, based in The Netherlands, collects fossils \u00a9Glen Burrows<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What differentiates collecting from consumption, then? Burgis\u2019s answer lies in his \u2018good\u2019 motivation. \u201cThe good version of this is cultural stewardship,\u201d he says. \u201cThe best reason to collect is to play an anti-mimetic role in the creation of culture. By acquiring a masterpiece or a generational timepiece, the collector stops being a consumer and becomes a steward.\u201d<\/p>\n

This idea resonates strongly with Mark J Bevington, an art collector based in Toledo, Ohio, who has quietly assembled more than 200 works, largely by emerging or under-recognized artists. He describes himself as an intuitive collector. \u201cMost often, it clicks and I feel it,\u201d he says. \u201cUsually, I am responding to a work that gets me in the gut.\u201d For him, collecting is \u201cultimately about fun,\u201d but also about responsibility. \u201cI see myself as part of the art-world ecosystem whose main elements are the artists, the collectors, the galleries, the institutions, and the auction houses.\u201d<\/p>\n

The art of collecting<\/h2>\n

Legacy, in Bevington\u2019s mind, is measured less in market terms than in human ones. \u201cA great legacy for me would be doing my part in supporting the art ecosystem generally and having an impact in enhancing the art ecosystem in my own community,\u201d he says. After years of collecting, what it gives him now is \u201ca sense of community\u201d \u2014 friendships formed through shared passion rather than shared assets.<\/p>\n

That sense of collecting as a practiced skill, rather than passive indulgence, is echoed by cultural strategist and author of The Sociology of Business<\/em> newsletter, Ana Andjelic. Collecting, she argues, is something actively learned. \u201cCollectors have their own lexicon, tools, and resources \u2014 communities they belong to, knowledge and information that grows over time. It\u2019s a practice that gets refined, exercised, communicated, criticized.\u201d The pleasure lies, she says, not just in ownership, but in mastery. \u201cLike training one\u2019s ear in music, this is training one\u2019s eye, taste, and knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"coby
Coby Bull owns first editions of some of the world\u2019s best-loved comic book series, including Spiderman, X-Men, Iron Man, Superman, and Fantastic Four \u00a9Matthew Walder<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For Geneva-based gallerist and art advisor Thea Montauti d\u2019Harcourt Lyginos, collecting also evolves over a lifetime. \u201cIt\u2019s probably a bit of both,\u201d she says, when asked whether people collect to define themselves or to signal to others. \u201cWhen collectors are younger, their choices can reflect inheritance, family taste, or the path set by the generation before them. As they grow and mature it usually becomes far more personal \u2014 an expression of their own eye, values, and identity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Living with objects, she adds, alters the psychology of collecting. \u201cOnce a work is on your wall it becomes part of your daily life,\u201d she says. \u201cThe strongest collections are built without rigid strategy but through emotion \u2014 if a work truly moves you, it will likely move others in the future as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

This emotional attachment sits comfortably alongside the idea of custodianship. For Beno\u00eet Repellin, worldwide head of jewelry at Phillips, stewardship is central. \u201cTrue collectors see themselves as temporary stewards of cultural patrimony, preserving objects for future generations,\u201d he says. Increasingly, provenance, craftsmanship, and historical resonance matter more than brand names alone: \u201cPieces with documented heritage or that encapsulate a moment in time resonate deeply.\u201d<\/p>\n

Repellin acknowledges, of course, that competition remains part of the picture \u2014 \u201crarely does competition not shape the outcome,\u201d he adds. But, even here, rivalry often reflects collective reverence, more than simple status-seeking \u2014 a shared recognition among the collecting cognoscenti that certain objects matter.<\/p>\n

\"collecting
Jaclyn Li has amassed one of the most impressive vintage Patek Philippe watch collections \u00a9Rose Callahan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An exercise in judgment <\/h2>\n

Ultimately, collecting as a discipline sits at the intersection of personal ego and cultural meaning. Burgis puts it more plainly. Collecting, he says, represents \u201ca primal human need for order and dominion [\u2026] we are all just trying to organize the chaos and leave a mark before the lights go out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do collectors shape a collection with a view to completing something? In theory, maybe. Wunsch\u2019s favorite photographer is Paul Graham and to own every image from his End of an Age series would be a dream come true. \u201cIf I can get every photo [\u2026] then I can probably stop,\u201d Wunsch says, before conceding, wistfully, \u201cbut I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll ever be able to do that.\u201d <\/p>\n

Perhaps, then, in our ever-more-disposable society collecting, at its core, is an exercise in judgment \u2014 a personal decision about what deserves recognition for its rarity or beauty, and what, ultimately, deserves to endure.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is it ego, completism, or a thirst for legacy? Is it a need to curate and to seek order amid the chaos? Or do we just like beautiful things? Aleks Cvetkovic analyzes the drivers behind an age-old desire.\u00a0 For Noah Wunsch, a 36-year-old New Yorker, collecting is in his blood. His late grandfather was E […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","beyondwords_generate_audio":"","beyondwords_project_id":"","beyondwords_content_id":"","beyondwords_preview_token":"","beyondwords_player_content":"","beyondwords_player_style":"","beyondwords_language_id":"","beyondwords_title_voice_id":"","beyondwords_body_voice_id":"","beyondwords_summary_voice_id":"","beyondwords_error_message":"","beyondwords_disabled":"","beyondwords_delete_content":"","beyondwords_podcast_id":"","beyondwords_hash":"","publish_post_to_speechkit":"","speechkit_hash":"","speechkit_generate_audio":"","speechkit_project_id":"","speechkit_podcast_id":"","speechkit_error_message":"","speechkit_disabled":"","speechkit_access_key":"","speechkit_error":"","speechkit_info":"","speechkit_response":"","speechkit_retries":"","speechkit_status":"","speechkit_updated_at":"","_speechkit_link":"","_speechkit_text":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}