Birth Year Collecting

Photo: IBM Selectric I Typewriter, By Steve Iodefink, License: CC BY 2.0 The concept of birth year collecting has fascinated me in the last year or two. The idea of seeking out objects that were produced in the year you were born has an appeal. And yet, I cannot, for the life of me quite wrap my head around the concept. So, think of it this way… You are looking at objects that you very likely had no knowledge or recognition of when (and even if) you were around them. When you were born, your brain didn't have object permanence. In fact, you likely didn't fully develop object permanence until you were 18–24 months old. So, why are we fascinated with items that we likely didn't have complete recognition of until we were nearly two years old? The only answer that comes to mind (or more of a thought, really) is that we have some fascination of finding objects that are now symbols of the world we were born into. Objects that our parents likely interacted with on a regular basis around that…