I would recommend reading Werner Muensterberger's Collecting - An Unruly Passion (Princeton unv press, 1994). He looks at the collecting from a psychoanalytic perspective and cites the popularity of collecting well back to the edge of recorded history. He believe that collectors and collecting do so to satisfy some basic need. Like Linus with his security blanket, collectors tend to derive comfort from acquring objects and from the quest for the objects. It doesn't matter what the objects are, or whether they have any economic value. It is an escape to a comforting place; and something that develops in early childhood.
Given the long hour worked by parents these days, and the way youngsters are packed away in day care centers, we may well see a boom in collector interests. Whether any of that will attach itself to the items we collect is hard to say; however historical pieces are a custodial function, where fewer and fewer classic examples survive with every passing day. Demand will go up just as a factor of attrition. But, be not concerned, kids today may be into other things but they are still as excited as we were about acquiring them.
n2s
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