more like an incurable disease.........if we use the term sick or ill for other things it doesn't sound so bad, ie. love sick......if you are referring to the illness of hoarding then we have a different story here.......if someone is passionate about collecting beads, it could be considered an illness if it consumes them, their time and destroys relationships.....but if you temper it with reality then I see nothing wrong with it.....and I don't want to be cured

This article made me think about the fact that I started bead collecting in earnest a few months after my Mom died...and both my parents were pretty seriously into hoarding, although not to the point of severe dysfunction. It was a significant effort to clear their house out after Dad passed away.

The last sentence relates to bead collecting in a big way.

"Course and Causes of Hoarding"
Hoarding usually begins early in life, though onset can vary greatly. It can occur in children, and we have seen it as young as 3-years old. For young children, hoarding may look different because parents control what children can buy and the level of clutter in their rooms. More apparent in children are extremely intense attachments to objects and the tendency to personify things, applying human-like characteristics to objects. In addition, children who hoard seem to have more difficulty recognizing hoarding behavior as a problem.

The typical age of onset for hoarding behavior (though not hoarding disorder) is around age 13. At that time the behavior is usually mild and would not be considered a disorder. Hoarding typically progresses to become a moderate problem in the 20Õs and 30Õs, and a severe problem in the 40Õs and 50Õs. Onset appears to be earlier in women than in men, though hoarding occurs more frequently in men than in women. Late onset of hoarding (after age 40) is rare and seems to occur in people who have mild hoarding to begin with and suffer a loss of some kind. Most people who hoard describe a chronic course, while a small number describe an increasing or fluctuating one. Stressful and traumatic events are common in people who hoard and may be associated with periods of worsening symptoms. Recent epidemiological studies suggest that as many as 1 in 20 people have significant hoarding problems.

Hoarding is a complex disorder that is believed to be associated with 4 underlying characteristics. First there are certain core vulnerabilities including emotional dysregulation in the form of depression or anxiety along with family histories of hoarding and generally high levels of perfectionism. Second, people who hoard appear to have difficulties processing information. In particular, these difficulties appear as problems in attention (including ADHD-like symptoms), memory, categorization, and decision-making. The areas of the brain that control these functions roughly correspond to the brain regions that have been shown to activate differently in people who hoard. Third, people who hoard form intense emotional attachments to a wider variety of objects than do people who donÕt hoard. These attachments take the form of attaching human-like qualities to inanimate objects, feeling grief at the prospect of getting rid of objects, and deriving a sense of safety from being surrounded by possessions. Fourth, people who hoard often hold beliefs about the necessity of not wasting objects or losing opportunities that are represented by objects. Additional beliefs about the necessity of saving things to facilitate memory and appreciation of the aesthetic beauty of objects contribute to the problem.

That would make it so much easier to sort through them.
And I could get MORE on a shelf!

(No, I don't have a problem with hoarding. Other people may have a problem with my hoarding, but I don't.)

Or am I in denial?

Historically, a hoard has been a concealed treasure. And etymologically, the word "hoard" is closely connected with the verb "to hide."

Actually, I think there is something sick about accumulating wealth or beauty in order to hide it away. But collectors, generally, want to show their things to friends, to rivals, and where possible to the public. In the past, we could only show them to a relatively small group, but now, with the internet, our collections can be seen around the world. That's what's wonderful about this forum, with all of the work that Joyce and David have put into it, and all the other sites that are similar though seldom as good; they are places for sharing, not just the objects themselves but information and discussions about them.

I think in fact that collecting groups like this are frequently the best places for interesting and beautiful objects to be displayed, even though collectors have come under so many attacks in recent years from the cultural property purists. In my experience the really unjustifiable hoards are in museum vaults and the storerooms of archaeology departments where a good 95% of the material will never be made public.

On a personal note, I’ve sometimes said that I don’t collect beads, I try to study them as an important element in the research I do into early patterns of trade in Asia. That’s why I came to this forum - to find out more about a group of Asian artefacts I knew almost nothing about. But as a result of hanging out here and learning so much from so many of you, I’ve come to appreciate beads in and for themselves - as a… collector. Without this experience, I wouldn’t have known about Thomas/TASART’s amazing collection of kiffas; I wouldn’t have bought my first kiffa from him; I wouldn’t have ended up with enough to make a necklace that I will never wear but will use constantly as an example of the genius of the women who made them.

With gratitude,

Will

Here's a display idea for you.
Joyce was selling these earrings for a friend awhile back, and I fell in love with them. I decided to treat them like the artwork they are, in a shadow box frame. And I can look at them every day now!

Attending my first wholesale bead show back in the early 90s sent me down the path of BEADS! Who knew that their spell would be so strong? Not I. Now I am looking into compact shelving like they have in libraries....

I'm still working on storage and display

more beads, more better

You might have a problem getting them back, though. Just sayin'.