Two

30Sep23

My mate Paul collected collections. He wrote a book, ‘Recollections of a Collection Collector.’ It was never published.

Lance Stater – Detectorists, Series #1 Episode 6

Back in 2019 I attended Boring IX, a conference dedicated to the “celebration of the mundane, the ordinary, the obvious and the overlooked”. As ever the day was anything but boring, with my personal highlight being the talk from Joyce Smith.

Joyce spoke about her love of box certificates, the circular stamps that contain essential shipping information that are found on cardboard boxes – a subject perfectly suited to the day, and during her talk she reminded me (presumably not just me) that two of anything is a collection.

After the event had finished, I walked back across to King’s Cross station to return home to the flatlands and with my newly provided introduction to the art of the box certificate noticed one on a bundle of cardboard waiting to be picked up and (hopefully) recycled – surreptitiously I claimed this as my first example, and it’s been pinned to my noticeboard ever since.

Which is a somewhat circuitous journey to explaining why a small cardboard box abandoned in a meeting room I was sitting in yesterday afternoon was an unexpected highlight, featuring as it did a box certificate for all to see.

So now I have two, and the beginning of another collection.

Paul would be proud.

Filed under: Boring, Colllections, Conferences, Ideas, Interesting   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: Boring IX, Box certificates, Boxes, Cardboard boxes, Collection, Collections, Collector, Detectorists, Joyce Smith, Lance Stater