Editing Collecting (section)

==History==
[[Image:1655 - Frontispiece of Museum Wormiani Historia.jpg|thumb|350px|right|"Musei Wormiani Historia", the [[Book frontispiece|frontispiece]] from the ''Museum Wormianum'' depicting [[Ole Worm]]'s cabinet of curiosities]]

Collecting is a practice with a very old cultural history. In [[Mesopotamia]], collecting practices have been noted among royalty and elites as far back as the 3rd millennium BCE.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Thomason |first1=Alison Karmel Thomason |title=Luxury and Legitimation: Royal Collecting in Ancient Mesopotamia |date=2005 |publisher=Ashgate Publishing Limited |location=Hampshire, U.K. |isbn=0754602389}}</ref> The Egyptian [[Ptolemaic dynasty]] collected books from all over the known world at the [[Library of Alexandria]]. The [[Medici family]], in Renaissance Florence, made the first effort to collect art by private patronage, this way artists could be free for the first time from the money given by the Church and Kings; this citizenship tradition continues today with the work of private art collectors. Many of the world's popular museums—from the Metropolitan in New York City to the Thyssen in Madrid or the Franz Mayer in Mexico City—have collections formed by the collectors that donated them to be seen by the general public.

The collecting hobby is a modern descendant of the "[[cabinet of curiosities]]" which was common among scholars with the means and opportunities to acquire unusual items from the 16th century onwards. Planned collecting of ephemeral publications goes back at least to [[George Thomason (book collector)|George Thomason]] in the reign of Charles I and [[Samuel Pepys]] in that of Charles II. Collecting engravings and other prints by those whose means did not allow them to buy original works of art also goes back many centuries. The progress in 18th-century Paris of collecting both works of art and of ''curiosité'', dimly echoed in the English ''curios'', and the origins in Paris, Amsterdam and London of the modern [[art market]] have been increasingly well documented and studied since the mid-19th century.<ref>Chronologically some essential works are C. Blanc, ''Le trésor de la curiosité'' (1857–58), E. Bonnaffé, ''Les collectionneurs de l'ancienne France'' (1873), l. Courajod, ''La livre-journal de Lazare Duvaux'' (1873), L. Clément de Ris, ''Les amateurs d'autrefois'' (1877), A. Maze-Sencier, ''Le livre des collectionneurs'' (1893), G. Reitlinger ''The Economics of Taste'' (1961), G. Glorieux's monograph, ''À [[l'Enseigne de Gersaint]]'' (2002).</ref>

The involvement of larger numbers of people in collecting activities came with the prosperity and increased leisure for some in the later 19th century in industrial countries. That was when collecting such items as antique china, furniture and decorative items from oriental countries became established. The first price guide was the [[Stanley Gibbons#Stamp catalogues|Stanley Gibbons catalogue]] issued in November 1865.

The history of collecting is chronicled in the book ''Lock, Stock, and Barrel: The story of collecting''. This well-researched book on collecting, written by Elizabeth and Douglas Rigby, was published by [[J. B. Lippincott & Co.]], a major publisher in Philadelphia.<ref>{{cite news |title=Habits of the Magpie; LOCK, STOCK AND BARREL: The Story of Collecting. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1944/12/17/archives/habits-of-the-magpie-lock-stock-and-barrel-the-story-of-collecting.html |access-date=9 September 2024 |work=The New York Times |date=December 14, 1944}}</ref> "An important book as well as a delightful one. I recommend it urgently as the best all around volume in its field," wrote [[Vincent Starrett]] of the Chicago Tribune in a review of the book.<ref>{{cite web |title=Vincent Starret Papers |url=https://archives.newberry.org/repositories/2/resources/413 |website=Modern Manuscripts & Archives at the Newberry |publisher=The Newberry Library |access-date=9 September 2024}}</ref> In addition to being reviewed by newspapers, magazines, and journals -- such as The Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, [[Saturday Review (U.S. magazine)|The Saturday Review]], New York History, The Pennsylvania Magazine of History, and The American Scholar -- the book also has been cited in academic studies on collecting.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Storm |first1=Colton |title=Review of Lock, Stock and Barrel. The Story of Collecting |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20087847 |access-date=9 September 2024 |issue=70 (3): 336–337 |publisher=The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography |date=1946|jstor=20087847 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Dictators and the Gentle Art of Collecting" |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41203580 |access-date=9 September 2024 |issue=11 (2): 168–180 |publisher=The American Scholar |date=1942|jstor=41203580 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Schuchardt Navratil |first1=Emily |title=Native American Chic: The Marketing Of Native Americans In New York Between The World Wars |url=https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/599/ |website=CUNY Academic Works |date=February 2015 |publisher=City University of New York |access-date=9 September 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=MacFarlane |first1=Janet |title="Books About Antiques |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23149570 |access-date=9 September 2024 |issue=26 (2): 224–225 |publisher=New York History |date=1946|jstor=23149570 }}</ref>