What are Your Mormon Collectables?
Besides kids what Mormon items do you collect?
A few years ago I started to collect 1920 editions of the Book of Mormon. I certainly wouldn’t consider them and investment although prices have gone up a bit over the years.
I have found it interesting to discover all the different 1920 editions. Their cover designs are especially fun. Also there are actual mis-print editions too.
I have a great photo book on Salt Lake City from the early 1900s that an employee found at a rumage sale and gave to me. My copy of Mormon Doctrine is one of the old ones where McConkie calls the Catholic Church the great and abominable.
I also have some of the old seminary teaching materials, mimeograph masters, overhead projector stuff and the like.
I wouldn’t say I was a collector as such, except my 1920 BOMs, but I have collected quite a bunch of (now old) Mormon stuff!
Don’t you still have your “Meet the Mormons” slideshow?
Bro. Sims gave me a Johnny Lingo slideshow film that I still have as an antique, but that’s about it. I’d love to make a collection of vintage Mormon film (meaning the weird church movies from the 60s and 70s) and literature.
I met a guys in L.A. that had some old “Times and Seasons” issues from Nauvoo and even a Deseret Alphabet book.
Comment by Bret — May 14, 2008 @ 12:26 pm
My Dad recently got a belt buckle from a Nauvoo legion uniform from a relative from a branch of the family that grew up outside the church.
Comment by JKC — May 14, 2008 @ 12:52 pm
There is a huge rare books collector subculture within Mormonism. I have a couple hard to find books. I also have a decent set of old manuals and handbooks.
Comment by J. Stapley — May 14, 2008 @ 1:20 pm
I don’t collect anything Mormon.
Comment by Kim Siever — May 14, 2008 @ 1:23 pm
I have some Mormon books that I inherited from my inlaws.
I don’t collect anything but music. I’d like to start collecting Osmond vinyl records but no luck yet.
Comment by Susan M — May 14, 2008 @ 1:40 pm
I collected Dragonball comic books while a Mormon missionary in Japan…
Comment by Seth R. — May 14, 2008 @ 4:54 pm
I collect several types of non-book Mormon material — I’ve blogged about some of them (with illustrations)here and here. The prices on most of this kind of stuff is still pretty reasonable, if you find some offbeat item to focus on that interests you but that hasn’t hit Antiques Roadshow yet.
Comment by Ardis E. Parshall — May 14, 2008 @ 5:00 pm
My FIL has a library (or two) jam-packed with old, old LDS texts and books; pictures, family histories, etc. When he dies, I think the Church will come a’knockin’ on our doors, begging for his stuff. He seriously has some awesome things.
I have…let’s see…some signed art? By Greg Olsen and Simon Dewey. But that’s not “old” yet.
Comment by cheryl — May 14, 2008 @ 6:47 pm
I collect reprints of first edition Book of Mormons and the reprints of the Millennial Star and the Wasp and the Times and Seasons and the Evening and Morning Star.
Comment by Gilgamesh — May 14, 2008 @ 9:06 pm
I have various LDS hymn books for the 1900’s in my collection
Comment by JA Benson — May 15, 2008 @ 10:23 am
Well it certainly isn’t a large collection, but when my ward was switching over from 16mm films to video tapes, they had this table in the foyer with all the old 16mm church films on it for anyone to take for free. I couldn’t carry them all (too heavy and bulky) but I did snag a few. I think I might have Man’s Search for Happiness. No J. Lingo that I remember, though. Drat!
Comment by meems — May 15, 2008 @ 10:33 am
Kids.
Comment by ESO — May 15, 2008 @ 1:14 pm
A 1907 Chicago edition of the Book of Mormon that I found at a local (rural Michigan) “antique” (pronounced junk) shop for next to nothing.
Comment by Floyd the Wonderdog — May 17, 2008 @ 5:56 am
Hymn books here too. (Especially Primary & Sunday School).
Comment by Coffinberry — May 18, 2008 @ 3:04 pm
Even though all the back issues of the Ensign are available online, up until recently we kept all the issues from the time we were married - 34 years ago. The photgraphy on Temple Square from those 70’s issues of the Conference Report were outstanding. Black and white pictures that really were candid shots, not the mugging that you see today. I used to draw portraits of old men and I found some great pictures to draw in those issues. But, alas, my wife - and our lack of storage space - made me chuck them a couple of years ago.
Comment by Lamonte — May 20, 2008 @ 11:24 am
Nauvoo is on the way to my parents’ house. Every time we travel through the kids always seem to end up with several of those free bricks they give out. By the time I retire I think I just might be able to build a garage with them.
Comment by Tstevens — June 6, 2008 @ 12:02 pm
I have a paper book: Pictures and Biographies of Brigham Young and his Wives. I would love to find out a price on this.
If anyone has seen one of these let me know.
copyrighted in 1896
Comment by julie Flores — June 24, 2008 @ 7:38 am
I have a bunch of foreign-language Books of Mormon, but nothing impressive.
Comment by Kullervo — June 24, 2008 @ 2:21 pm