I collect all sorts of stuff. Cameras, yeah, obviously, but the acquisition urge doesn't stop there.
I own over 20 guitars, 7 motorcycles, probably a hundred fountain pens, and books -- geez, I must own over a thousand books on all subjects. I consider them all to be my personal library, and I do refer to it frequently. Oh and the wife and I both collect jade and Chinese porcelains. She's also into collecting stuff, but that's a whole 'nother world that I don't want to get into here.
Back to cameras, I don't really think of myself as a collector, even though I own some 30 cameras of all types -- excluding P&S models. Add another half dozen to the total if I include those. But I've picked up every single one of these cameras because there's something about them that I either prefer, or find intriguing about them. And so it goes.
Being here at the Rangefinder Forum and all, I will admit to a certain fondness for Canon rangefinders. Mine is a fairly modest collection: I have a P and two IIIa's, and four LTM lenses, ranging from 35mm to 135mm. I'd like to get a IVSb and a 7 one day and a Canon 50/1.2 just to have one. Forget about the 0.95 -- they cost too much now. The IVSb is identical to the IIIa, except it has that proprietary Canon flash rail, so there's really no practical reason for wanting one, other than the fact that my very first rangefinder was a Canon IVSb that I sold several years later in a moment of -- well brain farts, I'd have to say now. So I'd just like to have it back, as it were.
I wonder, how many of you have done that? Sold a camera that you found out later you shouldn't have, so you go back and buy another? In my current inventory, probably at least a half dozen cameras I own are re-acquisitions.