Look what Handsome brought home for me! I'm so excited! A guy at his work was selling them!
I have a penchant for old and very old canning jars, lids, equipment. While it is not an organized collection at the moment, it is still a growing collection. I'm sure once I get everything spaced out onto the shelves I will find duplicates and that's ok. Someone somewhere will want to add the spares to their collection. Wherever we go, I'm always on the lookout for old jars and cookbooks.
I'm not a hardcore, this jar has this finish and isn't chipped, it's worth ALL this money, blah blah blah type collector. I like having a representation of the type of closure and/or brand on the shelf. If I find a better one, the not as nice one can go to someone else or kept as a spare. I do have some jars worth some bucks but I came across them by accident. I will happily sit at an auction for hours to bid on a couple jars. Very often, I don't get them because there is a true collector there, but I learn and it's fun.
All the different styles of closures and brands and colors of glass just fascinate me. I also get to line them all up so pretty, just like in the pantry. I can spend hours organizing and reorganizing the different jars and taking stock of which ones I have and don't have. Then if I get the reference books out, I can see regionally where the different jars came from and imagine how they ended up here. Very often, it's because I brought them here; either through the mail or by riding in my truck!
What's your kitchen equipment obsession?