Are you a collector? If so, is it just an amusing way of passing time – or are you one of those collectors whose interest borders on the fanatically obsessive?

If you’re one of the latter, I do hope your partner shares your interest!

I know that this is probably a pious hope as most wives or husbands of fanatic collectors often display scant interest in their partners’ interests.

I know one wife who confessed to me that, even though she was heartily fed up with her husband’s antique collecting obsession, at least he wasn’t gambling, hitting the bottle or chasing loose women.

As a society we should be thankful to these collectors – although the benefit of their collecting might not materialise for many decades.

When you next visit a museum or art gallery, there is a strong chance that its basic collection was the result of the activities of a serious collector.

Our Victorian ancestors were often avid collectors. Take the display cases of stuffed birds – many of them quite rare – in some of our local museums.

They were on the lookout for any avian rarities – so they could shoot them, get them stuffed and mounted and displayed somewhere in their houses.

Those of us who, in our earlier years, used to visit very elderly relatives will have come across examples of the taxidermist’s art displayed in glass domes – usually perched prominently on one of those immense sideboards much favoured by some Victorians.

And how many museums don’t have cases of butterflies, insects and assorted smaller animals?

Private collections of period costume often found their way into museums. Going round the Victoria and Albert earlier this year, I came across an exhibit of a vintage dress for a young woman – which had been a gift from someone in Workington.

The Helena Thompson Museum is the body we usually associate locally with collecting period costume – but obviously the town had also boasted another period costume collector at some time. Who, I don’t know. Another entry for my to be researched file.

What you soon realise is that you can collect almost anything.

Many years ago I came across the Writing Equipment Society. I was interested in collecting old fountain pens at the time. Only one problem, I was much too late in the game and serious collecting would have been a prohibitively expensive undertaking.

After talking to a member of the society, I realised that I could, like a great many other people, have interested myself in other aspects of writing technology.

I could have collected examples of something many of us had to use in our school days – the dip pen.

Now doesn’t that, if you’re a certain vintage, take you back? Back to being sat at a desk with an inkwell!

Some purists maintain that you can write more legibly with an ink pen than with a Biro. This, for me, was clearly an exercise in wishful thinking.

I could not get excited about collecting dip pens. Nor was I interested in collecting tin nib boxes. And I was most certainly not going to collect blotting paper – antique or otherwise.

Blotting paper was invented in America in 1856 – by Joseph Parker. I have no doubt that, since then, it has developed greatly. One thing puzzles me, where do the collectors get hold of old blotting paper?

It’s a query I’m not going to attempt to answer – because if I did I could well get too interested in the subject – and a blotting paper enthusiast is something I most certainly do not want to be.

Nor do I want to be someone who walks with a stick. Even though my knees do creak a bit, I don’t need one. But I was in a charity shop recently and clapped eyes on a collection of walking sticks which were obviously designed for people with walking difficulties. So I bought one – very cheaply. It was very much a just-in-case purchase.

Half listening to the radio I heard mention of a walking stick society. Intrigued, I Googled it.

I didn’t find it – but I did come across entries for The Antique Cane Society and for the International Society of Cane Collectors which is holding a conference – entitled Canemania – in Geneva this month.

Antique cane collecting is obviously a flourishing activity. What about the Walking Stick Society?

It turns out that a walking stick is a phytophagon – an exotic insect. The society, based in England, is concerned with the survival of the species.

So where can I buy any antique canes – cheap? More interesting than old pen nibs!