Aside From Coins, Do You Have Any Other Hobbies?

...Ook, of course, I meant (--'you know: not what I Said, what I Meant') ...'not a preemptive redundancy.' Minor neural episode....

 

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I've got a few of those packed away but I couldn't bare to pack these. Ancient Roman Glass Bottles:

 

I really like the Roman Glass bottles and I know I could easily get sucked into collecting them. So I have resisted buying even one.

 

I'm sorry I don't know the "obvious reasons." My family came from there, too. But I believe there are a few relatives still there. I have the same last name as the former chairman of the Lithuanian Communist Party and later the first Lithuanian president.

 

Back to the OP: I have many varied interests. Maybe the newest one is collecting souvenirs, exonumia, pictures, maps, and literature from the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition. This certainly includes commemorative coins.

 

I'm sorry myself for making assumptions, but my mind goes to only one place when I think of Lithuania and my family there, and I should realize that that isn't true of everyone. It's not really a topic for this forum, and I'm just stating it as a fact to educate people who might not know about it; certainly not with the intention of provoking a discussion. My Lithuanian Jewish relatives, including my grandfather's first cousin and his family and many other relatives who lived in Jurbarkas (right across the German border), were murdered within a month or so of the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, among the > 137,000 Jews murdered by just one of the Einsatzkommmandos (No. 3), the Nazi mobile killing squads (a subgroup of the Einsatzgruppen) in just one part of Lithuania, from July through November 1941. The Jäger Report, one of the few such documents remaining, was prepared by Einsatzkommando 3's commander Walter Jäger and gives all the daily totals of the numbers of Jews, Jewesses, and Jewish children liquidated in each town, the grand total in that five-month period was "138,272 people: 136,421 Jews (46,403 men, 55,556 women and 34,464 children), 1,064 communists, 653 mentally disabled, and 134 others. The report concluded that Lithuania was now free of Jews except for about 34,500 Jews concentrated in Vilnius, Kaunas and Šiauliai Ghettos. However, [the] Jäger Report did not tally all Jewish deaths in Lithuania as it did not include executions by Einsatzkommando 2 in Šiauliai area (approx. 46,000 people), in some border areas (for example, in Šakiai on September 13, Kudirkos Naumiestis on September 19, Kretinga in July–August, Gargždai on June 24, 1941), or even in Vilnius (for example, the report is missing the October 1 (Yom Kippur) massacre of some 4,000 Jews)." See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jäger_Report; a page from the Report is reproduced as part of the article. In all, about 95% of the approximately 200,000 Jews in Lithuania before the German invasion were "liquidated," mostly by the end of 1941, in one small part of the Holocaust. And that's why I have no more relatives there. What happened to my family in Germany, where my mother was born and, as I've mentioned before, lost most of her family. is another similarly tragic story that I won't go into.

 

Very Nice work I like the colorful animal depictions the most

 

I build also have been since maybe 8 years old I also like to do wood work I ran out of space in the shop and had to build another cabinet...

 

That's a nice case to display them in. A great collection.

 

I (used to) play bass guitar, a lot, but for a couple of years I lost my interest/patience.
Also I was quite good at table tennis (used an -almost- ancient paddle, in VG condition, uncleaned)

 

Thank you, I am self taught so takes me a while to get one done(getting older fingers stiff fingers doesn't help either!) Coins are easier on the hands!

 

I'm not going to call it a hobby. Yet.

In a fit of nostalgia I bought a ratty batch of Matchbox cars off eBay. I loved these when I was a kid - not the "Superfast" type which came out when I was quite young - just old black regular wheels. Hot Wheels were okay, but I preferred stodgy Matchbox English stuff, like double-decker buses.

A Rolls Royce Phantom V shown with a Hadrian sestertius that came in the mail the same day. Just to show I haven't lost the faith.





(The French-made 1980s Caddy limo in the background was part of the lot - I kind of like it - it has a sleazy "Less Than Zero" / Junk Bond Wall Street vibe to it with its boomerang antenna on the trunk and orange-tinted windows).

The Bangles:

 

I have no idea how you would build your chopper with Legos. I was in the 3rd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division during the Vietnam fiasco. I took many one way rides in the chinook. I have many wonderful memories. Thanks for sharing your Legos build of the chinook.

 

You have shown two wonderful skills that you have. The first thing that I noticed was your beautiful cabinet, and second, you have a wonderful skill building model/miniature aircraft. I can't show mine because I don't have a camera the I can use. Maybe, one day..... Again, thanks for showing us your wonderful skills.​

 

LEGO model of my favorite aircraft, the SR-71 Blackbird

 

Another wonderful gift to us. Thanks.

 

@DonnaML, thank you for your valued elucidation. It took this long to decide whether I might have anything moderately intelligent to say by way of comment. ...Here goes. First and most relevant, if anything qualifies as an instance of advancing the level of discussion, rather than digression for its own sake (for which you have appropriately busted me in the past --with cordial thanks), this is It (sic). Next, reading your account, I couldn't help drawing parallels between the specious contrast between the stereotypical 'centers' of the Holocaust (Germany and Poland, for two), and other countries under Nazi rule (Lithuania), on one hand, and the South and America at large, for racism in some of its other varieties, on the other. ...Cf. the wildly disproportionate numbers of Jews who were subject to violence, on various levels, including death, during the Civil Rights Movement. ...Especially at that generational interval, it looks a Lot as if they made the connection with their very recent past, and what they were looking at in real time.

 

I don't have any fond memories of riding in a Chinook (we had a different name for them). All I remember was wishing they would close the back end of it before we fell out. The most fun I had was a ride in a Cobra with a bored pilot who needed some hours. That guy had a screw loose, but it made for an exciting flight!

 

@Marsyas Mike, for what it's worth, but from someone vaguely of the same generation, I'm totally on your page, in detail, about Matchbox over Hot Wheels. Not that I didn't have plenty of those. Matchbox was more like the savoury chutney that showed up once, for Christmas. Equal parts exotic (--and in this context, quotation marks aren't even called for), and memorable.