I once spent a summer collecting bottle tops. It’s not something I’m proud of, but as skeletons in the closet go, it could be worse.

It was a bit of a half-hearted collection. I was about ten, in France, and every time someone flipped off the top of a pop or beer bottle I’d hoard it. By the end of the holiday I’d lost interest and chucked them away.

I also collected postcards, and I still usually buy one at places I visit. I did draw the line at an “I love Hull” postcard recently, though.

Collecting things is a peculiar human trait. Yesterday I read about a woman who has broken her own record for the world’s largest shoe-themed collection. Her Californian home is filled with 16,400 items, from a cowboy boot toilet brush-holder to shoe-shaped oven gloves.

While collections like coins, teapots and ornamental elephants are commonplace, some people accumulate more bizarre objects. Mouse pads, barbed wire, manhole covers, burnt food, air sickness bags, even navel fluff are among items listed on collectors’ websites.

The appeal of collecting lies largely in the quest. It’s a pursuit that’s never complete.

Collecting can be a good investment – my grandad once sold his stamp collection and bought a house with the money. It can also lead to social networking, with like-minded souls meeting up at conventions, exchanging items and information.

I once interviewed a delightful man who’d collected £50,000 of Dolly Parton memorabilia. His home was like a museum, filled with records, concert tickets, signed photos, books, dolls, T-shirts, even a ‘Dolly trash can’. He was in contact with fans around the world.

For others, collecting is a way of preserving the past. I knew someone with an exquisite collection of antique toys, from Victorian lead soldiers to a model railway, complete with surrounding ‘town’ sprawled across his loft. He’d started collecting model trains as a boy and spent his life amassing a toy collection worth thousands. I visited him in the final months of his life, and he talked with a heavy heart about leaving his beloved collection behind.

What happens to collections once the collectors are no longer with us? Ever since I landed my first job on a weekly newspaper I’ve kept some of my cuttings, but recently I realised I had 15 box files full. I was brutal and threw years of work away, which was quite cleansing.

I didn’t chuck it all out though. I’d like to think that one day my reports on Heckmondwike Road Safety Committee will end up in a museum devoted to the ancient and long-dead medium of print journalism.