BREAD TAG BONANZA

Harry Waterson writes:

This collection is for those of us who have a prominent 'collector' gene.
They can't help themselves.
They have to collect.

After going through a family intervention and promising not to spend any more of the children's inheritance on coins and medals; this exhibit is this exhibitor's solution to a collection he could put together that would cost nothing. Nada! Zilch! Zip! So far he has spent $20 on plastic pages to house the collection and $5 for a 3-ring binder to put it in. All reusable for other purposes.

And, of course, the bread tags are free. All one has to do is ask for them. Once family, friends and neighbors hear you are looking for bread tags, they pour in ─ even in Christmas cards, birthday cards and get-well cards. There has been one sympathy card.

The collecting of Bread Tags is rife with varieties. They come in different sizes and colors with odd-sized apertures and edges. A collector's dream. Something to organize, sort, arrange and rearrange to the collector's every whim. There are also naming rights.

It is rare that the exhibitor does not trip over a bread tag on entering or leaving a supermarket. To date, he has not yet succumbed to shoplifting bread tags.

The Bread Tag collection has a little more bulk than stamps, but is relatively weightless, when compared to a collection of quarters, nickels and dimes which can often require a wheeled handcart to move them about. Bread Tags also do not require storage in a safe or safety deposit box. There is no such thing as a Bread Tag rider on an insurance policy. In fact, when the exhibitor and his wife take a vacation, he often finds that the Bread Tag collection has been left strewn about the dining room table in hopes of catching the eye of a passing burglar.

The major manufacturer of all-plastic bag closures is the Kwik Lok Corporation of Yakima, WA. They exhibit at most major food packaging and container conventions. So far the exhibitor has managed to avoid attending any of these conventions but he is finding himself being seriously drawn to the International Baking Industry Exposition in Melbourne Australia June 20-22, 2017. This may require another family intervention.

Once the acquisition phase has achieved critical mass, the exhibitor is looking forward to developing the definitive Bread Tag Catalog, with a unique number for each known variety with the numbering system flexible enough to take into account future discoveries and varieties yet to be designed.

The exhibitor is, however, dragging his foot slightly in starting the Bread Tag Catalog. He knows that once he has solved the format of the catalog and begun the cataloguing process, the end is in sight. The Bread Tag binder will no longer be an object of constant attention. He will be forced to look about for another collection. A fate to be avoided, dare he say it, "at all costs."

This exhibit is laid out in Color Order, then by size, shape and aperture. There are 124 different tags in the exhibit. At the end of the exhibit is the collection of Raw Material amassed during the collecting process. The exhibitor so far has been unable to divest himself of this material. He desperately wants to be just a collector but his "accumulator" gene is still as active as his "collector" gene

To read the complete article, see:
WAYNE'S NUMISMATIC DIARY: APRIL 30, 2017 (http://www.coinbooks.org/v20/esylum_v20n18a20.html)

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