I’ve never been one of those people who collect things in a serious way. I’ve accumulated some cobalt glass and a couple of dozen vintage plastic bracelets, but that’s nothing compared to real collectors. I’ve got friends with substantial collections of particular kinds of books or jewelry, pencils, vintage photos, marbles, cameras and radios—even, in some cases, so many different things that they’ve basically got a collection of collections.

I didn’t grow up in a collecting family, unless having a zillion books counts. After I left home my mother started collecting decorative birds—little clay or ceramic ones, bird paperweights, bird whistles—along with alphabet books and stuff printed by William Morris. And she and my father collected art. But as much as I love to accumulate things like clothes, I was never interested in doing it in a systematic fashion. Until I started buying vintage purses.

It started when I realized that I could find nicer purses on ebay than I could in stores, or at least more affordable nice ones. I began with a couple of vintage alligator bags, not in very good shape but kind of fun to have. I looked casually around the web to see what else was out there and found a vintage purse in an interesting shape, covered with taupe fabric:
and I bought a couple of beaded bags because they were pretty. Then I remembered that I had my maternal grandmother’s mesh evening bag:
And then I went to Paris on vacation and bought a really beautiful beaded bag that I knew I’d never actually use:
I started browsing ebay more seriously, finding particular styles and brands I liked, and the next thing I knew, I needed a display cabinet:
The last time I counted, I had more than 140 purses.

Next: What do you do with 140 purses (besides putting them in a display case)?