[abdriver2000]

I like collecting plastic cards of all types... credit cards, loyalty cards, bonus cards, etc. My family has about 60 cards of which almost 50 are mine alone. I never throw away an expired credit card or ATM card.

Some of these cards can re-used as keychains and luggage tags too!

[safari_lover]

Originally Posted by hvkumar

I collect Soils of India and Waters of India.

Samples:
- Kurukshetra, Gita Upadesh stal
- Brindavan, Madhuvan
- Baba Buddangiri, first coffee soil of India
- Jallianwala Bagh
- Dhanushkodi, near Rameswaram
- and so on....soils from all places I visit

Waters:
- Golden Temple Tank, Amritsar
- Yamunotri at source
- Bhageerathi at source
- Beas at source, from melting snows
- and so on..

This is the most unusual and interesting hobby that I have ever known. Good collection of soil samples.
What are the other places on your list?

[hvkumar]

Let me list my full collection of Soils of India so far:

- Chitrakote Falls, Bastar, Chattisgarh (water with high iron ore content)
- 1000 Pillar Temple, Warangal, AP
- Bannergetta Road, Bangalore, Karnataka
- Black Cotton Soil of Yeotmal, Maharashtra
- Solang Valley, near Manali, HP
- Lakkad Mandi, Dalhousie, HP
- Khajjiar, near Dalhousie, HP
- My childhood home in Trivandrum, Kerala
- Sri Krishna Temple, Udupi, Karnataka
- Jallianwala bagh, Amritsar, Punjab
- Kathar, near Hoshiarpur, Punjab
- Beas River, near Aut, Kulu Valley, HP
- River Narmada, near Bharuch, Gujarat
- Mayiladuthurai, near Thanjavur, TN
- Jaigarh, near Ratnagiri, Maharashtra (red laterite soil)
- Pushkar, Rajasthan
- Gokarna, Karnataka
- Gita Upadesh stal, Kurukshetra, Haryana
- Source of River Narmada, Amarkantak, Madhya Pradesh
- Gangotri, Uttarakhand
- Quail Hill, Conoor, TN
- River Mandakini, Kedarnath, Uttarakhand
- Rishikesh, near Ram Jhoola, Uttarakhand
- Dhanushkodi, near Rameswaram/Ram Sethu, TN
- MUlayangiri Peak, where first Coffee was grown, near Chickmagalur, Karnataka
- Athigundi, near Chickmagalur, Karnataka
- Burdwan, West Bengal
- Rajole, River Godavari, AP
- Koteshwar, westernmost point in India, Gujarat (Kutch)
- Islampur, near Sangli, Maharashtra
- Somanath, Gujarat
- Main Street, near Jagannath Temple, Puri, Orissa
- Marina Beach, Chennai, TN
- Madhuvan, Brindavan, UP
- Vedaranyam, near Nagapattinam, TN
- Alibag, Maharashtra
- River Yamunotri, Yamunotri, Uttarakhand
- Dwaraka, Gujarat

Unfortunately, I started very late in life, otherwise I would have had a magnificent collection by now, considering that I have driven to all parts of India, and could have samples from every place. It is a growing collection.

[Sudipto-S-Team]

Very unusual and unique hobby HVK. How do you keep them? In jars or wrapped in paper? Just curious.

[hvkumar]

Originally Posted by Sudipto-S-Team

Very unusual and unique hobby HVK. How do you keep them? In jars or wrapped in paper? Just curious.

Sudipto, I store them in small plastic jars - the types you keep masalas in - and I always keep empties in the car. They are catalogues for place and date.

My water collection - I keep them in bigger jars and small bottles.

[hrag]

What a fascinating hobby, Kumar! How about some pictures so that we can see what those soils look like (to the untrained eye)?

I think we should call you "Manoj" Kumar now (mere desh ki dharti )

[bblost]

hvkumar: a very interesting hobby.

You must be one of Gods favourite children
Maybe when God decides that the world has gone rotten enough and its high time for a crtl+alt+del he will use your collection as backup.

[hvkumar]

I try to collect soils from unusual and landmark places - like say, holy spots (Kurukshetra, Brindavan, Pushkar), or historical spots (Jallianwala Bagh, Vedaranyam), or extraordinary mineral-rich soils (Valley of Flowers, Solang), India's geographical points (Koteshwar, Dhanushkodi) or very rich soils (Godavari, Punjab, Thanjavur). Indeed, the colours are fascinating and one can do a rainbow collection. I also collect stones from these places, especially in river beds near their source where you get great colours, mineral content, etc.

I will try to upload some photos.

[clevermax]

Hmmm.. All the above hobbies have something in common - 'Collecting' !!! There's nothing unusual about it c'mon!!

Well I don't have any collecting hobbies as such, which I know I cannot continue for long even if I ever started it.

Since this thread is about 'unusual' hobbies, I will explain one of my hobbies when I was a scoolkid.

I make concentrated sugar solution, and drip one or two droplets on the floor or window side, and just lie down near that and watch. It was very interesting for me to see how an ant finds out the unexplored food treasure. When the ant finds it, it will start sucking the liquid untill its back-side storage tank is full, big and glowing with the liquid inside. Then it will go back to its nest carefully marking the path with the sugar liquid sample. After a while lots of ants will follow this path, and soon there will be hundreds of them sucking from the droplet. It never was a boring thing to watch. There are different types of ants and the most interesting were the tiny black ones and the bigger amber colored ones - not the ones which build nests in trees.

[DKG]

HVK a true sadhu walking into your home will freak out with the concentration of vibes emanating from these special samples of soil and water

[deepclutch]

My hobby was to collect programming books which I hope I will learn sometime in future.Now ,I stopped that hobby for the good!.

[hvkumar]

I also collect magazines - buy at least 15 different magazines every month - and my collection dates back to the late 70s. The magazines before that - I have been collecting since the early 70s when I was a kid - were unfortunately destroyed by termites. I used to have 1945 edition Illustrated Weekly of India, etc, in my collection. I have copie sof long-out-of-print magazines like Wisecrack (the Indian humour magazine), Sun (the first colourful tabloid), Surya (Maneka Gandhi's) or Contour (a HT publication).

[hillram]

The foremost hobby I have is my modest collections of Automobiles below.
Aparat fromthis,I asl collect :
- Replica Models of Guns
- Replica models of Swords & Knives
- Miniature perfume bottles
- Vast Die Cast Cars,Bikes & Aircraft Collection.
- Collection of Lighters

- Collection of Exotic Pens (Mont Blanc , Waterman etc)

[GTO]

Originally Posted by hillram

Aparat fromthis,I asl collect :

Not to mention, your obvious love for stickers. Your collection is all over the cars

[Swifty2008]

@hillram:
Your collection is amazing. Since when you started collecting? The RD is high/low?