Stuff Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things gives deep insights into collecting that are somewhat discomforting. Hoarding, once thought to be a variant of OCD, may actually get its own separate anxiety disorder listing in the DSM. There is a very, very faint line between collecting and hoarding, and I have seen this line vanish when massive collections from deceased collectors are consigned to the auction house by their estates. There's a passage in the book about a woman nicknamed "The Keeper of the Magazines" who is obsessed about buying only magazines that are free from flaws that will strike a nerve with any high-grade comic book collector. She insists on ringing up her purchases at the bookstore chain herself, buys so many magazines she doesn't even read them, and so on.
