collector

We're back from San Diego Comic-Con 2012 with a wrap-up show of everything we saw at the show. This being our first year, it quickly became obvious that we missed the first rule of Comic-Con: leave your civilian clothes at home!… Read more

The hoverboard floated onto the big screen in "Back to the Future II" and broke the hearts of geeks worldwide when director Robert Zemeckis announced that the technology would not be available until the year 2015. Decades later, we're all still waiting for power laces, hydrator machines, power laces, and a real hoverboard, but Mattel was on-hand at Comic-Con 2012 to show off the next best thing: a 1:1 scale replica of the original hover board ridden by Marty McFly.

While it's still unacceptable that the thing doesn't actually glide through the air (don't even think about water), the prop retains the exact look and feel of the real thing, replete with a scooter handle hole, Velcro ankle strap, motion sensors, and "whooshing" sound effects pulled directly from the movies.… Read more

Collectors of all sorts have started turning to software to catalog and organize their collections. Coin Collector is a program that's designed to help you handle your numismatic pursuits. It's a fairly basic program, but it's not a bad choice if you're looking for a way to record and organize the details of your collection.

Coin Collector certainly won't be winning any design awards with its dated-looking interface, but it's pretty easy to figure out. Coins are organized in tabs labeled 1 Center, 10 Center, 25 Center, 5 Center, and 50 Center. Why these … Read more

Sometimes it's hard to turn the other cheek. That's when it's best to use both cheeks.

Shitter turns Twitter into toilet paper. Startup Collector's Edition will print four rolls of choice throne-room reading material for $35.

If you're the self-deprecating sort, they can be your own tweets. But it's infinitely more amusing to print out those of your least-favorite celebrity. You can choose one or several feeds for your order.

The Shitter rolls can get about four tweets per sheet; that's a lot better than this DIY Twitter toilet paper printer from Germany. Shitter, meanwhile, is printed in the U.S. and ships internationally. … Read more

If your card collection survived your mother's cleaning campaigns, there's a good chance it could be valuable, now or in the future. Sports Card Collector can help you catalog and organize your treasures. Duck Software's database engine is optimized for collectors, with quick access via name or category, customizable fields, and easy data entry.

Sports Card Collector's interface is plain but businesslike and easy to understand and use. It's divided into two halves. The left half has a window listing entries sorted by player name or card brand with a series of customizable category tabs … Read more

World of Warcraft fans have been waiting for the new Cataclysm expansion, and we've gotten our hands on the giant Collector's Edition box set. Inside, you'll find a hardcover art book, a WoW mouse pad, a soundtrack CD, and even a deck of cards for a collectible trading card game.

We're not sure this surpasses the StarCraft II collector's edition box set we saw a few months ago, or even the recent Call of Duty: Black Ops Prestige Edition, but for an expansion pack for an existing game, it's pretty comprehensive.

Check out the details in our slideshow, as well as a peek at a few more collector's-edition video game box sets that might make great holiday gifts.… Read more

Miles Davis' music has always been a feast for the ears, but now it can reach all five senses: hearing, seeing, touching, smelling, and tasting.

It's the release of Miles Davis' "Bitches Brew" in a "40th Anniversary Collector's Edition" box set that inspired the album's new sensory explorations. The set comes with a 48-page book; three CDs (two CDs containing the original 94-plus minutes of music with six bonus tracks); a third CD with a previously unreleased concert by Davis' group with Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette, Airto Moreira, and … Read more

We're not huge fans of "collector's edition" game boxes, truth be told. More often than not, the extras included just seem silly. It's to our great surprise, then, that we unwrapped the monolithic box of the $80 Halo: Reach Collector's Edition, the deluxe version of the imminent Xbox 360 prequel, and found items inside that were actually both beautifully produced and fun to explore.

You won't find action figures or extra DVDs here--statues and helmets are reserved for the $150 Halo: Reach Legendary Edition. Instead, you'll get the core of what's … Read more

When Theo Braakman was 12 years old, he got a turntable "just to demolish," but he was so fascinated by the machine's inner workings he spared the turntable's life. He put a mirror under it to get a better view of the automatic record changing mechanism's gears, belts, and levers that lifted the tonearm and the end of a record side, moved the arm to the rest position, dropped another record to play, and gently lowered the "needle" into the grooves. Braakman played records on that first turntable until he fully understood how the mechanism worked. But that just led to more turntables!

Theo and his wife recently celebrated their 25th anniversary. Braakman told me his wife had one request when they first got married: she wanted him to limit his collecting habit to only one kind of collectible, and the choices were typewriters, tape recorders, or turntables. Braakman now has more than 230 turntables, and lives in the Netherlands.

Some work, some do not. Braakman tries to restore them as much as he can, but parts are hard to find, especially for the really old ones. If during restoration he discovers a vital part is defective or missing, he'll try to find a matching model to cannibalize for parts. That's why he doesn't usually start a serious restoration until he has at least two of the same model. However, some models are so rare it can take years to find another one.

Judging by the photos on Brakkman's Web site, he does superb work. These machines may look simple on the outside, but their intricate mechanisms are something to see. Braakman's clear photography documents many of the turntables' insides and their exterior beauty. I've included just a few here, but there's a lot more on his Web site. You can see the turntables playing records on Braakman's YouTube pages.

Braakman's collection focuses on specific brands that manufactured automatic machines and record changers. I see a lot of familiar names like Dual, Garrard, Thorens, and Philips among brands I've never heard of, such as Luxor, Jobo, and Perpetuum-Ebner. Most of the turntables are stored outside his house, along with his large collection of 78-rpm records.

He's not an audiophile. I gather it's not the vintage sound that interests Braakman; it's the technology. When I asked if there's an end point to his collecting he said he would like to find just the right Thorens TD124 Mark I from 1957. It's an audiophile turntable classic, and Mark IIs, from a decade later are easier to find.

If you have an exceptional hi-fi collection, tell us all about it in the comments section. TVs from the 1940s or 1950s? Share the news with us.

More turntable photos after the jump.… Read more