Stamps, handbags, salt and pepper shakers – a lot of us collect something. However, some of us like to collect collections; for them, the thrill is in the collecting itself. David Ruston has been collecting various memorabilia, books and items related to his favourite celebrities and characters since childhood, amassing an incredible collection.

Originally from England, David spent a lot of his time growing up in Perth. When he was around 11, he started to notice the number of gramophones that were around.

“I found out how to fix them, so I started to collect them, and I had something like 400 78 Rpm records. I gave them all away when I came over here [Canberra] to a friend of mine,” says David.

It was at 13 that David really caught the collecting bug when a friend lent him a couple of Spike Milligan LPs, which he still has today. 

“For some strange reason, if I like something I collect it, in the storage area there’s about 8 boxes of all Spike Milligan stuff which ranges from books, records, DVDs, LPs, cassettes. Everything you can think of that he put out; I try to collect.”

The collection has spread over the years from Spike Milligan to Tom Jones, Frank Zappa and Agatha Christie. People that David likes or enjoys, he needs to collect the things that they have made. The items come from op-shops, garage sales, markets and online groups.

“You just wander in and look around and there might be something there that you haven’t got or you think you haven’t got it but you have and you end up with doubles,” he says.

Some items he once had and has spent years looking for replacements. As a young child, David owned a few comics, including a Walt Disney Uncle Scrooge McDuck hardcover book, it was one of the items he was able to bring to Australia. Swapping comics with friends, David was always drawn to Scrooge McDuck, sadly the hardcover book never came back. While he has been able to replace the comics that it contained, he hasn’t got another hardcover.

“I did see it once in a doctor’s office, it was all ripped and broken and taped together. I really wanted it but they wouldn’t let me have it,” he says.

After his divorce, David wanted a change and hitchhiked over to Canberra where he had a friend and the collecting continued. David’s collection of collections includes: seven different incomplete car magazines from 1974 to now; Lawrence of Arabia books, documentaries and films; Beatles memorabilia and many more.

In 1979, Australian Playboy and Australian Penthouse were both released and while David and a friend were road tripping from Perth to Canberra, they decided to pick up some copies each. David collected almost every edition for ten years.

“I figured that in 10 years the complete collection would be worth a lot of money, that was completely monetary. I only read them for the articles of course,” he smiles.

Preferring Playboy over Penthouse, for the articles, he says they spoke about cars in a section and even featured a car he owned with the original story on how it was made, so he had to keep that. Even though the plan was to sell them after ten years, David still has them in storage.

While living in a small townhouse, David had to box his collection. He did so without sorting through everything, a mishap he is still rectifying. Heading to the storage unit to sort through boxes he often finds goods he forgot he owned.

“The Playboys that I had, they were all in different boxes, so I put them all together and then I sorted them into years and months and so on and I found out I was missing a few.”

Accompanying the desire to collect is an anal need to organise and categorise, for David at least. He lists what is in the collections and notebooks with items that he still has to buy. Sometimes David will stumble across a piece he didn’t know about that belongs in one of the collections.

“The other day on one of the Facebook pages I was on, there was a little snippet about Peter Sellers’ film, I’d never heard of it. He did this film and did four parts in it, so there’s another thing that I’ve got to collect if I find it,” David smiles.

Some of the collections have connections to moments or memories like the Walt Disney comics to his childhood. David can still remember hearing Frank Zappa for the first time. It was in 1966, he was working at his second job when a coworker came in and handed him a record he just had to hear.

“A Frank Zappa album by The Mothers of Invention called Freak Out… I thought this is the weirdest album I ever heard but it’s really good, it’s really clever. I came home one day to find mum ironing having a wonderful time, singing along to this album and it went from there.” 

Sometimes the collecting isn’t for himself. David’s dog groomer an avid reader doesn’t accept money, so David tries to find books instead.

“I ended up collecting all the Jack Reacher books and the Micheal Connelly books and gave them to her. It saves me collecting myself and it gives her something and repays her for grooming the dog, so it’s really nice.”

Almost like trying to pick a favourite child, David has had some magnificent finds in his journey, he says they are all exciting, but some are rarer than others. On a Frank Zappa fan page, David came across a Freddy Bannister boxset which contained 5 bootleg Frank Zappa recordings.

“I ended up picking that up and I thought that was quite exciting because I had never seen that before, never even heard of it.”

Enjoying the new collectible when he first gets it, David will read or listen to it before assigning it a space in the appropriate collection. He can go five or ten years without seeing them again. Even if he may not go back to it, it is owning it and having it as part of the collection that is the point. Yet to complete a collection, he isn’t sure he would even want to.

“I don’t think you ever complete a collection. You could collect every Playboy magazine but then the thrill goes out of it. Sometimes I think I don’t want to collect everything because if I do, that’s the end of it. Where’s the excitement of going into a shop and saying ‘Ah, there’s a Spike Milligan book I haven’t got?’”

His family may think that his collection is merely a waste of time, but David has made long-lasting friendships and connections with other collectors through this shared interest. Some collections may even rival his own, helping one friend put stuff in storage they moved 13.5 tonnes in two trucks.

“That includes something like 60 or 70 boxes of LP records, the same in books, magazine, cassettes, CDs, anything you can think of, he has. He has a worse problem than I have, mine is sorted his isn’t,” David says.

In 2003 when on a website chat forum, David mentioned wanting a particular VHS tape. Soon after, he received an email from another use who had what he wanted. Through correspondence they discovered they had a lot they could share/swap and that the other man was located nearby in Queanbeyan.

“We hit it off and he had a shed in the back of his double garage, and it was chock-a-block full of stuff.”

This was the start of the Music Shed, soon they invited a couple of others over and they all regularly caught up, talked about their passions and swapped media and memorabilia. They still regularly meet. Some members have passed away, the other still enjoy the time together – even if the swapping has slowed over the years.

“We’ve started to get to the fact that we’ve got so much stuff that we don’t want to get anymore.”

Collecting isn’t for everyone. David says some people are minimalists, while others don’t like clutter. However, those like himself have collecting in their DNA, they enjoy the find and having the objects.

“Collecting is just a disease I think sometimes because you can’t go anywhere without collecting, your life abounds around op-shops and things like that. 

If you would like to share your collection with CD and the Canberra community, email [email protected].

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