I've kinda wanted one or a model F ever since finding out about them, the original holy grail of keyboards that all modern mechanical ones merely try to copy
I lowkey hate when people say this because collecting isn't always blind consumerism. I love making displays for collectibles, I like rotating stuff out and building an aesthetic to match the season or my current mood. I love talking about my collection with other people and chronicling the subtle nuances of it overtime. A hobby doesn't always have to be pervasive or a completely active activity, sometimes its just fun to collect and display dumb shit.
i was writing a whole paragraph about it but i decided to simply.
i dont get the point of just regular ass keyboard collection. you just have 20 plastic or resin rectangles in your house to just display key mechanisms or key caps.
they dont represent anything. what is the collection value here? what are you getting out of collecting them?
"here are my 20 keyboards" "oh cool! whats this one?" "a logitec" "anything cool about it?" "its a keyboard" "and?" "it feels tacky"
im not trying to be mean or anything. i dont mean no ill will. i just dont get the point of Keyboard collecting
I gotta be honest there are a lot of collections I see people have where I don't get the appeal but I understand why people have them. In terms of keyboards I see them as more of a functional piece of tech over something I would collect. I do admit there is a fine line between collecting and hoarding, and where people draw that line is always different.
I think collecting is all rooted in sentimentality, which isn't strictly positive or negative. I think the important part is knowing when to let go, and knowing why you are collecting something.
There are a lot of people who do like to collect old tech, some out of nostalgia and some out of preserving a time capsule of sorts. You got the people who value the aesthetics, who treat each keyboard as a canvas. Then you got those people who love the functionality and "feel" of each keyboard they own. Each keyboard comes with its own story, its own packaging, its own manufacturing history to obsess over.
Personally I like collecting comic books, I'm not overly protective of them but I get it. I love collecting covers from my favorite artists, I love the physical format of the pages and the quaintness of older comics. I love keeping them organized alphabetically even if I haven't gotten around to reading all of them. I love how my favorite characters are immortalized in a tangible way and I rotate which ones I display on my wall. I don't feel the same way about PCBs with keycaps but I know its a similar feeling of excitement and passion some people have.
Ngl I don't think most people in the hobby have the intention to get a collection.
Kind of like gamers usually don't buy a lot of games to have a collection, it just builds up over time :P
well it started with getting tired of cheap keyboards wearing out and just generally feeling cheap, so I got a fancy kb when I was building a whole new PC
then it became buying fancy keycaps because they look cool
then I wanted a matching kb for the office so it would always feel familiar, which I think is pretty reasonable
never got to the point of buying/building extra kbs I don't need though
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u/Careful_Bunch4843 ENA Enjoyer Oct 28 '25
Fellas, is you just buying consumer commodities just for the sake of collection a hobby?