Going to the dogs

The Hoardiculturist #1

A big pile of useless name badges

I’m a compulsive hoarder and have all sorts of collections from 1970s football cards to vinyl records, along with Pez dispensers, aeoniums and every edition of the Radio Times since 1983 that has a Dr Who related cover. I’m not sure what stashing away all this stuff says about me, but I usually justify it by saying it’s a ‘man thing’ (Oh yes, and I collect Marvel Man Thing comics as well).

Many of my collections date back to childhood, but once a collector, always a collector, and I find new things to accumulate all the time. So, to free myself of the burden of being a secret hoardiculturist I thought I’d share my treasure trove in a new series.

To kick start things, here’s a fairly modern collection – name badges that I’ve worn to gain entry to gardening shows, press events and trade shows. I’ve got around 60 or so badges that largely date from 1997 to 2000 (known among collectors as the Golden Age of name badges) that include the legendary Wembley Turf Experience 2 (I missed WTE 1, but heard it was a riot), DIY 2000 and The Regent’s Park Flower Show 2000, which is probably the most attractive – the classy laminated name badge is attached to a lovely purple ribbon. Probably the oddest is the badge for Amateur Gardening’s Spring Show 1999, which looks like one of those rosettes handed out at a dog show.

Sadly my collection of name badges is much smaller than it used to be. Every now and again I buckle under the pressure to ‘get rid of that tat’ and ditched about a 100 or so several years ago before deciding I couldn’t go through with binning the lot.

So here they are, saved for prosperity and the nation, a bunch of old name badges.