Day 5: Work with a collection of stuff

Dead men tell... some pretty good tales, actually.

I like pirates. I'm not quite sure how it happened, although I think it really picked up after I moved out here, but I have a lot of piratey stuff. Toys, flags, piratey-looking accessories like the treasure chest and guns here (the latter are from the pirates of the Carribean ride in DisneyWorld, way back before there was a movie). I have a couple of compasses and enough costume gear to have dressed as a pirate for Halloween a few times.
For all of that, I came to the book 'Treasure Island' pretty late in life. I didn't read it until I was in college, and I still don't technically own a single copy.
I don't need to.
My girlfriend liked Jim Hawkins when she was younger, and somehow she ended up collecting 'Treasure Island' books.

Yes, every single book in this picture (and there are 22 of them, some buried in the heap) is a copy of 'Treasure Island'. One of them is in French, one is actually 'Muppet Treasure Island', one is a comic, and at least one of them also has 'Kidnapped', but still. There are also two more copies, which are exact duplicates of antique copies here, and we should probably sell off those at least. She has names for some of them, like the big flat abridged children's illustrated one she calls 'the ugly people version' (she's right, the artist must have a dim view of people's looks), and she can tell you who, how, and roughly when she got each copy. The comic is a recent purchase, and the absolutely gorgeous little antique volume with gilding on the cover, in the upper just-left-of-center I found for her in our favorite local used book store. She never goes out hunting for copies, her family just gives them to her.

The treasure be ours, boys!

I need to read it again, really. I feel a little silly that I have so much piratey stuff, and I really haven't read enough pirate stories. Anyway, this was a fun and silly excuse to play with my toys, which I really don't have any practical use for. This isn't even all of them. I have some goofier looking plastic figures I didn't use, some Disney pins from our friend Wendy, and a bunch of other odds and ends. I even have a so-hideous-it's-cute pirate monkey sculpture my friend Alex gave me for my 21st birthday just before I left Bellingham.
Here I guess the pirates are having a battle over some plastic treasure, or the nicer copies of the book, or maybe both. That's the 'ugly people version' open in the back with a nice moody picture of a ship (the scenery is beautiful, really, it's just the people that are drawn ugly.

I guess it's the Playmobil™ pirates versus the... bigger plastic pirates that came mostly from the dollar store. Except that obviously one of the Playmobil™ pirates is a turncoat and has gone over to their side, with the keys to the chest, no less!
I think there's a Musketeer mixed in with the pirates, and there's a thought for a later book...
I especially love that there's a little skeleton, and some rats. Playmobil™ makes awesome stuff.

Click on any of the pictures for a close-up view, of course. I'm sorry they're blurry, and that was with the tripod, but the lighting wasn't great.
Tomorrow's post should be a little more literary, but this one was some good goofy fun!