My first charm bracelet was given to me by my Sunday School teacher to hold each of the little silver Ten Commandments as I memorized them each week. I’m sure it was silver-plate, not quality by most standards, but quality in meaning. I no longer have it, but found one recently at an antique shop and gobbled it up. In the late 80s, I began collecting silver charms as a fashion statement. Wearing silver was becoming all the rage and went so great with acid-washed denim. I came across my charm bracelet last night and realized that I can easily be a collector of quantity vs. quality. Very few of my charms hold any significant meaning, for example, why a semi-truck?

But there are a couple that are special (quality) and happen to require a bit of movement to appreciate. And now that, at the very most amateur level, I can create animated gif files, I thought that would be the best way to show them.

My most cherished is a little locket
that holds our wedding day photos.

I found this vintage toaster
in an antique shop on our honeymoon.
Not sure why, but I scraped off the
brown enamel on the toast years ago.

And then there’s the
silver shopping cart,
more of a pendant than charm,
but it carries around
my little bottle of
vintage wine.

What do you collect? And what about quantity vs. quality?