Hobbies And Fandoms

Since I buy most of my keychains secondhand, it probably won't surprise anyone that I own a keychain that says, "I Brake For Garage Sales".

Even non-collectors will use keychains as a way to advertise what interests them. Whether the subject of their devotion is a hobby, a television series, a film, or a band, chances are there's a keychain in support of it. I myself have a number of keychains that 'cross over' into other areas that interest me. There are several things besides keychains that I collect or have collected over the years, and when these other collectables have shown up in keychain form, well, I just couldn't resist buying them. I collect Barbie fashion dolls, so naturally I also have a collection of Barbie doll keychains from Basic Fun Inc.

As a child my favorite animals were dolphins and turtles, and I collected both in plush form. So it makes sense that I have dolphin and turtle plush keychains.

Actually, I'm drawn to pretty much any keychain with a dolphin or turtle design.

There are other things that I no longer collect, but I still have a reminder of my past interest in keychain form. Things like...marbles.

At one time I had quite an extensive collection of marbles. What makes this really odd is the fact that I never actually learned to play marbles. I was just drawn to the pretty colors of the glass.

I also had a rock collection when I was a kid.

My dad got me into rock and mineral collecting, but I lost interest later in life. However, as you can see from the photo above, I still have quite a number of rock and mineral keychains. I have no idea which minerals most of them are made from. I think the one with the jagged edges might be Irish marble, and the two at the top of the picture are a geode of some kind and, I think, a piece of coal.

The whitish rock with the brown tip in this second photo is citrine, according to the tag. The clear rock is most likely quartz, and I think the egg shaped stone with the mirror-like finish is hematite.

However, it wasn't just my other collections that influenced my choice of keychains. It was also my hobbies.

I've been known to dabble in a number of crafts, including card making, scrapbooking,

and jewelry making.

For the record, I didn't actually make the beaded keychains in the photos above. They were made by two different women, who sold their creations to me at different flea markets.

As for fandoms that I support or have supported in the past, I'm enough of a Star Wars fan that I own several Star Wars keychains.

However, my support for the franchise stops with the original trilogy. I only watched the first of the three prequel films, and I won't watch the newer films, mostly because I've heard enough about the films' plots to know that I don't really want to see them. I'd rather pretend that things went well for the characters after Return Of The Jedi.

For those of you who have enjoyed the subsequent movies, I hope I haven't offended you. I have nothing against people who are fully committed to the Star Wars franchise. I'm just not one of those people. Now, you may be wondering why one of the Star Wars keychains pictured above is from Episode I, since I already stated that I don't really acknowledge the prequels. I just thought the keychain's design of a lightsaber battle in silhouette looked cool.

I also have a fondness for Star Trek.

My paternal grandfather loved Star Trek, and my dad is a fan of the original series. I myself watched Star Trek Voyager in the later seasons, and I even checked out the first few episodes of Enterprise, back when it was originally broadcast. I'm pretty sure that the spaceship keychain pictured above is meant to represent a Klingon Bird Of Prey. The shape seems right, although the color scheme may be a tad off.

I don't think this next keychain actually has anything to do with Star Trek. But it does say USS Enterprise on it, so I can pretend.

I guess that's about it as far as my fan loyalties go. I sort of gave up on television a few years ago, and I rarely go to the multiplex. The sound system there is just too loud for me. There are a few franchises that I'm trying to finish acquiring on dvd. But I don't have any keychains for them, yet. I'm not actually sure how much tie-in merchandise was produced, if any. So, if anyone happens to know where I can buy licensed keychains for either Mystery Science Theater 3000 or Discovery Channel's Mythbusters series, please leave me a comment.

Signed, Treesa

Clip Or Keychain, Is There A Difference?

I used to have the opinion that anything with a clip type attachment wasn't really a keychain. In my mind, keychains were designed to store keys, while clips were designed to hang from backpacks or purses. Clips were glorified zipper pulls, as far as I was concerned, and didn't belong in my collection. However, my narrow, black-and-white viewpoint did allow for some grey areas. If something had a traditional split ring along with a clip type attachment, like the example below (made by Applause) of Piglet from Disney's Winnie The Pooh popping out of a watering can, then I still considered it a keychain.

Sometimes I even took the clip attachment off, if it was one of those large, plastic clips. At the time, I was still set on earning a World Record for the World's Largest Keychain Collection, and I think I was worried that at some future date someone was going to challenge me and say that something 'didn't count' because it wasn't really a keychain.

Then something happened that threw a monkey wrench into my whole system. Basic Fun Inc. began producing their licensed keychains with a new type of attachment that had more in common with a clip than a traditional split ring, yet the packaging still labeled the items as keychains. The "Birthday Barbie" keychain shown below is one such example.

I'd been collecting Basic Fun Inc.'s keychains for a long time, starting with their Barbie line, and this change threw me for a loop. I still loved Basic Fun's products. The question was, were they really still keychains, or had they become something else?

I eventually decided that, if the product packaging said that they were keychains, then they were keychains. Besides, the new attachment was different enough from a more traditional "lobster clasp" style clip that I could sort of convince myself that they were two different things. However, I still keep any keychains I own that only have a clip type attachment in a separate box, just in case.

Signed, Treesa