The only way you stumble across the latter is when you learn by happenstance that an important item of Jim's has fallen into the hands of one of these individuals. For example, some years ago on Halloween night in a small southern Illinois town, there was an auction "by invitation only" of some Reeves items that had been obtained from Ed Gregory, the then-owner of the estate. Two men flew in from New York and bought a bunch of stuff, including much of Mary's collection of turquoise jewelry.
Then there is the guy from the Midwest (not me) who walked off with $15,000 worth of tapes and home movies of Jim's. To my knowledge, none of these things have ever surfaced.
Over the years various Reeves collectors have died and their collections been lost. I know of one case where a dear friend of mine (who was Jim's Iowa fan club rep) fell ill, and her sister (who was jealous of her relationship with Reeves), took all of my friend's Jim collection out into a field and BURNED IT. My friend recovered from her illness and learned of this horrible action and demanded to know why her sister had done such a thing. Of course, there was no logical explanation other than jealousy.
Recently some very rare items of Jim's have been auctioned off by someone living in the Washington, D.C. metro area who is very mysterious and one wonders how this person acquired the items to begin with.
I used to know a guy in the Reeves circles who was a huge collector and had many recordings of Jim's and other ephemera. One day he told me about a particular piece of office equipment that he had purchased that I also needed for my office, and he shared with me where he had gotten it and for a good price. Then he commented "I bought three of them!" I said "why would you buy THREE?" He proceeded to explain that when he bought something, he would always buy "an extra two to put away for a rainy day." So he bought large items in triplicate, and had to store the other two. He literally had to rent storage space to do this. I don't know if he was fearing a nuclear holocaust and felt that he might be one of the only people surviving on earth who had these things or what. But it was surely eccentric...and expensive.
My point in bringing all this up is I ran across an article in the Scientific American magazine on HOARDING SYNDROME. I believe a lot of these crazy collectors, who are unwilling to share items with anybody else, fall into this category.
Now I am not implying that everyone who owns something of Jim's is a hoarder. I myself have a few items. But when it comes to his music, I think my track record is pretty clear by now: I share it with the fans. Most others do NOT.
This is what the magazine says about this mental condition:
No one wants to throw away something that might later prove to be useful or valuable. But a person who compulsively acquires items most people would view as worthless -- and is unable to discard anything without experiencing intense anxiety -- may suffer from hoarding disorder, a condition psychiatric experts have recently recognized as a unique disorder.
Why people hoard. Researchers aren't exactly sure what causes hoarding, but many people who develop hoarding disorder experienced a stressful or traumatic event as a child or adult. In a study of 751 adults with hoarding disorder, 94 percent had gone through a major relationship change, such as divorce or death of a loved one; 76 percent had experienced violence or abuse; 70 percent had financial problems; and 61 percent had experienced loss of or damage to possessions.
Recent research on hoarding suggests that people who develop the disorder might have differences in how their brain functions. People who hoard may have abnormal activity in the anterior cingulated cortex and insula -- areas of the brain linked to making decisions and identifying the emotional significance of items; together these difficulties could make it hard for them to throw things away.
Hoarding in older adults. Hoarding is more common in older adults, and some research suggests the disorder might get worse with increasing age, although the evidence is mixed. Because of physical and cognitive limitations, older adults may be more prone to hoarding-related health risks, including falling, fire, poor hygiene, poor nutrition, difficulty taking medications and insect infestations.
One study found that in older adults, the severity of hoarding symptoms was strongly linked to problems with executive function -- a set of mental processes such as working memory and concentration that people use to plan, organize and manage their time and attention. These deficits may also make it difficult for older adults to participate in or be helped by cognitive-behavioral therapy for hoarding disorder.
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The people that made fun of Terry Davis because of his fondness for cats (at one point said to be 100 to 200 cats in the Reeves home, and also at the museum) should stop to consider there are collectors in the Reeves world who are far more eccentric in their hoarding habits. It's just that they hoard Jim's priceless items, not cats.
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