Wagga collectors insist there's calm and catharsis to be found in their hobby

It's dark and it takes a second to make out where it's coming from, but once your eyes adjust, dozens of old oil cans come into view, each one neatly stacked, each one in its rightful place.

They're almost colour-coded, all different shapes and sizes, and while that may sound odd to someone without oily ephemera on their walls, to the eye it all makes sense, it's aesthetically pleasing.

It's not just cans, there's the old Caltex sign from the Kooringal servo, there's old antique petrol pumps, an old tractor he's turned into a table, a Big Buck Hunter game and a set of traffic lights.

There's also two huge Red Rooster signs in his backyard. He found them at the Wagga Tip Shop and they're the rare items that he might sell.

"I thought, 'that would be good for someone for their man cave'," he said. "Everyone is into something different."

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That is becoming increasingly true as collecting, buying, swapping and selling has taken off in recent years.

American TV shows like American Pickers and Pawnstars have driven millions into bargain-hunting, according to Riverina Pickers co- owner Claire O'Keefe.

More recently, people decluttering during COVID, along with the cost of living crisis, has led to an "explosion" of swapping and collecting.

Online trading has had the biggest impact on the industry, Mrs O'Keefe said.

"The only way they could do it 20-plus years ago was go to a flea market or an op shop and hope to find that obscure item they'd always wanted, and that was hard," she said.

"Now everyone can get online and they may have something very specific they're searching for ... and that's been a huge explosion for collectables and people wanting to find a bargain."

The Collectables Market was valued around US$360 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow annually by around 4 per cent from 2022-2028.

Mrs O'Keefe and her husband Ben have owned Riverina Pickers for 12 years. They go to people's houses who might be decluttering, or perhaps an estate sale. They encounter people struggling with cost of living pressures who are now seeing dollar signs in those old items in the spare room.

But the industry is in transition, she said, less antiquities and more nostalgia collecting as generation X look for those items that bring them back to childhood.

"They want to relive that Christmas morning, opening the Millennium Falcon and they want to have that moment again or have that moment they never had in the first place," she said.

"They're the new generation of collectors, which is where we're moving into things from the 70s, the 80s, the 90s."

Mrs O'Keefe has a history degree and has always had an affinity for old and storied items, while Mr O'Keefe's father was an avid collector, so the industry became second nature to them both.

They aren't really collectors themselves, but Mrs O'Keefe does have one thing which brings memories back.

"My mum had a set of four Pyrex bowls. They were blue and white and called snowflake and I bought those bowls and then I bought more and I bought more and I bought more ... and that's the one thing I collect," she said.

She thinks for many people, collecting can be about controlling the things around them.

"I think it's probably a sense of control, but it brings real happiness bringing this stuff back into your life."

Mr Keppie can't really put his finger on why he collects things, he just does. If he had to narrow it down, the "thrill of the hunt" could be one reason, as well as "meeting different characters out in the bush".

"If I've got a sign, and someone has an oil can, I'll swap, it's just bartering," he said. "I've always been dragging home junk."

His collection is 20 years old at this point, but in the past decade his collecting has taken on a new significance after he was knocked down and seriously injured by a car. At the time, he wasn't sure he'd walk again and he's been "pensioned off" ever since.

What he does know is that collecting makes him feel good, it passes the time and, if he really thinks about it, it's probably good for his mental health.

Sydney collector Claudia Chan Shaw thinks a lot of collectors have a very "emotional response" to their collections. Ms Chan Shaw is an author and co-host of Antiques DownUnder on 9Gem and she said most collecting can be traced back to childhood.

"With my own tin toy collecting or my Warner Brothers animation cells, it's all based on stuff I saw on TV as a kid," she said.

There are a few different stages to collecting that make the whole experience "cathartic", Ms Chan Shaw said.

"The satisfaction in collecting the thing in the first place and the process you go through," she said.

"Then the process of unwrapping and revealing it, if you've bought it on eBay or online, and it arrives.

"Then the idea that you're going to then display it, and you do that generally lovingly ... there's this cathartic satisfaction of the presentation of the object because generally collectors are proud of what they're doing, unlike a hoarder who has shame issues."

Josh Light takes great satisfaction in displaying his collection. He's the owner of Buried Treasure & Collectables located in a large industrial shed, which is meticulously cluttered, in Turvey Park.

It's home to his large collection of tobacciana, garagenalia, vintage Coke machines, 1940s radios and anything else that takes his fancy. Everything is lovingly displayed and everything has a price, if pushed, he said.

Collecting helps him indulge his love of history, he gets an excited look on his face as he imagines the past life of an item, or discusses the history of a ship's bell in a nearby display case.

Mr Light started collecting basketball cards as a kid in the 90s, and then started taking it seriously as a uni student as a way to earn some money and avoid eating two-minute noodles.

But he finds peace in the process of collecting, meeting others, travelling to find a piece and his mind is calmed by "tinkering" with old items, trying to bring them back to life.

"For me personally, when I lost my dad it was about ... holding onto those memories and everything here I can revert back to my dad in some way, that does help with my mental health," he said.

There is one item which he wouldn't sell for a million dollars.

"The chainsaw up there, it was my dad's, he passed away in 2015, it's the nostalgia and the memories" he said.

"The hours and hours we would be cutting wood for our winters up at home."

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