Thimbles

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Thimble Collections

***** This article discusses the advantages of collecting thimbles. It discusses things to consider when starting a collection. These identifying your area of interest, narrowing the field, helping a child collect, joining a society and displaying your collection.

Thimbles

Although the earliest thimbles were bronze, found in the ruins of Pompeii, thimbles were used by every culture from Asia Minor to the Amazon. Is it any wonder that collectors flock to thimbles, a collecting area that offers them so much variety? With so many time periods, materials, designs and uses, thimbles can be collected alone or combined with other items and grouped in a variety of ways.

The first collectible commemorative thimble was issued for the 1851 Great Exhibition in Hyde Park.

Many great thimble collections are available in books, slide shows, VHS tapes or DVDs. These can be purchased from thimble collector’s societies, internet web sites, or museums for a nominal price and viewed over and over again.  Viewing a great collection will familiarize the collector with provenance, the story behind the thimble, as well as providing tips on how to do one’s own research.

 The Fingerhut Museum in Germany has the largest thimble collection in the world, more than 3000 items. Many other museums also have extensive thimble collections and may offer lectures on the subject.  Typically, the collector is an expert in a particular area of thimble collecting who has done a lot of research on his/her collection and has much to add to the body of knowledge.

 However, all thimble collections are not historical. In fact, a collection can be built around any theme. Complete collections of the 50 states, astrology signs or characters from literature can also be very interesting and informative.  Even modern thimbles can be elusive. Sometimes a collector has spent years trying to find the one rare thimble in a series to complete a collection.

 Sometimes it is even possible to purchase a thimble collection intact.  A grouping of related thimbles is always more valuable than the sum of its parts.  Keeping an historical collection together can be an important contribution to our knowledge about thimbles and is an excellent way to get a head start on your own collection.