The “unmaterialistic” salesman

Do you collect anything? I have a confession: despite making a living by selling physical objects, I personally have zero interest in “things.” Consequently, I have no desire to collect them. However, I am intensely interested in them as “investment assets.” I have no wish list for myself, yet I find myself obsessed with the money game. I am a strange, irrational creature, and I often baffle even myself. Lately, watches have become the ultimate target for collectors looking for returns; according to the Knight Frank Luxury Investment Index, the watch market has seen a staggering 140% return over the past decade.

But before I was a calculated investor, I was a 10-year-old “Sticker King.”

Statistics say that about 70% of children under the age of six are “collectomaniacs.” I was no exception. At ten years old, my life revolved around the stickers that came with chocolate cookies. I still remember a specific day: I was in my mother’s car when I saw a girl in the car next to us. Driven by a primal urge to impress, I pressed my rarest, most valuable sticker against the glass to show it off to her. My mother was horrified. “Stop it! That’s embarrassing!” she hissed.

I didn’t understand her shame then, but that was the moment I retired from the sticker game. (Though, ever the opportunist, I made a small fortune for a ten-year-old by selling my rare collection to my classmates shortly after.)

The blind collector: Valentino Zagatti

Years later, I discovered a story that made me rethink my mother’s embarrassment and my own cold, investment-driven mind. If you love whisky, you know the name Valentino Zagatti. He built one of the most incredible whisky collections in the world—over 3,000 bottles gathered over half a century.

But here is the remarkable part: Zagatti went blind at the age of eleven, long before he bought his first bottle. He never saw the beautiful labels, nor did he “display” them to impress people like I did with my stickers. He didn’t even collect them for “returns” like I might today. He collected for the history and the soul of the spirit.

Unlike the 10-year-old me seeking vanity, or the adult me seeking 140% returns, Zagatti collected as a way to connect with a world he couldn’t see. He saw value where others only saw prices or trophies.

The Oda Collection: 1,350 masterpieces of seating

This brings me back to my home, Asahikawa. We are the mecca of wooden furniture, partly because we are home to one of the world’s most significant chair collectors: Noritsugu Oda.

The Oda Collection consists of about 1,350 chairs, including virtually every masterpiece in the history of design. Like Zagatti’s whisky, these aren’t just assets on a balance sheet; they are the ultimate expression of how human beings have tried to balance art with the simple, physical act of sitting.

I highly recommend visiting Asahikawa just to see this collection. It’s a place where you can move past the childish urge to “show off” or the greedy urge to “invest,” and instead feel the weight of history and craftsmanship in every curve of wood.

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Photo Credit: https://odacollection.jp/

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