What's in your collection?

[Mergingtraffic]

As roadgeeks what do you have in your road collection?

Signs?
Photos (roads, interchanges, signs)?
Hard copies of EISs?
Plans?
Newspaper articles?

[froggie]

You could've started with what you have yourself...

(as for me, I have "all of the above", but only a few signs)

[Pete from Boston]

Former Federal Highway Administrator Rodney E. Slater, in a small but comfortable closet in my basement.

[Rothman]

Hard copies of EISs?

I'd wonder about the quality of the person's social life if they collected EISes.

"Have you ever read one of these?!  They're page turners!"

[SignGeek101]

Lots of pictures, uploaded to my Flickr, some highway manuals, construction project plans, and a computer with the tools required to make mockup signs.

I wish I had real signs though. I've been tempted to buy one. But considering I live with my parents, I think they would be very concerned if I showed up with a Manitoba Hwy 75 shield in my room or something 

[Pete from Boston]

Hard copies of EISs?

I'd wonder about the quality of the person's social life if they collected EISes.

"Have you ever read one of these?!  They're page turners!"

I was given something like this once for the unbuilt 1980s New Jersey Turnpike widening in Hudson and Bergen Counties.  It was like crack on paper.  The easy availability of documents today makes us forget how hard-fought any interesting info was then.

[kurumi]

A couple hundred maps
About 3,500 photos (count of "Photos" directory tree)
About 10,000 other files (same, one level up)
A long banker box worth of hardcopy docs (various)
Some PR schwag regarding the 215/515 interchange (coffee mug, visor clip, etc.)
US 395 IPA (way too hoppy, keeping the last one unopened)
US 66 cream soda (unopened)
CA 89 cycling T-shirt
A Connecticut Turnpike token
A Hartford area toll bridges ticket
3 issues of California Highways
Houston Freeways book (fellow roadgeek Erik Slotboom)
3 books on the Merritt Parkway
A desiccated, withered monkey's paw with one wish left (previously used for I-691 completion and UConn 1999 championship)

[andrewkbrown]

-36"x36" Interstate 71 sign
-24"x24" Interstate 275 sign
-24"x24" US 40 sign
-24"x24" US 50 sign
-24"x24" US 22 sign
-24"x24" US 33 sign
-Parking restriction sign from the 1965 Presidential Inauguration
-A working Duncan Model 60 parking meter
-An Ohio Dept. of Highways smudgepot (wick intact, I've filled it with kerosene and lit it once)
-An Ohio Dept. of Highways oil lamp with red lens (also tested and lit in the past)

[TravelingBethelite]

A couple hundred maps
About 3,500 photos (count of "Photos" directory tree)
About 10,000 other files (same, one level up)
A long banker box worth of hardcopy docs (various)
Some PR schwag regarding the 215/515 interchange (coffee mug, visor clip, etc.)
US 395 IPA (way too hoppy, keeping the last one unopened)
US 66 cream soda (unopened)
CA 89 cycling T-shirt
A Connecticut Turnpike token
A Hartford area toll bridges ticket
3 issues of California Highways
Houston Freeways book (fellow roadgeek Erik Slotboom)
3 books on the Merritt Parkway
A desiccated, withered monkey's paw with one wish left (previously used for I-691 completion and UConn 1999 championship)

Define "other" files. As for me, I've always wanted an Interstate/US/State (preferably Connecticut) route shield, but I don't want to resort to stealing. (Or do I?  ) I have about 570 (road) pictures and 10-12 license plates, my prized possession being a (rusted) 1927 New York plate someone found in a junkyard and was about to throw away.

[US71]

As roadgeeks what do you have in your road collection?

Signs?
Photos (roads, interchanges, signs)?
Hard copies of EISs?
Plans?
Newspaper articles?

Everything except maybe plans, unless you count house plans.  I also have a few postcards and a couple car tags. Do book matches count? [emoji13]

MB886

[noelbotevera]

I'm starting a collection of PA paper maps. I want to start with other states because in here, Staples and some bookstores sell paper maps. I only have two paper maps: 1 from the state capitol my mom gave me from 2015, and (technically) 1 "paper map" (really a book of zoomed in maps of areas of the state) from 2009. I can't really find any historical ones unless I dig in Amazon.

[DaBigE]

• A working traffic signal
• Barricade flasher (just needs batteries)
• Roughly a half-dozen road signs
• Two partial rolls of 3M sign sheeting
• Four button copy letters
• Hundreds/(thousands?) of photos (not really sure which since I've been too lazy to organize most of them, in addition to having physical photos just sitting in a box)
• Several news clippings
• About two-dozen electronic plan sets
• Dozens of die-cast vehicles

There's probably more, but anything more blurs into the stuff I need/use for work (hardcopy of the MUTCD, traffic cones, etc.)

[Rothman]

Hard copies of EISs?

I'd wonder about the quality of the person's social life if they collected EISes.

"Have you ever read one of these?!  They're page turners!"

I was given something like this once for the unbuilt 1980s New Jersey Turnpike widening in Hudson and Bergen Counties.  It was like crack on paper.  The easy availability of documents today makes us forget how hard-fought any interesting info was then.

To each their own, then.

[kurumi]

About 3,500 photos (count of "Photos" directory tree)
About 10,000 other files (same, one level up)

Define "other" files.

Softcopy or scans of newspaper articles, project documents, notes, publications, etc. All road-related.

[roadman]

Highlights from my collection.  Large bunch of old MassDPW photos (mostly of signs) that I rescued from the office dumpster many years ago.  A copy of every Federal MUTCD issued from 1961 onward.  A copy of the MassDPW 1966 MUTCD.  Copies of the 1961 and 1972 AASHO Interstate Signing Manuals.  Copies of Massachusetts and Mass Turnpike maps from the mid-1970s to present.  Also have some late 1960s sales brochures from 3M, as well as a 1968 brochure and salesman's sample (button copy lowercase 'e' on porcelain background) from Cameo.

Only have two road signs - a late 1960s City of Boston spec "No Left Turn" sign and a mid-1970s Mass Turnpike Authority spec "One Way" sign.  Lastly, I have one of the little orange "OD-XX"  markers that Liddell Brothers uses to mark the locations of new overhead sign foundations on their projects in Massachusetts.

[triplemultiplex]

An I-794 cutout and a street sign with my name that came with a ~.30 caliber bullet hole in it.

[Mergingtraffic]

You could've started with what you have yourself...

Oops forgot that part:

Mostly sign pics I've taken myself, they're all on Flickr.
10 traffic cones including a yellow one from the 60s
A merge sign
embossed No Parking Driveway sign with a rusted bottom
One plastic barrel manufactured in 1983
PDF plans of a few contracts (widening and BGS signing) of CT, MA, NJ, NY

[freebrickproductions]

Let's see: I have some signs, a few traffic lights, and several dozen gigabytes worth of photos, mostly of traffic lights and signs.

[Jim]

Let's see.

- Tens of thousands of pictures
- 20+ years of Rand McNally atlases marked up with travels
- assorted guide books and other travel-related books
- a box of maps and other items collected on the roads
- a 55% filled-in county-counting map
- a nice start on the Travel Mapping system implementation with many roads clinched on my own maps there

Never had any interest in collecting signs or signals or anything like that.

[6a]

Just a couple of signs. I love this one:

[Henry]

As I said, I have lots of Rand McNally atlases that have been marked up with my own fictional highway ideas. One day, I will show them off for all to see

[Sam]

A printed copy of the 1970 "Official Description of Touring Routes in New York State"

A 1983 DeLorme New York Atlas and Gazeteer marked up with all my notes and doodles from my teenage exploring years

A couple photos stolen from the Internet of the old-style NY Thruway BBSes

An irrational fear of mileage-based exit numbering

And a single W10-1 Highway-Rail Grade Crossing Advance Warning sign, left in the garage by the previous owner. 

[Scott5114]

Signs:
1926-spec Oklahoma US 62
1948-spec Michigan US 12
1957-spec Oklahoma I-40
Oklahoma I-35
CA 118
OK 1
STOP

Too many maps to enumerate.
Paperback copy of the 2009 MUTCD.
A copy of the OkDOT Control Section Map Book.
A few newspaper articles about roads that I used as reference for various Wikipedia articles and have kept around in case I need to check them again.
A folder of promotional material about the I-40 realignment in downtown OKC that was handed out at its grand opening.

[Rothman]

I don't have that much roadgeek stuff.  I've got a 1949 Rand McNally deluxe atlas and an I-86 promotional shield that was used at various meetings as the initial NY 17 / I-86 conversion got going.

I wish I had an old Mountain Parkway shield with the Bert T. Combs name plate, though.

[formulanone]

About a dozen state maps, fifteen license plates, a broken lane reflector, a tiny reflector sign that I found in the weeds, two RMN atlases, a Florida gazetteer, and a chunk of loosened asphalt (from US 66 outside Miami).

Also, about 20 negative print photos and twenty thousand digital ones that I haven't found much time to sift through.