Karud: the weapon that did not exist:-)

[fernando]

Originally Posted by A.alnakkas

... but isn't the line between a collector and a hoarder is a very fine line?

A question of personal perspective, perhaps. Although semanthics may not oblige, in my whereabouts we don't take the risk of such confusion, as we make a practical safe distinction between the two. We call collector (colector) any person or device that joins things in general, taxes, pipes, you name it, and we call 'collectionner' (coleccionador) a person or entity that puts up collections of selective things for appreciation and study; resulting that we are not general stuff collectors but antique arms collectionners. No line of any thickness between both ... but an empty space.
On the other hand one can't help to think of the hoarder term without a pejorative connotation; something like (quoting a crude english speaking source, font sizes included):

Hoarder:
(Adj) A word that describes anyone that feels the need to find, collect, keep, pack ANY and EVERYTHING because they do not know how to throw things away. A nicely put word than Pack Rat.