Fun Galore Awaits Your Here-Choose What You Like Most

BEFORE you answer that question, you'll want to know just what a hobby is. To most people it means "Making something or collecting something interesting." It's work that is really more pleasure than work.

Usually, it has to do with variations of the same object-like stamps from various countries, or Indian arrowheads of different sizes, or lapel buttons from past political campaigns.

A well-chosen hobby, one that particularly appeals to you yourself, will give a zest to your life beyond anything you've experienced before. It will give you new interment. Supplying the needs of America's vast army of hobbyists has become big business. Factories with incomes of millions of dollars annually cater to the wants of those persons who are following specialized hobbies.

Boys usually run their hobbies for either pleasure or profit, or both. You'll probably get more pleasure than profit, unless you can count pleasure itself as a gain (as you will). A wide variety can be started without a cent of cost, like collecting bottle caps or match covers. Yet many a lad has later found that he started something he couldn't ests, new "horizons," new pep. What's more, as was the case with Thomas A. Edison and Henry Ford, your hobbies may point the way later to a lifetime career.

Hobbies, for a long time, have been very characteristic of this country, and America has often been called the hobby center of the world. More money is spent annually on hobbies in the United States than in any other country on earth. From old-fashioned whittling to polarized-light microscopy, a thousand and one spare-time interests provide Americans with relaxation and amusefinish, alas! without making some slight profit for himself at the same time.

If you want to start a hobby of your own, here are two helpful hints:

(1) ;Do it for fun only, at least at first.

(2) ;Start simply; that is, with little or no investment other than your time and effort.

After you've gotten away to a good start, you can then branch out into lines that may cost a little money; can conduct your hobby for profit as well as fun; and can occasionally get together with others who are interested in the same things you are.

What are the most popular hobbies ? Yesterday, so to speak, it was estimated that 19,000,000 amateur camera fans clicked their shutters 600,000,000 times to record still pictures in the United States. They spent, during a one-year period, $100,000,-000 for film, supplies and new equipment.

Besides America's 19,000,000 still camera fans, there are some 500,000 home movie enthusiasts.

Stamp collecting, another favorite hobby, has more than 12,000,000 followers of all ages. Many stamp enthusiasts are buying stamps as an investment as well as a hobby. A New York newspaper once carried this advertisement: "An entire lovely island, south shore, Massachusetts. Will consider exchange for North American stamp collection." There are, experts say, more than 15 collections in the United States worth $1,000,000 apiece.

Conservative estimates, only a few years ago, put amateur musicians at 10,000,000. When the first national high-school band competition was held in Chicago in 1923, only 25 bands competed. In more recent years as many as 5,000 take part in the sectional and national competitions. Many a professional musician today started out by adopting music only as pastime.

The whine of midget gas engines, the whir of miniature plane propellers, the metallic chatter of model railroad trains provide music to the ears of more than 2,250,000 Americans. Today model airplanes come close to heading this list with boys. (One instructor alone has recently supervised the cutting of balsa sticks for more than 10,000 model planes.)

In addition to the leading hobbies given above, in more than 2,000,000 home workshops American hobbyists are finding fun working with tools and making things of wood and metal. Stemming from one of the most time-honored hobbies of all, whittling, home craftwork has branched out in many directions: woodworking, carving, furniture-making and metal work.

In considering your own individual interests, you may find that you will prefer one of the more usual type of hobbies, where you'll have quite a bunch of fellow fans, such as collecting coins, book matches, stamps, minerals, woods, butterflies or autographs; engaging in gardening, knot tying, photography, nature study or radio-or making an aquarium for tropical fish or a feeder-house for birds or various types of ship models or a homemade museum display.

Or your taste may run to some of the less obvious hobbies. Here you will be more "on your own"-like those who make silhouette pictures out of leaves, collect unusual playing cards, make miniature furniture, collect certain types of photographs, cook fancy barbecue dishes, save different kinds of war posters, go in for guns, save front pages of newspapers recording historic events, make useful articles out of junk, amass tiny bottles of every conceivable shape and color and design, or collect spoons, tin foil, war relics, pipes, hats, neckties, buttons, poultry, goats or rabbits. One hobbyist collects pencils of all sizes, styles and shapes. Numbering more than 7,000 individual items, coming from all parts of the world, this unusual collection includes more than 2,500 mechanical pencils.

Last, but far from least, there's the whole field of sports.

Listed on the following page are a few of the obvious and more unusual types of hobbies, to help you in choosing your own.

Catalog Of Simple Hobbies

You Can "Collect" These

Obvious

Antiques

Autographs

Bottles

Bottle Caps

Clamps

Coins

Guns

Indian Relics Match Covers

Spoons Tin Foil

Unusual Photographs War Relics

Unusual Bells

Bird Eggs Butterflies

Buttons

Cigarette Cards

Cartoons

Feathers

Hats

Jokes

Lapel Buttons Minerals

Miniatures of Every Description

Neckties

Newspapers Front Pages

Pencils Pipes

Playing Cards Soil

War Posters Woods

You May Make Profit On These

Obvious

Bees

Cats

Canaries

Dogs

Goats

Goldfish

Parrots

Pigeons

Poultry

Rabbits

Unusual

Backyard Carnival Community History

Neighborhood Newspaper

Mowing Lawns

Painting

Phonograph Record Exchange

Printing

You Can Make These

Obvious

Basket Weaving

Chair Caning

Clay Modeling

Hammer and Saw Projects

Jigsaw Projects

Model Airplanes

Model Railways

Model Racers

Model Ships

Photographs

Radios

Scrap Books

Telegraphs

Whittling and Wood Carving

Wood Burning

Unusual

Ant Colony in Glass Backyard Carnivals Backyard Shelters

Barbecue Cooking

Feeder House for Birds

Home Movies

Homemade Museum Display

Knot Tying

Miniature Furniture

Paper and Cardboard Gadgets

Tin Can Projects

Tropical Aquarium

Useful Articles from Junk

You Can Take Part In These

Obvious

Badminton

Baseball

Basketball

Boating

Bowling

Camping

Cycling

Fishing

Football

Games

Gardening

Handball

Hiking

Hockey

Wrestling

Hunting and Trapping

Kite Flying

Magic

Nature Study

Reading

Scouting

Skating

Skiing

Softball

Swimming and Diving

Table Tennis

Tennis

Touch Football Track Volley Ball

Unusual

Archery Codes

Exploring Caves

Horseback Riding

Pitching Horseshoes

Playing Cards

Rope Throwing

Science Stunts

Shooting

Welfare Work

Shuffleboard Writing