I got my first ten speed (raleigh grand prix) when i was .. well .. 10.
I inherited my second (dawes galaxy 1974) when my father passed away when I was 13.  I had helped him select it.
It was stolen when I was 15 so I bought my third (sekai 2500), with money earned from computer programming.
I guess at that point I was a collector, with 2 bikes.
I bought my fourth at age 18, from the paper "Schwinn Paramount, Camping Equipped" (a misspelling - P13-9, 6 years old, unridden).
The price was $300 used (in 1980), and at the time they cost $1000 new.
Next bike was a 1995 TREK 500 in 1986 when the SEKAI 2500 was stolen (roommates left the garage door open).
Next bike was a 1997 Schwinn moab after a sewer-grating accident destroyed the TREK 500 and gave me 53 stitches in my face.

In 2000 I bought a TREK 2300 (1998 model) 3 tubes carbon + golden aluminum rear triangle.
In 2002 the rear seatlug failed at 2k miles and I said, "to hell with non-steel bikes..." (image link)
I decided to get my childhood dream bike, a 1972 Raleigh International, 24.5", green. (image link)
That triumvirate (year, color, size) was very hard to find.
So a couple of years later I bought 2 badly-worn unloved frames on ebay and began looking for a painter (image link)
At first I chose cyclart but I had heard stories of decals installed upside-down by jim cunningham.
So I went to brian baylis and together we polished and rechromed the lugs and repainted the frames (image link)
I made 3 of the decals (I_n_t_e_r_n_a_t_i_o_n_a_l_, Made in England, and the 531 decals)
A 3rd "reference frame" gifted to me, was stripped by Brian's helper by mistake, so I have 3 repainted internationals.
While waiting for these repaints, I took the opportunity to buy a few more 1974 raleigh-carltons.
And ended up with almost a "full house" of 9 different 1974 10-speeds (no Raleigh Record).
That was the year  they introduced the Raleigh Team Pro and Super Tourer so it was "Peak Raleigh" for models.
I picked raleigh because it was BSC and they had clones of other bikes (gran sport = PX10, etc.)
My collection has a 1975 Team Pro (SB310) and a 1973 Competition but the the bikes are otherwise identical to 1974 models.
I also have few other Carltons that I got along the way (1950, 1967, 1971, 1977, 1978)
And an ALAN (1972) that was supposed to be a parts bike but I wasn't thinking straight,
since most of the parts are italian-threaded, not english-threaded, and my kids say "It's your most beautiful bike, dad!"
I am into rescues.  If the bikes doesn't need rescuing then I'm probably not into it.

Don Gillies
Palo Alto, CA