My Mother's Charms

My mother has a beautiful gold charm bracelet. It jingles when she walks and was a good warning system to stop misbehaving when the familiar clink of gold tapping against gold was heard. It was also good for hours of entertainment during dull church meetings. I'd go over each charm piece by piece, moving the arms of the windmill charm she got in Holland, opening the stein from Germany, changing the time on the tingly little Cuckoo Clock from Switzerland. My favorite was an abacus she purchased in Hong Kong. It's many little beads, and the idea that it was an ancient calculator fascinated me.
In the past few years, I've finally started creating my own charm bracelet. So far I have tiny castanets from Spain, a movable Pinocchio figure from Italy (sorry, can't turn the picture),

This fierce Dragon from Hong Kong.


And this crown from England.


I'm also getting charms for my girls, and plan to give them to them when they are older, and can appreciate them (and won't lose them!) So, what do you collect? What drives you to collect?

As a last thought, I'm not clever enough to come up with the header, "My Mother's Charms," on my own. I stole it from a book I saw last fall in Virginia. I'm sure it's a great book, but I haven't read it. If you have, what was it about?