The standard narrative in the history of the life sciences focuses on the rise of experimentalism since the late nineteenth century and the concomitant decline of natural history. Here, I propose to reexamine this story by concentrating on a specific set of material and cognitive practices centered on collections. I show that these have been central for the production of knowledge not only in natural history, from the Renaissance to the present, but also in the experimental sciences. Reframing the history of the life sciences in this way makes historical continuities visible and raises new possibilities to contextualize recent developments in science, such as the proliferation of databases and their growing use.