a magpie likes to collect little gems and trinkets. So an inner-magpie refers to someone who likes to collect or hoard stuff, and also that instinct of doing so.

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Note added at 23 hrs (2007-02-24 14:41:08 GMT)
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http://www.northcoastjournal.com/SEP95/HISTORY_.HTM

Lunch boxes were hot items to collect a while back, she said, but then so many people were investing in them that the value eventually went down. "Sometimes you can guess wrong," she said.

Israel confesses to being a "magpie collector," but she is trying to wean herself from the addiction.

"Some people seem to be magnets for things and the only way you cure it is to not go out and look," she says with a wry grin.


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Note added at 1 day4 mins (2007-02-24 14:53:48 GMT)
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http://sucka-sc.arlette.us/

One day when I was there to fix yet another of my parents’ computer problems, I spied a yellowing book tucked into a plastic bin full of doll clothes with ripped seams. My own inner magpie, honed by a childhood spent in Goodwill and Salvation Army stores, knew it was something good. I picked it up, the cracking Mylar dust jacket flaking in my hand, and checked out the illustration on the front.

> Juliazou: 各位说得都很有道理，可是不好放到整个句子的翻译里去呀。要不然稍微意译一下呢？
这款手机将成为您收藏单上最想要的东西。请各位指正，谢谢！

I agree with what you're saying. IMO the important thing in translating terms or phrases like this, is to understand their basic meaning, and how they are typically used. Once that is achieved, one could decide on the nuances of how these terms/phases are used in a particular context. The rendering into the target language should come naturally and instinctively.




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Note added at 1 day20 mins (2007-02-24 15:09:08 GMT)
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BTW, it also refers to someone's ability to spot something worthwhile among an enormous amount of items that overwhelms, like a magpie with keen eyes.

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Note added at 1 day40 mins (2007-02-24 15:29:38 GMT)
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More for your reference ...

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/11/18/1100748128612.h...

Swift affirmed the magpie-like acquisitiveness of the creative imagination: "It is in the nature of literature that books may derive from or be influenced by others. Equally, there are certain things for which there is no literary patent or monopoly." The Belgian-Australian writer Pierre Ryckmans, who has published fiction under the pen name Simon Leys, was blunter and more acerbic, commenting that Frow's attack "betrays a level of understanding of the creative process that only a professor of deconstructive semiotics could reach".