The Culture Around Collecting
It has seems like a lifetime ago when I opened Blacktop Depot, an Automobilia Store that bought and sold; “COOL OLD STUFF”.
All our patrons and consigners were a community. A community that dates back to the earliest of man. A community built on having things that other people wanted. Possessing something that others want and need is the highest definition of success. Ancient humans would go out to the desert, mountains, jungle and waters to get food or sustenance or something of value for the family and the community. Along the way they would find things that made their lives richer. Maybe it was an interesting rock shape that could help them as a tool. A stick to be used as a weapon. A hide to use as covering. They became experts at things. Making weapons, building huts, hunting game, or tending the family.
Today we see this drive to obtain things in our collector community. With basic food and shelter confirmed, they hunt for remnants of a simpler time, something to remind them of their family or heritage.
Today the hunt has gotten much easier. With the internet and online auction sites we can search for those items of nostalgia rather easily. With expedited shipping, I can have it in my hands within a couple days if not hours. I don’t have to trudge through the wilderness to find that treasure. I don’t have to dive down the deepest depths to find that treasure. I don’t have to have a near-death experience to find that treasure. It comes to me, at the door, in a package.
It wasn’t that long ago either. It wasn’t but a few years when you had to, at least, go out to the swap meet, or the estate sale to find that treasure. Before that, you had to know of a family member or friend that was off-loading some cool old stuff. It almost seems like cheating somehow now, doesn’t it.
Does the treasure lose value if it was an easy get?
I liked the roll I played at Blacktop Depot, meeting all the customers, and sellers. I would hear tons of stories, sometimes too many, of stuff they had, stuff they lost, stuff they want. I would organize the items my partner Chris Unger would pick, or items we would take in on consignment around the store. I enjoyed displaying them in neat or interesting motifs. I never thought of myself as a collector until then. When I realized how much joy I had in organizing and displaying the goods.
My wife Tracy and I would watch American Pickers and she would get amazed at all the “junk” these people had rotting away in a garage, barn or house. The stuff would be piled in there with no care in the world. A mess. Digging through the mess is what the show was about. The stuff that was forgotten. Put away to make room for the other stuff, the treasures. Like layers in the earth, pickers are archeologists of ephemera. So we have to beg the question:
Are they collectors or hoarders?
The way I see it is if the items are all in a mess thrown on top of each other in no particular order, then it is hoarding. If the items are organized well and kept up, then I call it a collection.
I have been collecting quite a bit of toy cars. I guess it happened deep in the beginning of the pandemic, when a neighbor on the block behind me had passed away and there was a couple of guys at the house, cleaning it up for an estate sale. An Estate Sale which they couldn’t advertise, (not even signs on the street) because of the lock-down. So I got first dibs on a lot of the car stuff this gentleman had. Mercury tail lights, Weiand finned aluminum valve covers, a whole bunch of Cool Old Stuff including Red, the Nylint Bronco and Rig, the 1950’s Ford Cross Country Freight truck. Those two items I kept and started picking up other toy vehicles, more Tonkas, Nylint, Hot Wheels, Slot Cars, Japanese Tin Toy Cars, etc. Then, I got in deep. It was another friend who brought in a Hot Wheels Rally Car Case full of really nice redline cars, that started my obsession with original redline Hot Wheels. First I went after all the “Sweet 16” then it was all the ones I remember having as a kid. Then complete the years 1969, and 1970 one of each. Then you have to find ones to replace the ones that are a bit rough and it never stops.
Sometimes I will look at one of these diecast cars and in an instance, I am transported in time. I am looking down and seeing myself playing with these cars. The color. Sometimes a color will spark a bright memory of that day, that time in my life, that lifetime ago. A good memory. Recently I was at a vintage toy store, of all things, and I picked up this Zowee Covered Draggin Wagon. I was holding it in my hand and when I looked at the wheels, all of a sudden, my hand was that of my 10 year old self, with my dad at the Shell station. I couldn’t get $10 out of my wallet fast enough. It sits on my desk right here to this day.
Be careful. You never know when this collecting thing hits and when it does, it can hit hard. It hits us in the cerebral cortex and sparks that DNA string from our Neanderthal brothers. Excuse me while I go out to hunt and gather.
