Rinker on Collectibles

RINKER ON COLLECTIBLES — Column #1754

Why Two Is Always Better Than One But Three Is Even Better

As collectors grow older, they become increasingly aware of the objects they have accumulated over their lifetime. First, the piles reached a point where display and storage space usually has maxed out. When Rinker Enterprises, Inc. was located in the former Vera Cruz [PA] Elementary School, there was a T-shirt with the phrase “He Who Dies With The Biggest Pile Wins” tacked to the main bulletin board in the central hallway. It was a constant reminder that filling a 14,000 square foot building was a never-ending task, one to which I devoted almost 20 years of my life. When I finally sold the school in 2010, I accepted the fact that I never completed the task but had acquired one heck of a pile.

Not every collector is fortunate enough to live in a 14,000 square foot school. In truth, the size of my school pales in comparison to collectors I have met and about whom I have read that purchased multi-story warehouses and barns and filled them with a virtual cornucopia of objects ranging from automobiles and automobile memorabilia to parlor organs. There is no accounting for taste among collectors. Collectors believe any object group is fair game.

Most collectors live in a home. If lucky, they have one or more rooms, usually in the basement, devoted to their collection(s). A few build additions to their house or purchase storage sheds to acquire the space necessary.

Given this, I am considering having a new T-shirt made with the phrase “He Who Fills His Home to the Brim Wins.” This slogan will increase the number of collectors who can take pride in their accomplishment.

[Author’s Aside: I am fully aware that no collector is ever out of space. Finding room for the latest acquisition is a collecting skill set that requires practice but is capable of perfection. During Linda’s and my drive north from our Altamonte Springs condo in early May 2020, we stopped in Gillsville, Georgia, and Seagrove, North Carolina, to pick up face jugs I purchased via email during the previous six months. Constraint was not an issue. I wanted to build a base collection as quickly as possible. As it turned out, I bought more face jugs than could fit into the back of our SUV.

Linda was astonished at how many boxes I was able to load into the SUV. Anxious to view my purchases, I unpacked the boxes within days of our arrival at our Kentwood, Michigan home. Following my usual approach, I put the nearly 40 plus face jugs on the dining room table, a tactic necessary to force me to deal with them in a somewhat timely fashion since Linda likes to entertain.

Linda has learned not to ask: “Where are you going to put those?” I could see by her facial expression and body language that she was certain that this time I would be stumped. I confess to similar thoughts. Within a week, the dining room table was clear. All the face jugs found homes throughout the house.

Further, I was able to display them in regional groups subdivided by examples from nucleated potting families. Extra space is tight, but enough room remains for the four new pieces I bought recently and a few more future acquisitions. As to the pieces I left behind in Gillsville and Seagrove, Linda and I will pick them up on the way back to our Altamonte Springs, Florida condo in late October. I have a face jug collection display there as well.]

Although my heart surgery increased the time span that I have available to enjoy and deal with my collection, I have continued to organize it, a process I began before my heart surgery, in preparation for disposing of some of things. I have increased my organizational time table. Procrastination is engrained in some collectors, especially when facing the “what is going to happen to my collection” question.

During the organization process, I became acutely aware of a second truism collectors discover as they get older. I had more duplicates and triplicates of objects than I remembered. Just so there is no misunderstanding, these duplicates and triplicates did not occur because of absent mindednesses or forgetfulness on my part. They were deliberate.

It is hard to explain to non-collectors that a collector’s point-of-view is that no two identical objects, even when mass-produced, are exactly alike. There always are differences. Although the inexperienced may not be able to spot it, the collector can.

No two objects age and/or wear exactly the same. Collectors are driven by the ultimate pursuit of an object that is as mint as when it left the hands of the person who made it or the assembly line of the manufacturer. If handmade, every object is different. No craftsperson can ever make an exact duplicate. As a former History of Science and Technology major, I am aware of industrial tolerances, an industrial premise that admits that even machines are incapable of precisely making “exact” duplicates.

Jigsaw puzzle collectors experience the second point. After purchasing a die cut puzzle and finding one or more pieces missing, the temptation is to buy an incomplete example of the same puzzle in order to replace the missing piece and create a “complete” puzzle. The difficulty is threefold. First, manufacturers often use more than one die to cut the same puzzle. Second, the die cutting shapes can shift through use. Third, the sheet registry can vary from a small fraction of an inch to as much as one-quarter inch.

I learned my lesson the hard way when I purchased a second incomplete puzzle cut by the same die, replaced a piece missing in another example, and found the head of an individual in the picture now had three eyes instead of two. My general rule of thumb was that it took between six and ten incomplete puzzle purchases to come close to an exact match with a replacement piece. I admit I often was tempted to leave the mismatched pieces in some of the puzzles. The humor involved in the end result was worth preserving.

Forgetting age and/or wear and manufacturing differences, the provenance, acquisition, and other stories associated with identical objects also makes them different from one another. Collectors are story-focused. Stories make objects animate rather than inanimate.

When visiting with collectors who assembled collections numbering in the thousands of objects, I always am amazed at the collectors’ ability to share a personal story about almost any object I admire in their collection(s). More often than not, I find these stories as fascinating as the object itself.

Thus far, I have ignored the excuses collectors create to justify their purchases of duplicate and triplicate objects. My philosophy is simple. Collectors do not have to justify any purchase. “I wanted it, I saw it, and I bought it” is ample.

Some collectors explain their duplicates and triplicates by pointing out their purchases were governed by a desire to trade up in terms of condition. In some cases, this is obvious. In others, it is not, especially to an inexperienced eye.

“I bought it for trading purposes” is a constant false-news statement. First, few collectors trade. I tried it a few times and gave up. I never felt I came out ahead, let alone found myself in a win-win situation.

Second, if duplicates and triplicates were purchased for trade, why are they still in collections? The answer is simple. Once an object is purchased, a strong sense of possessiveness is attached to it. Collectors are reluctant to sell anything, wishing to never experience future regret over their actions.

Third, “The price was so right, I bought it for investment purposes” is another delusional collector’s excuse. Collectors have an aversion to believing a secondary selling market ever reaches a point where it makes sense to sell. Collectors have an unshakable belief that (1) a market always can get better and (2) every declining market eventually will recover.

Duplicates, triplicates, or whatever. Collectors are basically a driven and unsatisfied group of individuals. There always is something they do not own that they want. This seems perfectly normal to me.

Harry L. Rinker welcomes questions from readers about collectibles, those mass-produced items from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Selected letters will be answered in this column. Harry cannot provide personal answers. Photos and other material submitted cannot be returned. Send your questions to: Rinker on Collectibles, 5955 Mill Point Court SE, Kentwood, MI 49512. You also can e-mail your questions to harrylrinker@aol.com. Only e-mails containing a full name and mailing address will be considered.

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