Rinker on Collectibles

RINKER ON COLLECTIBLES — Column #1808

Upon Turning Eighty

Sixty is the new forty, and seventy is the new fifty. If true, it logically follows that eighty should be the new sixty. Having turned eighty, I want to emphatically state that eighty is not the new sixty. Eighty is eighty.

A person can deny being old in their sixties or seventies. It is impossible at eighty. At eighty, a person is old. There is no denying it. The body and mind serve as constant reminders of the ravages and impacts associated with aging.

I am not a fatalist, albeit I could easily be accused of being one based on what I just wrote. I am growing old gracefully but grudgingly and enjoying life. Thanks to my successful open-heart surgery (five bypasses, a new aorta, scraped valve, and dual chamber pacemaker) in June 2020, exercise, and weight control, I am in better shape mentally and physically than I was five years ago. I just had my device (stated tongue in cheek) checked and was informed my pacemaker battery still had 13 1/2 years of power and that there was no reason why I should not live long enough to have it replaced.

My new motor in an old chassis has impacted my collecting as well as my mental and physical well-being. Prior to my heart surgery, I reached a point where I was dreading but ready to accept that I had to wind down my collecting and start dispersing my collections. I now have another five years or more of collecting ahead before I have to get rid of anything.

[Author’s Aside: My wife Linda does not share my views on this subject. She wants me to stop collecting and start divesting now. Comments such as “there is no more room for anything” (little does she understand the ability of a collector always to find room) to “I do not want to be faced with the need to dispose of your collections” are occurring with greater and greater frequency. One of the advantages of old age is that one’s hearing weakens. These days, I hear only what I want to hear, something for which I was often accused in the past when my hearing was fine.]

I am and always will be a collector. The passion is still there. Desire is another matter. There was a time when I was a strong advocate of the concept that the person who dies with the biggest pile wins. When I lived and worked at the former Vera Cruz [PA] Elementary School, my pile was huge. I was a winner. My pile still is considerable but not huge. There is a big difference between how many objects can fit into four thousand square feet (2,800 in my Michigan home and 1,200 in my Florida condo) and a 14,000 square feet elementary school building.

While the lure of the field hunt remains, it no longer possesses me. In recent years, I find that I am spending less and less time in the field. There are several reasons for this. First, it has become harder and harder to find things I want to add to my existing collections. Second, what saddens me most is that when I do find something, often priced below what I am willing to pay, I still do not buy it. I am constantly arguing with myself about why buy it when I have so much and perhaps so little time to enjoy it. Third, I see way too many things I have no desire to buy. The level and quality of secondary merchandise has changed in the last 20 years, at least from my point of view. Junk is a concept that rests in the eye of the beholder. While I try hard not to be judgmental, I began my career as a traditional collector. While I fell in love with 20th century collectibles and embraced them, it was the mid-20th century objects that excited me. Although I lived through the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, I cannot and do not have the same reverence for objects from these decades as I do for those from the late 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.

Recently, I have found that I am more interested in learning more about what I own than acquiring more. I always have been fascinated by objects’ back stories – how they were made, who made them, how they were marketed, how they were used, why they were saved, and what they say about the person who saved them. Over the decades I bought hundreds of objects with the intent of researching them when I had the time. When selecting objects to send to auction when I sold the Vera Cruz Elementary School, I held back those that I suspected had a possible backstory. Now is the time for my postponed research to begin.

The research lure is driven purely by my personal curiosity, not by any great sense of creating a research legacy for the trade. I find the satisfaction of knowing comforting. I have and continue to lead a “learn something new every day” life. My ability to wonder has increased with age. I am not certain why this surprises me, but I am delighted.

My sense is that my eighties will be a great voyage of discovery. I am going to become reacquainted with the things I have collected. Each box and file in my home and condo is a potential treasure chest.

I take pleasure in telling people that I am who I am for two reasons. First, I have never had to grow up. How many individuals have a job where they get to play every day with the things with which they grew up and/or encountered during their lifetime? Second, Christmas is an everyday experience for me. I have spent my life opening and handling presents. I receive an incredible high when I conduct an appraisal clinic. For several hours, I handle one new, unexpected object after another. The same happens when I do a walk-through appraisal. My life is filled with presents, not ones that I can keep but objects I can handle, study, and explore and about which I can learn and wonder. As Ira Gershwin wrote in “I Got Rhythm”: “Who could ask for anything more?”

The responsibility of accepting the limitations of the eighties comes with turning eighty, something I am having difficulty accepting. My stamina is not what it used to be, even though I am physically fit. Although I exercise, I am losing muscle tone. Boxes I lifted easily a decade ago are now hard or impossible to lift. My near photographic memory is not as sharp as it used to be, although Linda keeps telling me my tongue is as sharp as ever.

My biggest difficulty is my ability to relate to and understand the younger generations. When I could no longer provide analogies and examples with which my students could identify, I ended my teaching career. Although I lived through the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s, I am surprised by how little I observed and actively participated. Ronnie Milsap’s “Lost in the Fifties Tonight” deals directly with my dilemma.

Understanding dress, music, movies, television, social attitudes, and other manners favored by the Millennials and Generation Z has not been easy. Elevating their objects to equal status with those of my generation is painful and often impossible. What do I care about a Pokéman card? It is an object from an alien planet.

I have more and more difficulty adjusting to changes caused by the digital age. I am far more set in my ways than I realized. The problem is that I have no incentive or desire to keep abreast of technological changes. I recently bought a smart TV. Every time I turn on the TV I see two rows of bottom buttons on which I can click to watch this or that channel, provided that I subscribe to it. All I care about is the screen is bigger and the picture brighter.

My hearing aids are eight years old. My audiologist keeps urging me to replace them. They still work; and I grew up in a generation that expected something to work for decades not a few years. When I asked what advantages were associated with a new set of hearing aids, she promptly told me how much I would enjoy listening to phone calls via Bluetooth, using them as ear buds for iTunes (I have never listened to an iTune nor do I intend to start), and controlling the tone quality using my cell phone. I looked at my hand and counted three fingers, each representing one more thing I have no desire to learn how to do.

Finally, I never thought I would still be working let alone living at 80. My father died at 61, my mother at 70. Given this, longevity was never part of my long-term plans.

I have friends who are actually retired. I have no idea why or how they did it. Linda tells me that I will never retire. She is right. Work and Harry are synonymous. I will work until I die. My life is great because my work differs on a daily basis. It is never the same. It is this variety that keeps me mentally alert and challenged.

When I reach 86, I will have outlived my parents and grandparents and great grandparents on both sides of my family tree. I have no doubt nor qualms that this will happen. Watch out eighties, here I come.

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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