Rinker on Collectibles

RINKER ON COLLECTIBLES — Column #1818

Too Many Goodbyes - Lost Friends and Other Things

Everyone understands and accepts loss as a part of life. Most think little about it when they are young. When individuals reach their 70s and 80s, the number of goodbyes associated with loss increases. The number of goodbyes associated with loss can become depressing if one is not careful. At the very least, losses increase a growing sense of loneliness and isolation.

Hardly a week passes when I do not receive an email concerning the death of a high school classmate, college classmate, a personal friend, or someone I knew in the antiques and collectibles business. When the Lehigh Alumni Bulletin arrives, I immediately turn to the 1960s Class’s obits. The most recent bulletin was gut wrenching. I personally knew every one of my classmates who had passed away. The recent “Canal Currents,” the bulletin of the Pennsylvania Canal Society that I help found in 1966, contained a notice of the death of John Miller, a gentleman who succeeded me as the Society’s president in 1976. He was younger than me.

I have moved up to the top of the survivor’s list for my Rinker cousins and am near the top for my Prosser cousins. I am not comfortable being in either position.

When asked what I like most about the antiques and collectibles trade, I usually take a tactful approach and say “collecting.” I can tell by the listener’s expression that they think I mean objects. They are only partially right. Antiques and collectibles aficionados collect two things – objects and people. I have been blessed in both categories. I have no desire to favor one over the other. Memories of both are equally precious to me.

The first part of this column focuses on the goodbyes I have said to auctioneers, authors, collectors, dealers, mentors, publishers, and show promoters. I have been privileged in the course of my antiques and collectibles career to deal not only with the giants and legends in the trade but also with the below-the-radar, unheralded individuals who make up the vast majority of collectors and others without whom the trade would not survive.

[Author’s Aside: There is a risk in writing this column. I will forget to include some individuals who I should have mentioned. Since they are deceased, they are not going to know. I take no comfort in this.]

I entered the antiques and collectibles trade at a time when dealers carefully guarded their tradecraft. Knowledge was power and a distinct advantage over a rival who had less of it. Herbert Schiffer, a Pennsylvania antiques dealer, and George Michaels, an early author and first antiques and collectibles television host, chose to share their experiences with me. I was a willing learner.

My entrance into the trade in the mid-1970s corresponded to the rapid expansion of trade periodicals which regularly provided information on auction sales and prices realized as well as prices being asked by trade show dealers. This sharing of knowledge was strongly resisted by many of the old-timers.

When I assumed the editorship of “Warman’s Antiques and Their Prices” in the early 1980s, Warman’s was known primarily as an under the table price guide used primarily by dealers. I decided to make Warman’s and its subsequent publications much more responsive to the needs of collectors than dealers. “Rinker on Collectibles” was launched with its alternating text and question and answer column format as a means of educating everyone about trade secrets. Some dealers pushed back. Dealers were successful in having “Rinker on Collectibles” discontinued in the first trade periodical in which the column appeared.

While working for Warman Publishing and later for Chilton Books, who had acquired Warman’s and Wallace-Homestead, I was responsible for recruiting authors and new titles. As a result, I became friends with dozens of authors whose works helped shape existing and new collecting categories. Sue and Al Bagdade, Christie Romero, and Norman Martinus come immediately to mind. All became personal friends as well as professional colleagues. I spent time in their homes and became an integral part of their families. All served as members of the faculty of the Institute for the Study of Antiques and Collectibles.

As a result of my aggressive personality, I reached out and interacted with many of the antiques and collectibles pioneers that preceeded me. I developed close personal friendships with many. In a few instances, such as Richard Bueschel, an expert on coin op machines, I found specialists whose insight about the workings of the antiques and collectibles field went far beyond their specialty expertise. A conversation with Richard always channeled my thinking in a dozen new directions. The same was true of conversations with Ed Babka, publisher of “The Antiques Trader,” Sam Pennington, founding editor of “The Maien Antique Digest,” and Jeff Hill, founding editor of “The Antiques Journal” and whose death at a young age denied the trade the benefits and insights of a true observer.

It is impossible for me to list all the collectors who shared their collections with me over the course of their lifetime. Don Friedman, a collector of advertising jigsaw puzzles among other things, Peter Pfaffenroth, a collector of early American furniture and decorative accessories, and Estelle Zalkin, a thimble collector, are three of hundreds of individuals who shared their treasures with me.

I began assembling my collection of American view Historical Staffordshire in the late 1960s. David Arman, William Kureau, and Richard “Dick” Marden were the primary dealers who helped me assemble my collection. Lenore Daily, who played a leading role in the assembly of my wife Linda’s Victorian era jewelry collection, succumbed to cancer two years ago. Some contacts are irreplaceable.

Learning of the death of Chris Palmer, among my favorite antique show promoters, was a heavy blow. Worst yet, I did not find out about Chris’s death until several months after it occurred. Delayed goodbyes are the hardest.

I spent more space than I anticipated talking about the people I knew. Yet, I just scratched the surface. In some ways, it is appropriate.

Strangely enough, I have no regrets about lost objects – those I should have bought but did not nor those to which I said goodbye when I sold the former Vera Cruz [PA] Elementary School that was my private residence and home to Rinker Enterprises. Do I miss my Hopalong Cassidy, jigsaw puzzles, and other collections? Of course I do, but I do not lament their loss.

There are far greater losses in the antiques and collectibles trade that had a stronger impact on my soul. The loss of antiques and collectibles publishers such as Antique Publications, Books Americana, Collector Books, Krause Publications (part of F + W Media), L-W Books sales, Warman’s, Wallace-Homestead, and others were goodbyes that broke my heart. Trade periodicals such as “Antiques and Collecting Hobbies” (Hobby Magazine), “Antiques Journal,” “Mid-Atlantic,” and others left gaping holes in the trade.

I continue to have trouble with the pending loss of traditional collecting categories. I have written about the demise of the traditionalist collector for almost a decade. My problem is simple. In many ways, I am among the last of the traditional collectors. It is true I broke away from the mindset but never to the point of losing respect for traditional collectors nor the collecting lessons I learned from them.

I am a member of the last of the industrial age generations. While I embraced the digital age (what choice did I have?) I have never been comfortable in it. The older I get the more change seems to accelerate. I have said goodbye to everything associated with my early childhood and most of my youth. I get the inevitable feeling that life is saying goodbye to me. Unlike Cheers where everyone knows your name, I am facing the reality that the number of individuals who know my name is decreasing exponentially.

When I began my television career as HGTV’s “The Collector Inspector,” my producer Rasha Drachkovitch told me there were four stages in the life of a television star: (1) who is Harry Rinker, (2) get me Harry Rinker, (3) get me a younger Harry Rinker, and (4) who is Harry Rinker. He is right. I reached stage four a decade ago.

There is one final goodbye left. Look for it in the next “Rinker on Collectibles” text column. .

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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