by Tom Shafer
January 27, 2023
So, if you’ve read the ABOUT Signal Hill tab, you know that I am a collector of things. Now, this is a longtime affliction, one that I acquired from a notable collector himself, my father. My father’s collection resided in half of the unfinished basement at my childhood home, and it was extensive and eclectic: old metal tools, exotic wooden fishing lures (and more pedestrian rods and reels), military stuff, antiques of all sorts, rocks and lapidary equipment, and toys. These were organized into sections and boxed (if possible), and for the most part, he did little with them — except to add new-old items when he recovered them from a garage sale or local auction. He also collected coins, stamps, and knives, but these smaller artifacts were hidden in his large bureau and bedroom closet.
From a very young age, I was well aware of his “crap” — what my mother called his hoard of things — and liked ogling them myself every chance I could get. Most of these objects were off-limits to me (unless dad had them out), but that didn’t stop me from snooping around and stealing looks at them. Doing so in the basement was easy enough, and when adults were elsewhere, I would open his old wooden chest to look at military articles — old medals, compasses, some clothing, even ammunition — or pull down boxes to peruse his polished and unpolished rocks or old toys.
But getting to his coins, stamps, and knives was much more challenging — and significantly more dangerous. This required subterfuge of great quality and planning, and could be pulled off only when my father was at work.
Our single story home was tightly compacted with one narrow hallway leading to three, similarly-sized, smallish bedrooms. My parents’ room was directly across from me and my brother’s at the end of the hall, and this proximity did allow for easier ingress and egress at dad’s goodies. Unfortunately, my potential opportunities at access were significantly tested by the position of the only chair my mother ever sat in: the corner of our living room with a clear, unobscured view to the back bedrooms. And this was where my mother could be found nearly every moment of every day — with two notable exceptions: when she was doing laundry and when she was sewing.
The execution of laundry permitted me a short window of opportunity because the washer and dryer were located in the basement. I knew that I had at best ten minutes to inspect a couple of coins or knives, but typically I only counted on half that time. However, I still took advantage of these quick in-and-outs.
Sewing, though, was another story. For reasons about which I’ve never been clear, mom’s sewing machine was also stationed in our unfinished basement, right next to the washer and dryer. Perhaps this location permitted mom to kill two birds with one stone (laundry and seamstress work), or maybe she just enjoyed the solitude of our somewhat creepy basement.
So (or sew), when my mom retired to do a little sewing, I would always tag along under the auspices of wanting to know what she was creating, mending, or hemming. She was actually quite skilled, and when we were very little tykes, she fabricated much of our clothing. Of course, with my tagalong, I was really performing reconnaissance, endeavoring to gauge how much time her selected task might take. I hoped she was in the creation process because that would require much more time than patching a hole in a pair of jeans or lengthening the hem on the sleeves of a new suit. Once I determined what she was doing, off I’d run — though quietly — to my parent’s room to gawk at dad’s treasures, ancient (to me) coins, gold (or so I thought) jewelry, knives of all shapes and sizes, and stamps from all over the world. Fortunately, I was never captured in the moment of one of these capers, though I realize now (kid goggles off) that both of my parents likely knew what I was doing most of the time. Many, many years later, and after dad passed from cancer and while mom was mired in the throes of Alzheimer’s, I secreted much of my father’s collection to my own home — at least those items that needed protection because of their potential monetary value — and of course the things that I wanted to keep for their sentimental value.
From a collector’s perspective, my first loves were rocks and other artifacts that came out of the ground. I had creeks and woods all around me, and I scoured both looking for Native American stone tools (arrowheads and other projectile points), shark’s teeth (what we called horn coral when I was a kid), trilobites (Ohio’s state fossil — which is a thing), and brachiopods (think clams). I was also fond of sparkly rocks like quartz and crystals, and some of my favorite childhood memories revolve around trips to Franklin, North Carolina, to mine for gems like rubies, sapphires, emeralds, aquamarine, garnets, rose quartz, topaz, and tourmaline. For me, there was nothing like digging a bucket of dirt, throwing a couple of handfuls into a sluice box (a small box-framed screen), and sluicing that box in a stream of rushing water (or a sluice channel) hoping to discover a twenty-five carat ruby or emerald. We always found lots of smallish treasures on these excursions, and I actually did unearth an eye-clean (few inclusions) ruby large enough to cut and be placed in a ring that my mother wore on special occasions.
I’m still a rockhound today and on most days as I walk my cats through our woods and along our creek, my head will be down, eyes spying mother earth for those same spoils I was seeking fifty plus years ago.
I followed dad’s numismatic tendencies and initiated my own coin collection at about the age of seven. Predictably, I started with coins I could obtain easily, change that mom or dad received from their purchases at our local retail stores. Dad, of course, helped with older coins by giving me some of his, mostly duplicates, and I faithfully transferred all of them into coin albums so that I could see easily what I had and what I didn’t. Wheat pennies were still in common circulation then, so my penny album was more complete than my nickel, dime, and quarter, but I had lots of them too. Dad and I would frequent coin shows that came through the area, and I always planned out well in advance what I needed to inch each of my albums toward completion. When I was about thirteen, Dad started giving my brother and me yearly proof sets from the U.S. Mint (all of our minted coins which have been double struck for added clarity) as Christmas presents, gifts that I still cherish. And though dad and my brother have been gone for almost a decade now, at Christmas each year, I purchase a yearly proof set to keep his tradition going.
Today, I’m not nearly as active with my collection, and the coins I purchase are considerably more expensive and valuable. I continue to advance my albums, but those pieces that I am seeking are rare and costly. And now, I have a deep hankering and love for silver and gold (who doesn’t?), which makes this hobby even more exorbitant.
Back in the day (the sixties), it seemed like every boy aged seven to ten collected baseball cards because all of us played baseball. Of course, I now know that wasn’t necessarily true, but in my circle it was. My proximity to Cincinnati demanded an allegiance to the Redleg team that played there, which was easy for me given that the roster was loaded with young players who would anchor the Big Red Machine juggernaut of the seventies: Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Tony Perez, Gary Nolan, and Clay Carroll. I delivered papers for a living then, waking at five a.m. every morning to meet at the carrier’s home to gather the Journal Herald so that I could ply my trade, and much of the money I collected was misspent on packs of baseball cards that contained perhaps the worst tasting bubblegum ever developed by man. For many years, into my late teens, I approached my hobby this way, buying cards one pack (occasionally more) at a time. After graduation from high school, I discovered that I could actually purchase ALL of the cards at once (called a set) and for several years, I secured a yearly set of Topps cards to maintain my collection.
Though I am no longer actively collecting (I acquire a handful a year through eBay), at least I can count myself as one of those people who DID keep his baseball cards — unlike so many who did not. Over the years, I have heard sad story after sad story, individuals who threw them out at some point — or had parents who did it for them. For most of my life, my cards have been packed into boxes and hidden away in the closets of the various dwellings where I have lived. But, in the past couple of years, I have brought many of my better “stars” to the light of day and am now displaying them so that I — and others — can enjoy the memories they inspire.
My last collection is one that made little sense to anyone when I started it — especially since I was minimally eight years away from actually enjoying (legally) the liquid contained within the items being collected: beer cans. For reasons not clear at all, at the age of ten, I began gathering them, cleaning them, and displaying them in my room at home. I don’t recall knowing any other “beercanners” or noticing another collection anywhere else, and I only remember seeing one brand of “malted barley pop” among all of my older family members, namely Budweiser. Plain ole Budweiser — which became the first can. And at the beginning, this was an easy hobby; all I had to do was troll the roadways of America to find aluminum (or steel) gold. Since my vehicle of choice was the old reliable Huffy Scout ten speed bicycle, I could easily spy discarded nuggets as I rode along. When I discovered that Route 35 between Xenia and Dayton, Ohio, was a hotbed of abandoned beverage containers, I spent much time there trying to increase the breadth of my collection. And though I always loved traveling to new (and old) places with my family, I now had even more reason to love it. If we stopped for gasoline, a potty break, or lunch, I was out of the car before dad could lift the shift lever to park, running along the road or rummaging through trash receptacles looking for that region’s beers of choice. I was able to populate my collection pretty quickly this way, but I also became aware that local antique stores retained older, vintage cans, including the elusive conetops. At its height, this hobby tallied nearly 500 unique cans, all lovingly stacked and arranged in the basement of my parents’ home, where I slept from the age of thirteen until I left during college. Today, I still have about 100 cans, some of which ring a table in my bedroom that holds my forty-year-old alarm clock and a not-so-vintage Kindle.
I have many more collections that I could share, but the stories attached to them are not nearly as engaging (?). At one point I possessed about twenty-five beer signs (lighted only), of which I now boast just one. I still maintain roughly a hundred knives, but I haven’t purchased a new one in about twenty years. I also have a growing collection of presidential “stuff” stretching back to the mid-1800s — medals, badges, pins, commemorative coins — and am always on the lookout for more. And, my most recent diversion, one that started about fifteen years ago, is my cluster of Native American fetish carvings, mostly Zuni, which are displayed on the mantle in our great room.
Okay, I know that a normal person might sustain just one collection, perhaps two, but I think we’ve long established that I don’t fall into the parameters that define “normal.” Which is okay. Because you are likely underestimating the value, both spiritually and monetarily, of my hobbies. In fact, if you were to stop by my humble domicile and take a gander at a mere slice of my collected prizes, you might be inspired to start gathering some of your own. And if I were you, I’d start with rocks. They’re cheap, they’re easy to find, and they’re everywhere — all you want from a hobby. So, good luck, and may the quartz be with you!
