collectors

I’ve spoken about it here before, but it needs to be said again.

Over the past week, the mighty internet has bludgeoned me with two completely different examples of how collectors are occasionally perceived – and it was not pretty.

In the initial instance that I came across, someone had dug up an old Gizmodo article from 2008 which interviewed a dedicated Star Wars action figure collector, and reposted the accompanying images on their blog. This, of course, was followed by the obligatory comment that follows anything about a Star Wars fan that’s ever been posted on the internet :

“He needs to get out of his mother’s basement! It’s sad that he’ll never get a girlfriend!”

Now, I’m not going to speak for the entire geek populace here, because I’ve honestly never been in another room that’s had a proud display of Star Wars action figures, but when is this weird stereotype going to die? And what keeps on perpetuating it?

I admit it : when the Original Trilogy was a big deal a few years ago, I went a little crazy over the vintage-style Star Wars figures of the essential characters. I bought many of them, and I still have them tacked safely to my walls. At this point, they’re likely destined for eBay, but let me say this : these action figures have seen more action than you could possibly imagine. And yes, it involved women. Live ones. I feel that I needed to qualify that statement.

In fact, my last, very hot girlfriend requested that I keep all of my Star Trek action figures so that we could display them around the apartment. While the apartment didn’t work out, nor did her ability to keep her pants on among random strangers, it served as fairly concrete proof that it’s totally okay to be yourself. There’s going to be someone out there who embraces the same passions as you, or at the very least, embraces your passion. It’s simply wrong, and more than a little sexist, to assume that there are no chicks cool enough to embrace what you love, even if it is vinyl caped Jawas.

Sure, there’s a point of obsession where real life and responsibility becomes occluded, but collecting is usually a sign of prosperity. One simply doesn’t spend money on collecting things if food and shelter are an issue, unless there’s a much larger problem of mental illness. That’s another discussion entirely, but to assume that anyone who collects slightly geeks paraphernalia lives in a basement as a virgin is a frustrating stereotype to battle.

My love of Star Wars led directly to a job illustrating Star Wars cards for Topps. Have you done anything that awesome?

The second instance was an image posted on FailBlog, in which a kid was laying in a room full of Pokemon stuff. Being from FailBlog, the image was emblazoned with the word ‘FAIL’, though I can’t seem to make the connection between a kid collecting something that he loves and the idea of ‘failure’. Since when are we a culture to insult and deride children for what they’re passionate about?

Everything that we learn and everything that we love are tools to be used towards something greater. An acquaintance recently related the story of her daughter who was very much into Pokemon, back around when the whole US fascination with the series began. Her Pokemon cards turned into an interest in Japanese culture, which evolved into an interest in the Japanese language, which soon turned into an invitation from Japan to come and teach English to elementary school students – at the age of 14.

While not every collector will turn their interests into something productive or positive, a vast majority of us possess a deep, intellectual curiosity about the things we love, and how they connect to the rest of the world.

And that’s not something to be laughed at.

Corset Art Book By Tamar Stone

Conversing with artist Tamar Stone, several times, I’ve not only become quite smitten (especially with her corset and bed books), but have more than a sneaking suspicion that she’s got a lot of stuff… With all her projects and interests, she must have a lot of stuff! So I had to ask her what she collected…

Over the years, my collections have changed, and in some ways, I’ve kind of cut back somewhat. But what I have collected are: cameras and photography “how to” consumer guides to better photography, postcards, travel guides, cooking pamphlets and food display things.

I used to collect all kinds of dishes, glassware, kitchen appliances, which is ironic – I don’t even cook.

One of my favorite things I got in the past few years was at an auction — a corset box, but inside was someone’s blonde hair “fall.” I was the only person that day who stepped up and yelled I’ll take that — for a $1.00 — and they were glad to get rid of it… It’s sort of disgusting, yet amusing I guess.

Back to my collecting — cow things. (I love cows, I like to get out of the car just to pet them. A reason to travel with Wet Ones — which we do.) Although I do not collect Hallmark cow things… I’m sort of picky — I prefer folk art cows to butter packaging with nice illustrations etc.

Stone's Art Studio

I collect salesman sample things, although they have gotten expensive, so now I just look at them or take photos of them here and there.

Although I work with the doll beds, I don’t collect dolls or anything like that — except for some corset stuff, but I’ve never been a doll person. Although I really love the metal doll houses — I have a few of those. I wish I had the wall space to take them apart and open them up to put up on the walls… There’s just something intriguing about having the walls of a doll house as simulated walls in wood grain and brick — in tin — up on your home wall.

Shadow Box By Tamar Stone

I love Joseph Cornell etc. and I wish I was more 3-d mechanically inclined…

I have a bunch of these old clock boxes I got at an auction. A whole cart of them for $1.00. Sure I had to scrape out some dead animals and their nests, but it was worth it — once I got past being disgusted. But now I have a whole bunch of clock workings, springs and such and these old wood boxes — and I’m sort of stumped of how to use them… I made this first shadow box and haven’t really gotten to working on the others. I wouldn’t mind selling it, but it’s not something my dealer handles… So I seem to have it, and all the other ‘parts’ for now.

For more on the artist, check out her website.

Magnificent Obsessions

Magnificent Obsessions: Twenty Remarkable Collectors in Pursuit of Their Dreams by Mitch Tuchman (photographs by Peter Brenner) was published in 1994, however that doesn’t diminish the book in the least because this isn’t a price guide or even a true collectors guide; this book is a celebration of collecting.

Each of the 20 collectors covered in this over-size softcover is given a few pages for some Q & A about — and beautiful photos of — their one obsession. While many of the collectors admit to collecting more than the one “thing,” they are limited primarily (otherwise how would I know they collect more things?) to just the one collecting category. However, what they say isn’t only of interest to those with similar collecting obsessions; the joy, pride, humor, collection rearranging, haggling, discovery, etc. are universal.

But that doesn’t mean you won’t learn anything. Well, maybe I can’t promise that; I don’t know the depth and breadth of the knowledge you retain in your noggin. But I learned a few things. Or at least was reminded of things.

Like the pre-internet days of collecting.

Not only because what this book is, really, is a paper bound version of excellent blog posts with gorgeous photographs, but because it’s a time capsule of collecting before the days of search engines, online shopping carts, e-newsletters, and digital communities of pixel sharing comrades. Each of these 20 collectors was, at the time at least, a pretty big-time known collector in their category. (I Googled a handful of them; some have since passed away, others only exist in their daytime gigs, others I found no online mentions other than this book. But like I said, I didn’t Google everyone.) And every single one of them became a Big Time Collector without the internet.

(Sure, we all know about the joys of hunting at flea markets, many of us belong to real world collecting clubs, and most of us know that not everyone is “on” the internet; but still, are we making the most of forays into real places, meeting real people, as much as we are saved searches and bookmarked pages? Just something to think about.)

The book also holds another pre-internet reminder… In these days of complaining that eBay and other online selling avenues have “ruined” both the prices and spirit of the antiques and collectibles marketplace, don’t you remember that collectors have always complained about, feared, or been annoyed by other (real or perceived) influences in the world of collecting? This reality bonked me in the nose when I read swizzle stick collector Norma Hazelton’s lament:

Kovel wants to put a book out on swizzle sticks. Of course, that’ll kill the business. It’ll make the prices sky high like antiques and everything else went.

I haven’t studied the swizzle stick collecting market and I’m too lazy to even check to see if Kovel’s put out that book; but I bet that swizzle stick collecting has been affected by a great number of things outside of the collector’s control — and that’s rather the point, isn’t it? We can’t control the collectibles market any more than we can anything else we care about.

What else did I learn or remember? Along with some very specific things about very specific categories of collectibles, these general points stuck out:

• The differences between collectors and accumulators may be sound, even agreed upon; but here there were Big Time Collectors, known in their category, who identified themselves as accumulators. (Score one for my fellow accumulators!)
• I was reminded yet again *heavy sigh* that ephemera and books are of seemingly little value; there’s not a single collection dedicated to either. (Boo-hiss!)
• For nearly every bit of good general collecting advice, there was someone to corroborate otherwise; the anecdotal evidence continues to support the fact that each collection is as unique as the collector/curator’s individual philosophy, process, and, yes, I’ll say it, dreams.

Magnificent Obsessions: Twenty Remarkable Collectors in Pursuit of Their Dreams is available for very cheap at Amazon — and that’s something that any collector, in any category or however self-identified, can be happy about. (Makes a great gift for the collector in your life too — hint-hint nugde-nudge.)

An interview with Hillary DePiano, a fiction and non-fiction author best known for her play, The Love of Three Oranges, and her e-commerce blog, The Whine Seller. Hillary is a collector of both My Little Pony and She-Ra: Princess of Power toys and has authored collectible guides to both (the MLP book is The My Little Pony Collector’s Inventory: A Complete Checklist of All US Ponies, Playsets and Accessories from 1981 to 1992). She is also a frequent contributor to the blog at My Little Pony Collecting.com.

Hillary DePiano With Project Pony 'Silver' At My Little Pony Fair, 2008

Hillary, when did you first fall in love with My Little Pony?

I was pretty young when My Little Pony first hit stores but I think it was a given that I was going to like them from the start. There was a stable that offered pony rides near my house growing up and I was a frequent visitor there until they turned it into condos. There were also unicorns on my childhood wallpaper long before MLP existed so I may have been conditioned from birth. While I am not sure quite what distinguished them from any other toy I had as a child, I know they remained my favorite toy long after I had tossed others aside because I didn’t have to dress them. I am a very low patience threshold when it comes to putting on tiny doll clothes and I used to feel really weird about leaving my Barbies naked so I just never played with them because they took too long to dress. Ponies had clothing but if I got bored before I finished dressing them, I could just leave them naked because horses’ aren’t supposed to wear clothes!

Another thing I think cannot be discounted was the affect of the cartoon show. My Little Pony Tales was often very weird and very dark. I think that strange mix of sugary sweet from the toys but weird and dark from the cartoon series really captured my imagination as a child and made me keep returning to them again and again. I think that unlike a lot of cartoons from the 80s and early 90s, instead of advertising the new toys as most shows did, the MLP show really just made me like the pony toys I already had all the more.

When did you consider yourself a collector?

The first time I ever even though of MLP being something collectible was when I saw some MLP figures at a doll show I went to with my mother. I was still pretty young and all the ponies they had for sale I already had so I didn’t buy any but that planted the seeds. I looked at those MLP figures that were only a year or so old alongside all these dolls, some of which were hundreds of years old, and an association was born. Even then I started to realize that these were my generation’s collectibles.

The real moment I became a collector came many years later, however, when a toy store called Lionel Kiddie City was going out of business. My mom and I found hundreds of mint in box MLP items, some from the very first years of the toy line, and bought a ton of stuff I didn’t have. I was older at this point and I came to the sad realization that I probably shouldn’t open a lot of what we bought that day because it would probably be worth more someday if I left it in the box.

DePiano's MLP Collector's Inventory Guide Book

I could kick myself, because if we had bought everything in the store back then, now, it would be worth over 10 times what we would have paid. Items that are worth hundreds of dollars today were on clearance for pennies! We could have make thousands of dollars. But there was no eBay back then so I couldn’t conceive of the online community of collectors that exists today so there was no reason to buy anything with the anticipation of selling it. So as much as we did buy, we left a lot of really good stuff behind.

But at the time, at that awkward age between kid and teenager, I sat there surrounded by toys I couldn’t wait to open rationally knowing I really shouldn’t open them. That was the moment when I became a collector before a kid with toys. I was thinking more of the future value of the items over the desire to open the packages.

Describe your collecting habits… Are you methodical, with a list of “needs” or do you serendipitously discover & buy? Do you own multiples of the same pony or piece or do you replace pieces so that you only keep the pieces in best conditions? Do you find your collection spreading & sprawling, branching out to include other related items (knock-offs, other plastic ponies, horses in general, toys from the same maker, time frame, etc.)

I decided long ago to only collect parts of the My Little Pony line instead of everything. Many of the subsections of the main toy line (such as Petite Ponies, Dream Beauties, Plush, etc) I sold off long ago when I decided to focus only on the basic ponies and playsets. There are a ton of MLP items and I felt like it was insane to try to get everything so I focused on certain elements. As large as my collection is, you definitely couldn’t say I had a complete collection.

I used to keep two full sets of MLP but I sold one entire collection off so that I now only keep one of each pony. This decision was both financial and a real space saver. Ponies are small but when you have them in the quantities I do, boy, they can start to take over.

I run across a lot of ponies when selling items on eBay through PricedNostalgia.com and I always make sure to check my collection before I sell anything. If I come across something in better shape than what I have, I do a trade and keep the better one. I also make sure to keep anything I didn’t already have in my collection. The one exception is if the lesser condition pony is one from when I was a kid, I usually keep my old pony as well as the nicer one.

Hillary in Priced Nostalgia's Booth At MLP Fair, 2008

As I get older, I find that I spend more time streamlining my collection rather than expanding it to include more. My Little Pony is a massive toyline spanning several decades so if you really wanted to collect every single thing, it could easily be a lifetime quest. I find myself making decisions based on space a lot of the time. For instance, I recently decided to sell off all of my mint in box pony items. Perhaps this preference stems from the Lionel Kiddie City incident, but I have always preferred the loose ponies to those MIB. I like to be able to touch them and the mint in box ponies are worth a ton so it just made more sense to me to sell off the MIB for the money and keep the loose ponies that take up less space. I also don’t aggressively seek out international or variants like some collectors. If one crosses my path and I like it, I’ll keep it but I won’t get involved in crazy bidding wars over a rare piece.

But some collectors only collect mint in box items. There are some sellers who focus on just a single pony, getting every possible variation of that one character. I think one of the big appeals of My Little Pony collecting is that there are a lot of different ways to collect so no two collections are exactly the same.

Tell us the story of one of your collecting ‘holy crap’ moments — best deal you ever got & thought you’d pee your pants, the most you’ve ever paid for a piece, the longest lengths you’ve ever gone to get a piece for your My Little Pony collection.

The Lionel toy store find was a really great Holy Crap moment but another great one was pretty recent. My husband and I were at a flea market and we are both pretty good a playing it cool when we spot something rare but I saw a rare pony mint in box. I asked the seller how much casually and actually handed her a wad money before she had even answered with the price. This should have been a sign to her that I was a little over eager but I only paid $10 for this pony that I later sold on eBay for just shy of $400. You see ponies so rarely at flea markets or garage sales that when you do, it’s hard not to grab them really quickly like another collector is breathing down your neck. When I was younger and we didn’t see any ponies on a flea market trip, I would assume another collector had been through first. Now I think people are just smarter about their value.

My dad is my favorite person to go pony hunting with. He is totally useless at spotting them and refuses to rummage in bins to look for them. But he loves it when I find one I didn’t have before. Every time we would get back into the car he would say, “So did we get any we didn’t have before?” and would eagerly examine whichever one was “new.” It always made me feel like we were a team because he got so excited for one we didn’t have. My husband is also getting rather good at it. My brother-in-law called to say that he picked up an MLP item for me at a garage sale and, upon hearing the description, my husband was able to identify the pony by name. I think he may have lost street cred for life with his brother for that but whenever he busts out a random pony fact he earns major brownie points with me.

I have never really paid ridiculous amounts for a pony. To me, part of the fun of collecting is getting the pony I want for the price I want to pay. I try to leverage trades, coupons, gift certificates, credit card points, whatever I can. It means that my collection grows more slowly than the collection of someone who just outright buys what they want instead of waiting for the deal but, for me, the thrill of the hunt is half the fun of collecting. The only time I ever just outright buy a pony is if it is at a convention where I can physically touch and examine the pony before I purchase. I am usually willing to pay a little more in person if I get to really get a good look at it in person.

Is your collection complete? Are you still searching for a ‘Holy Grail’ piece?

Since new My Little Pony items are still in stores to this day, it’s impossible for anyone’s My Little Pony collection to be complete. New ponies come out every day. Mine will never be complete. I tend to pick a random pony to obsess over and that becomes my current grail. Then, once I get that pony, I pick a new one. I get an $100 eBay voucher once a year from my credit card so I always spend that on an MLP item since that is just a bonus so completing sets I am after usually moves at a rate of about a pony a year.

DiPiano At The 2005 My Little Pony Convention

For the longest time, my grail was Twice-As-Fancy Munchy. Most ponies have flowers or other cutsie things on them but Munchy has hot dogs and hamburgers on her. I was amused by the randomness of her and was after her for a long time until I snagged her at the 2007 convention. My current obsession is getting all of the Twice-As-Fancy baby ponies. These were a mail order only offer so they are hard to find and, as such, more expensive. I just ordered what should be the final one of those on eBay about a week ago.

Then once that set is complete, I will obsess over the United Kingdom exclusive male ponies, the Mountain Boys. I just used this year’s eBay voucher to get my very first one so now I am going to work on bit by bit, getting the rest of the set.

And so it goes, bit by bit, as every collector knows…

Vaillancourt Folk Art Halloween Display

Continuing my interview with Luke M. Vaillancourt of Vaillancourt Folk Art…

One thing that truly impresses me about your company is the real dedication you have to collectors. How did you know you ought to put on your website a collectors area with an identification guide etc.?

When I started working for the company in 2007, I came from a heavy digital marketing, eCommerce background. My first goal was to take over the web site and to recreate it to meet contemporary standards and to give people a reason to visit and stay on the site. We would get dozens of calls a week asking questions about certain pieces, both from collectors and casual shoppers. To help them, I wanted to create a Collector’s Handbook that included information and images on every piece in the collection. My mother had kept a very detailed database, and when I took over the web site I was able to integrate the database so that web visitors could easily look up information.

Gallery of Vailancourt Folk Art

When we first launched the web site, our collectors poured through the thousands of pages and would actually e-mail us missing images, or let us know if they thought some information may be different. We actually had 4 collectors send us 5 page highly detailed emails about the pieces. One even found date and color variation that was inconsistent with their own!

The Collector’s Handbook also gives people a sense of value. We get countless calls a year asking for an appraisal value for their collection for insurance purposes. This helps them find the values for their own inventory needs! Although we have the web site, we are always more than happy to help anyone over the phone or in person. We pride ourselves on our customer service and knowledge of the pieces.

I often marvel at the number of companies which do not do this, so kudos to you! Your amazing dedication to your fans, to collectors, is amazing — you even host events for collectors.

There are thousands of families that collect Vaillancourt Chalkware, and those who are the serious collector are known to have hundreds of pieces. In April of each year, we host a Collector’s Weekend, where we have an entire weekend dedicated to our work.

Collectors Painting Their Own Vaillaincourt Chalkware

Collectors, both casual and serious collectors, fly in from all over the country and sit in our painting workshops (where they can paint their own limited edition Collector’s Weekend Santa), sit through educational lectures on Christmas History, Vaillancourt History, and other from keynote speakers.

One thing that I think is important to note is that chalkware, although a Victorian art form, was re-erected by Judi. Although she is very humble and would never take any credit, upon doing research I learned that she was the one that truly started using antique confectionery moulds (mostly for chocolates) in this way. While Victorian chalkware existed for years, it was an untreated medium used mostly with watercolors and minimum detail; as a replacement to porcelain, Victorian chalkware was inexpensive.

My mother, a true Christmas historian and artist, received three moulds as a gift from my father. When she was stuck at home, she decided to use these chocolate moulds of Father Christmases to first create beeswax figures (she put them in the refrigerator to harden and me, as a young boy, I seemed to always knock them over and make a mess!!). She decided that instead of beeswax to use a plaster substance. Being a traditionally trained artist and illustrator, she saw these chalkware figures as the perfect canvas, and used her talent of oil painting as a way to create such highly detailed pieces of art work.

Vaillancourt Collector's Weekend

There are several other “Folk Art” companies that have taken this story and adapted it into their own, and often when I am doing research on the web, I find passages that they have copied and pasted from our web site into their own (much to my amazement). But what is most interesting is that “Folk Art” has always been more about wood carvings and historical woodwork (like how my mother started Vaillancourt Folk Art)… most of these other companies that add “folk art” after their last name do none of the sort and instead focus on “chalkware”… coincidence?

All in all, what started the collectiblity of Vaillancourt Chalkware — and what has kept it in the spot light — was the uniqueness, the immense detail and research history that goes into every piece that Judi designs. Her vision and passion for the art form, combined with my father’s marketing and business ingenuity has allowed Vaillancourt Chalkware to be nationally recognized and collected for a quarter of a century.

And I dare say your commitment to Vaillancourt collectors — the Vaillancourt Studios even has a museum!

Vaillancourt Folk Art Museum

The museum started once we moved to the 1800s textile mill that we currently reside in. We moved to the mill (where Fruit of the Loom started) in 2007 and created the museum so that all of the chalkware figures, and our collection of antique confectionery moulds (we have about 7,000) could be displayed.

It is great for visitors to visit our studios because they are able to see our artists working, and then go to the museum and explore the different designs over the years.

We have about 1,500 different pieces, created by Judi, in the museum on display — including lots of custom pieces done for Museum of Fine Arts, MET, and Colonial Williamsburg.

Any tips for chalkware collectors?

Vaillancourt Folk Art Store

The best thing for any collector to do is to find a piece that speaks to them. Vaillancourt’s goal is to create 1 piece that can be given to a loved one, or close friend, that will be cherished and passed down to generations. We attempt to create christmas traditions, and are happy to be included in hundreds of families traditions. It is the most satisfying thing to know that on Christmas morning (or any day) many loved ones are opening their Vaillancourt Chalkware as their main Christmas gift.

Thanks, Luke; Vaillancourt’s dedication to both the art & collectors of chalkware sure shows. Impressive.

CQ folks, you can see Vaillancourt Folk Art featured on Antiques Roadshow (and others) in this video — and you can keep up with Vaillancourt Folk Art at their website, at Twitter, and on Facebook.

Vaillancourt Chalkware & Confectionery Molds On Display