Friday, August 17, 2012

John's Collection


I love the antique show in Alameda - a little island town across the water from San Francisco. We try to go there when the weather is lousy otherwise it's too packed. Usually, it's overpriced and I don't find any deals. Why do I love it, then? Because the possibility to find something awesome there outweighs all the bad that comes with it. I've found some VW stuff there in the past, but never an experience like this...

I came across this vendor and saw some car stuff. The thing was, they were hauling tons of boxes out of the back of a Uhaul. And saying, "$25 a box, anything inside doesn't matter". Some of the "boxes" were wooden crates (see the 7-UP one in the picture above and below).

So, of course, that sounded like a good time to worm my way into the boxes.

I found 2 boxes of old owners manuals from imports and set those aside. There was tons of great stuff. A few boxes were instructions for the shop at the dealership - and they were a vinyl LP that came with a poster showing the repairs. Pretty fun stuff!

Someone next to me asked how much just one of the wooden boxes was without anything in it and the guy answered, "$25, so I suggest you leave it filled."

When paying, I mentioned I was into VW stuff. He immediately pointed me to 2 more boxes - full of VW stuff.

I added those to my pile.

I could have stayed there a while longer, but have been taught to move quickly through these shows. Plus EP had Oak with her and I needed to catch up to them and give her some relief from having him alone.

When cashing out, I asked the story. It turns out these were 2 sons, selling their dad's collection of stuff. Apparently, he had just passed and they only had a few weeks to clear out "semi-truck loads of stuff". They went on and on about how much stuff they had to move. I should have given them my number if they came across any more VW stuff, but I paid and moved on.

Later I found this card in one of the boxes:


"JOHN" was the dad. I showed EP the card.

"Cool, huh?" I said. "This guy spent his whole life collecting this shit. Just stacking it up."

EP looked at me, and then said, "Interesting. And you bought it. What do you plan on doing with it?"

Ummmmm.

I kept the VW stuff, but quickly listed many of the other brochures on ebay.

So I don't plan on doing anything with it right away. I just hope Oak doesn't sell it by the box when the time comes...






















and, since there were two of these toys, Oak got one:


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