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News & Events Mid-America News Show Calendar State Event Calendars Regular Features The Antique Detective Antique Detective Q&A Common Sense Antiques Refurnished Thoughts Traveling with Ken Good Eye Books for Collectors Directories & Classifieds The Finder: Unique Shops Lodgings Directory Museum Directory Aviation Museums Wineries in the Heartland Classifieds Web Links Archived Features Antiquing in Colorado Dealer Profile Archive Editor's Notebook Heirloom Recipes Helpful Hints for Collectors Is This An Antique? Past Cover Features Reflecting History 2005 Best Of Winners *Destinations 2006*	Discover Mid-America — August 2005 Collections It is just amazing what people collect. Some lean toward the hard-to-find, some are just as happy going to the Dollar Store and adding another angel to their collection. On a recent find, the Kenos visited a man that had a superb collection of advertising memorabilia, specifically with Chicago on it. He had a number of crossover items, and his house was full, really full of wonderful well-kept and well-displayed items. My sister is a camel-nut as she lives in the Middle East and camels traipse through her yard. Though she is not fond of the real animal, she has amassed a really interesting collection of camel-shaped bric-a-brac. But she also has Texas A and M items, Persian rugs, religious icons, primitive paintings and maybe a few collections that I have not yet seen. She has boxes either in her garage and rents several storage units to store her accumulations. A dear friend really surprised me one day as she told me that she wanted me to see her collection. This lady is well into her sixties, a widow and she collects Eeyore figures, the character from “Winnie the Pooh” stories. I was so surprised to find little, big, resin, stuffed and furry Eeyores all over her bedroom. All sizes and materials and uses were covered in her collection. Goes to show, different strokes for different folks. An interesting column appeared in the Wall Street Journal about various egg collections. This is a crossover into the antiques business. The collection mainly being written about was begun at the beginning of the twentieth century by a man who meticulously documented each egg that he collected — there are 10,000 in this collection. In the Victorian era, to collect things from nature was quite fashionable. We see these on the Roadshow — a large framed, glass-fronted box that has stuffed birds or seashells or birds’ eggs. This would be most politically and environmentally incorrect today. But back to the egg collection: Now in the hands of the grandson, a sixty-year-old man, the eggs are still in Vernon, TX in an environmentally controlled room where more people can study and marvel over them. Other egg collections have been exposed to so much light and temperature changes that they have lost color, cracked and otherwise deteriorated. Collections like this large one are a wonderful study because of the near-perfect condition. I recall as a child that my grand parents had a stuffed great horned owl in the study (I always thought those big eyes could see me.) and deer head and a small fish. Must be genetics as my sons have various heads, ducks and fish hanging on their walls. The family joke is: “And how does one decorate an antlered head for Christmas? Easy, just put a bow around the neck of the doe and a necktie around the buck’s neck, wrap twinkly lights into the antlers and you have a real conversation piece!” Today, we see that there is interest in retrieving some of these early collections for display, but as a student of biology I would suggest that the collection be seen by people of that field to help decide how best to conserve or display. Much can be learned from the oldest specimens as they can be used for comparison. Collections can be fun, educational and decorative. They can be something that grandparents and grandchildren can do together. Again, if your collection is of the antique variety, the enjoyment and success of the hunt is the best part. Norma Crews is a native Texan, graduate of Texas Tech, former teacher and rancher, mother of three grown sons and six grandchildren, and raised in South Texas on a ranch as a member of two pioneer families. Upon retiring from teaching and ranching, she and her husband James became pickers for large Texas shops, before branching into doing shows for a number of years in Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas. She currently resides in Neosho, MO. > Is This An Antique? Archive — past columns	{rightside ad cell}
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The Antique Detective
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Lodgings Directory
Museum Directory
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Wineries in the Heartland

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Antiquing in Colorado
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for Collectors
Is This An Antique?
Past Cover Features
Reflecting History

2005 Best Of Winners
Destinations 2006

Discover Mid-America — August 2005

Collections

It is just amazing what people collect. Some lean toward the hard-to-find, some are just as happy going to the Dollar Store and adding another angel to their collection.

On a recent find, the Kenos visited a man that had a superb collection of advertising memorabilia, specifically with Chicago on it. He had a number of crossover items, and his house was full, really full of wonderful well-kept and well-displayed items.

My sister is a camel-nut as she lives in the Middle East and camels traipse through her yard. Though she is not fond of the real animal, she has amassed a really interesting collection of camel-shaped bric-a-brac. But she also has Texas A and M items, Persian rugs, religious icons, primitive paintings and maybe a few collections that I have not yet seen. She has boxes either in her garage and rents several storage units to store her accumulations.

A dear friend really surprised me one day as she told me that she wanted me to see her collection. This lady is well into her sixties, a widow and she collects Eeyore figures, the character from “Winnie the Pooh” stories. I was so surprised to find little, big, resin, stuffed and furry Eeyores all over her bedroom. All sizes and materials and uses were covered in her collection. Goes to show, different strokes for different folks.

An interesting column appeared in the Wall Street Journal about various egg collections. This is a crossover into the antiques business. The collection mainly being written about was begun at the beginning of the twentieth century by a man who meticulously documented each egg that he collected — there are 10,000 in this collection.

In the Victorian era, to collect things from nature was quite fashionable. We see these on the Roadshow — a large framed, glass-fronted box that has stuffed birds or seashells or birds’ eggs. This would be most politically and environmentally incorrect today.

But back to the egg collection: Now in the hands of the grandson, a sixty-year-old man, the eggs are still in Vernon, TX in an environmentally controlled room where more people can study and marvel over them. Other egg collections have been exposed to so much light and temperature changes that they have lost color, cracked and otherwise deteriorated. Collections like this large one are a wonderful study because of the near-perfect condition.

I recall as a child that my grand parents had a stuffed great horned owl in the study (I always thought those big eyes could see me.) and deer head and a small fish. Must be genetics as my sons have various heads, ducks and fish hanging on their walls. The family joke is: “And how does one decorate an antlered head for Christmas? Easy, just put a bow around the neck of the doe and a necktie around the buck’s neck, wrap twinkly lights into the antlers and you have a real conversation piece!”

Today, we see that there is interest in retrieving some of these early collections for display, but as a student of biology I would suggest that the collection be seen by people of that field to help decide how best to conserve or display. Much can be learned from the oldest specimens as they can be used for comparison.

Collections can be fun, educational and decorative. They can be something that grandparents and grandchildren can do together. Again, if your collection is of the antique variety, the enjoyment and success of the hunt is the best part.

Norma Crews is a native Texan, graduate of Texas Tech, former teacher and rancher, mother of three grown sons and six grandchildren, and raised in South Texas on a ranch as a member of two pioneer families.

Upon retiring from teaching and ranching, she and her husband James became pickers for large Texas shops, before branching into doing shows for a number of years in Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas. She currently resides in Neosho, MO.

> Is This An Antique? Archive — past columns

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