This week I read where a German man recently made the Guinness Book of World Records with his 1,159-piece rotating puzzle collection, his first purchase being a Rubik’s cube. I don’t like puzzles but I do like collecting, and an old turkey started it all.
I was a young mother when my then-mother-in-law Jo Ann Boyd took me to my first fall festival in Osyka, which at the time seemed like a road trip to a distant land.
She relished rummaging through tables of “collectibles,” noting items that were rare or unusual. She knew her stuff. She was a walking World Book when it came to all things vintage — and all things not. I discovered that if you want to sell an item, label it “vintage” and people will pick it up, even if it’s a 2010 Made in China figurine from Hobby Lobby.
On that Saturday, we were hoping to find a Hall teapot. She collected these beautifully crafted Aladdin’s lamp-shaped teapots, an exquisite collection that’s grown to a Smithsonian-worthy level of over 100.
Perusing one booth, she picked up a small ceramic turkey: “Look, Janellyn. Isn’t he unusual? He’s old. You know how I can tell?” She noted the muted colors and some Japanese stamp on the bottom.
“Do you like it? I’ll buy it for you. You need something to collect.” My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. I liked it. Sold.
My ceramic turkey collection now numbers about 75, but that first turkey with the Oriental eyes is still my favorite.
A few years later, a Bradford Exchange ad caught my attention, offering the first in a series of “Wizard of Oz” musical plates “sure to delight for years to come.”
An Oz groupie since kindergarten, it was an easy sale. Within four years, I had amassed 24-plus “highly collectible” Oz plates, dolls of every Oz character, an Oz lunchbox, a replica of Munchkin Land, and among other finds, the entire script of “The Wizard of Oz,” which I once used to settle a $20 bet.
Before the internet and its search engines, my Texas friend Linda was holding a heated argument with her brother-in-law who fancied himself an Oz know-it-all. The disagreement involved the words to the chanting of the Winkie foot soldiers at the Wicked Witch’s castle. He claimed they were singing real words: “Oh, we love the old one.”
“No, David, they are not!” A bet and a phone call ensued. I quickly located the chant: “O-Ee-Yah! Eoh- Ah!”
I could hear Linda gloating as he handed over $20. I felt a little sorry for David as I recalled, radio blasting, singing along with Credence Clearwater Revival, “Hey, there’s a bathroom on the right,’’ while they sang, “Hey, there’s a bad moon on the rise.”
Another collection frenzy began over a decade ago during a last-minute visit to an antique mall in Hattiesburg. where I met a real Dorothy who was reluctantly selling her massive and beloved carnival chalkware collection. I had zero clue what chalkware was, had never seen it.
Briefly, chalkware is the term for plaster of Paris hand-painted statues that were often used as prizes for carnival games. The well-done pieces are considered folk art and highly coveted among collectors.
Many were glittered, which heightened their allure under the carnival lights. The twinkly lights that lit up those pieces behind the glass shelves mesmerized me.
Her voice quivering, 88-year-old Dorothy spoke wistfully, “This you see here, I’ve collected for over 60 years. I apologize if the prices seem high, but these are some of my rarest and best. Aren’t they precious?” I thought she might cry.
Then she unlocked the case and unleashed my newest passion: stockpiling chalkware. I left with six of Dorothy’s chalkware children and her cell number.
When school was out, Joe and I spent the summer scouring the East Coast for chalkware. Discovering an exceptional piece was exciting, like finding a four-leaf clover.
Over Christmas break, my chalkware collecting craze continued, helped by a school-issued iPad, a piece of technology I balked at learning. However, I soon figured out my iPad could do more than report absences and enter grades: I could shop.
While it took me two years to “loosely” master the iPad, I became a five-star eBay auction bidder in under a week. I bought chalkware bulldogs, Kewpie dolls, Scottish lassies, Disney characters, Marilyn Monroe and a rare Polynesian island girl. The postal guy joked that he developed calf muscles hauling all those boxes up the front porch steps. “You must have had some Christmas,” he added.
Recently I asked my grown children which collections they wanted when I was gone. None, they said.
My daughter said the chalkware, especially the kewpie dolls, “creeped her out,” and my son said an Oz plate and a turkey or two would do “to remember me by.” He too passed on the chalkware.
Their responses didn’t bother me at all. Collections are personal, fun for the collector. I wouldn’t want that German man’s rotating puzzle collection — even if I was his daughter.
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JANELLYN B. CORNACCHIONE recently retired after 40 years of teaching in three Pike County schools.
