My Father’s Treasures

Why do we collect things?

Thirty years ago, it might have been stamps, coins, baseball cards or porcelain dolls. Today, it might be Pokémon cards, LEGO sets or vinyl records. The things people collect may have changed, but the psychology behind it has not.

Sometimes it's nostalgia or the thrill of the hunt. Sometimes a collection becomes part of our identity, a record of what we've loved. But for people who experienced scarcity or instability early in life, acquiring, organizing and protecting things can sometimes provide a sense of security and control.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately because my dad, who died over four years ago at the age of 81, was a collector. A serious one.

Dad grew up poor in Brooklyn, New York. I remember him telling me he went to school with holes in his socks. His mother had a "strong personality," and his home life could be volatile. He grew up to become an electrician, married my mom, raised a family in Queens and built a comfortable middle-class life for us.

And for more than 60 years, he collected things. Lots of things! Baseball cards from the 1970s through the 2000s (with a particular love for Mickey Mantle), as well as Hess trucks, model airplanes, stamps and coins. I even helped the collections grow over the years without thinking much about it. I'd buy him his annual USPS commemorative stamp collections or boxes of Topps baseball cards because they were easy gifts for a man who loved them.

My mom recently told me she was ready to let his collections go, and I promised her I would help. So I went to her house in St. Lucie County and met with a husband-and-wife team who specialize in collectibles. They came highly recommended, which mattered to me. If we were going to dismantle something my father had spent a lifetime building, I wanted to do it thoughtfully.

For more than two hours, the four of us pulled cardboard boxes and plastic bins out of closets and down from shelves and cabinets, opening them to find one surprise after another. We barely scratched the surface.

The coin collection was especially fascinating. We found coins dating back to the 1800s, beautiful silver dollars in pristine condition, commemorative coins and proof sets still in their original packaging. But what struck all of us wasn't simply what Dad had collected. It was the care he had taken  with it. Everything was so well organized and preserved.

Then, just as we were becoming overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of it all, my mom pulled out an ordinary but weathered spiral-bound notebook. It was filled with my dad's scribbled handwriting and notes about the things he'd purchased. Dates, descriptions and prices.

That notebook really got me choked up. Today, I can pull out my phone and find almost anything I want to know about a collectible in seconds. But Google and ChatGPT can't give me my father's handwriting.

Four years after losing him, there it was again. His little chicken scratch. His numbers. His system. Suddenly, I wasn't looking at boxes of stuff he'd accumulated. I was looking at the pride he had taken in something he loved for most of his life.

Now we're discovering that tucked among thousands of cards could be a rookie card or another find worth hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars. There is real monetary value in portions of Dad's collections. But this isn't about money. My mom doesn't NEED to sell Dad's collections. She's simply ready to let them go, and we want to honor his lifetime of collecting by giving it new life.  Somewhere there's another Mickey Mantle fan who will be thrilled to own one of Dad's old cards. A coin collector will gently open a velvet case and appreciate his 1976 Bicentennial Eisenhower dollar. A philatelist who will delight in his USPS 1993 Legends of American Music collection with its Elvis Presley commemorative stamp.

I love the idea that something Dad searched for, bought and carefully protected decades ago can become someone else's exciting find. His collection won't disappear. It will scatter, becoming part of other people's collections. And I find that really comforting.

Which brings me back to the question I started with: Why do we collect things?

I can't know how much Dad's childhood influenced his collecting. But it's hard not to wonder about the little boy who once had so little growing into a man who took such pride in acquiring things he loved and keeping them safe.

Maybe collecting gave him a sense of security or control he didn't have as a child. Maybe, in ways I never understood at the time, it was even therapeutic for him.  Or maybe he simply loved it.

Whatever the reason, I'm glad he had these collections that brought him lifelong joy. Something that was entirely his to search for, build and treasure.  Now, it's time for those things he treasured to find their next homes. 

Well, almost everything.

I'm keeping the notebook.

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Do you or a loved one have a favorite collectible? Email me at stacy@fireflyforyou.com