July 23, 2014 at 2:10 p.m.
Memories for sale?
Back in the Saddle
How much could I get on eBay for a battered old suitcase full of childhood memories?
Probably not enough.
The suitcase, which was a half-broken discard when I found it more than 30 years ago, is of uncertain origin.
These days, it resides in the dark of one of our attics under the eaves. But eventually, the time will come when it will be hauled out into the light of day. The latch will be tripped, the lid will be opened, and then the fun will start.
It all began 55 years ago this summer, in 1956. That’s when my brother Steve started buying little, European-made toy cars. They came from manufacturers like Dinky and the German model train maestros Marklin.
I was seven that summer. He was 13 going on 14. So it was probably under some sort of parental pressure that the small collection of a couple of dozen little cars and trucks became “our” collection when it was rightly his.
Soon enough, I was adding to the fleet, however. By the time I was 11, I pursued the little 1/43 scale models avidly. I didn’t care for the 1/62 models from Matchbox much, though I bought a few. Dinkys, Marklins, and Corgis were harder to find, making the hunt that much more fun.
Before I was a teenager, I had my first paper route, providing a level of kid affluence that’s hard to describe to anyone who hasn’t experienced it. You go from depending upon parents and a 25-cent-a-week allowance to putting silver dollars in your parents’ Christmas stockings, and it happens almost overnight.
With money in my pocket, my desire to expand the collection grew. I traveled to exotic places like Muncie, where I could find 1/43 models made by the Italian company Rio, or Chicago, where an odd little place called Vern’s Seed Store in the Loop had a limited selection of old Marklin models that were almost impossible to find.
Steve kept collecting too, and eventually the time came when we had to divvy things up. His wife feared that the split would be contentious, but it went smoothly. We knew each other’s taste by then. Steve loved trucks. I liked sports cars.
At the time we divided the collection, it totaled well over 100 vehicles, maybe 140. But what do you do when you’re a grown man and you have a collection of about 70 toys?
I displayed them for awhile, but I wasn’t good about dusting them. And the twins weren’t good about keeping their hands off them. A few disappeared, only to be found later behind bookcases or under beds.
The time came when the suitcase was needed. Each vehicle — the red Bedford panel truck with an ad for Dunlop tires on the side, the silver Porsche as smooth as an ocean-washed pearl, the Danish firetruck with its extension ladder, the Rio of the Thomas Flyer from the race around the world — each was wrapped in old newspaper and lovingly packed away.
And that’s where they stay today.
Oh, sure, I’ve checked eBay prices, as much out of curiosity about how much the collection is worth as out of an occasional itch to start collecting again.
But you can’t put a price on a suitcase full of childhood memories.
And now there’s this new wrinkle on the horizon — a grandson — that changes everything.
It will be a few more years down the road.
But one of these days, when he’s about seven, the two of us are going to get that old suitcase out of the attic.
And that will be priceless.
How much could I get on eBay for a battered old suitcase full of childhood memories?
Probably not enough.
The suitcase, which was a half-broken discard when I found it more than 30 years ago, is of uncertain origin.
These days, it resides in the dark of one of our attics under the eaves. But eventually, the time will come when it will be hauled out into the light of day. The latch will be tripped, the lid will be opened, and then the fun will start.
It all began 55 years ago this summer, in 1956. That’s when my brother Steve started buying little, European-made toy cars. They came from manufacturers like Dinky and the German model train maestros Marklin.
I was seven that summer. He was 13 going on 14. So it was probably under some sort of parental pressure that the small collection of a couple of dozen little cars and trucks became “our” collection when it was rightly his.
Soon enough, I was adding to the fleet, however. By the time I was 11, I pursued the little 1/43 scale models avidly. I didn’t care for the 1/62 models from Matchbox much, though I bought a few. Dinkys, Marklins, and Corgis were harder to find, making the hunt that much more fun.
Before I was a teenager, I had my first paper route, providing a level of kid affluence that’s hard to describe to anyone who hasn’t experienced it. You go from depending upon parents and a 25-cent-a-week allowance to putting silver dollars in your parents’ Christmas stockings, and it happens almost overnight.
With money in my pocket, my desire to expand the collection grew. I traveled to exotic places like Muncie, where I could find 1/43 models made by the Italian company Rio, or Chicago, where an odd little place called Vern’s Seed Store in the Loop had a limited selection of old Marklin models that were almost impossible to find.
Steve kept collecting too, and eventually the time came when we had to divvy things up. His wife feared that the split would be contentious, but it went smoothly. We knew each other’s taste by then. Steve loved trucks. I liked sports cars.
At the time we divided the collection, it totaled well over 100 vehicles, maybe 140. But what do you do when you’re a grown man and you have a collection of about 70 toys?
I displayed them for awhile, but I wasn’t good about dusting them. And the twins weren’t good about keeping their hands off them. A few disappeared, only to be found later behind bookcases or under beds.
The time came when the suitcase was needed. Each vehicle — the red Bedford panel truck with an ad for Dunlop tires on the side, the silver Porsche as smooth as an ocean-washed pearl, the Danish firetruck with its extension ladder, the Rio of the Thomas Flyer from the race around the world — each was wrapped in old newspaper and lovingly packed away.
And that’s where they stay today.
Oh, sure, I’ve checked eBay prices, as much out of curiosity about how much the collection is worth as out of an occasional itch to start collecting again.
But you can’t put a price on a suitcase full of childhood memories.
And now there’s this new wrinkle on the horizon — a grandson — that changes everything.
It will be a few more years down the road.
But one of these days, when he’s about seven, the two of us are going to get that old suitcase out of the attic.
And that will be priceless.
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