Photograph by Matthew Suárez

Adam Meyer arranges items from his San Diego Bay collection. “I’ve got 30 or 40 matchbooks for restaurants and other businesses that used to be on the Bay,” he says, “along with menus and ashtrays.”

I’ve been going to the San Diego County fair for decades, and in that time, I’ve seen so many things. But one of my standout memories remains the time I was walking through the hobby show and spotted a collection of used oil rags. This was back in the ‘80s, when the Fair still had freak shows and fat ladies. The oil rag collection stuck in my brain, probably because it was surrounded by much more common collections, things like thimbles and spoons, baseball cards and quilts, rare coins, and Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls. I recall that the collector ran an auto repair shop, and one day, after wiping a dipstick with a square white cloth, found himself fascinated by the pattern left by the dirty oil. To him, it resembled a Rorschach inkblot test. Was it a butterfly? A bat? A male sex organ? He went through the shop’s old oil drum, the place where the used oil rags went to die, and gave them a new life.

Photograph by Matthew Suárez

Fast-forward to June of this year, when John Valencia, a 40-year-old consultant, showed off a collection of “things my dog has found.” Born and raised in San Diego, Valencia, who now lives in the Bay Park neighborhood across from Mission Bay, said he was always drawn to the collections in the hobby show, which he found “so silly and fun.” In 2019, the last year before Covid put the fair on hiatus, he submitted a collection of chewed bubblegum. “I chewed 500 pieces of gum and then stuck them on a board,” he recalls. “I submitted my collection to the Fair, and won Most Unique. So I thought, ‘If that’s the case, what if one day my collection was, literally, a set of Most Unique ribbons?’ So I decided to collect Most Unique ribbons and then submit that in ten years.”

And so it was that Valencia returned to the fair this year with a collection of several dozen items that his dog Trixie, a nine-year-old pug- chihuahua-poodle mix, happened to pick up or dig up over the last year. “She’s a spunky little thing that loves to go on walks and is always finding things, even in my backyard,” Valencia says. “I used to run the San Diego Oceans Foundation, so conservation is rooted in what I do — I pick up trash all the time when I’m out for walk. I just started throwing some of the things that she found and brought back home into a bin, and then I had this ‘aha’ moment. I was building a collection without even realizing it.”

Valencia says one of his favorite items in the collection is a used pregnancy test — “It was negative.” Trixie also found a set of fake teeth, various toys and kitchen utensils, and a Jimmy Buffett CD. “I tried playing it,” Valencia says, “but it was too scratched up.” Alas, he didn’t win the Most Unique ribbon this year, but he’s already coming up with ideas for next year. “I’m always thinking of something cool for the sake of being unique,” he says. “You always see matchbooks or quilts or Mickey Mouse ears or comics. I think if you’re going to collect things, it should be fun.”

Origins, interior

Katie Mueller, chief operating officer for the Del Mar Fairgrounds, offers this overview: “The tradition of displaying hobbies and collections at the San Diego County Fair goes back several generations, and the collections we receive are as diverse as the San Diego community itself. Collections range from nostalgic and traditional to somewhat shocking, strange, and almost inexplicable. That’s what makes the exhibit so interesting — you just never know what you’re going to see.” But Valencia and the auto repair shop owner who collected used oil drags are anomalies: their collections are created specifically to make a splash at the annual Fair. Most collectors — and according to some studies, that’s at least 40 percent of us — are motivated by other factors.

Dave Tweedy, a clinical psychologist from Carlsbad, says that overall, collecting is healthy, because it can stimulate the mind. “Look at Jay Leno and cars,” Tweedy says. “People collect because they’re super passionate about something — it turns them on, it keeps them fulfilled and interested. So there’s a real, healthy aspect of being interested in something and collecting something. It keeps you engaged, it keeps you motivated.” The danger, he says, comes in not knowing when to stop, something he often sees in book collecting. “Sometimes it becomes too obsessive, and people spend more money than they have, or collect more books than they could possibly keep or store in a safe way. And there’s a point where collecting becomes hoarding. The intersection is vague and gray, but usually, if you can’t walk through someone’s house, it’s a problem.” In addition, Tweedy adds that some older people collect because they’re at a point in life where “it’s the only way they have control over their world. Sometimes they have little control over other parts of their life, so they build collections.”

“I chewed 500 pieces of gum and then stuck them on a board,” John Valencia recalls. “I submitted my collection to the Fair, and won Most Unique.”

According to the Life Storage blog, the 10 most common items to collect are antique furniture, vinyl records, comic books, coins and currency, classic cars, trading cars, dolls and toys, stamps, wine, and fine art and jewelry. In an October 2020 article posted on the Psychology Today website, Shirley M. Mueller, a neuroscientist and avid collector herself, says an intrinsic “urge” drives people to surround themselves with things they love, or which evoke a particular feeling or memory. “There also are reinforcing contributors that make the activity worthwhile and pleasurable for which we now know the scientific basis,” she writes. “For example, the rarity of a piece can not only make it valuable, but it can also stimulate certain parts of the brain that register this uniqueness.”

In her article, Mueller cites scientific research called the Oddball experiment. “It registers activity in the brain using a functional magnetic resonance machine when the participant sees a string of ordinary objects punctuated by the extraordinary,” she writes. “Specific areas of their brains light up when the unusual [items] are presented.” Another contributing factor, Mueller maintains, is pride “in acquiring exquisite objects. This is heightened by gathering like items together for the first time. During the search, excitement is further sharpened by identifying a rare piece that sets us apart from our peers and may provide recognition and admiration by associates.” Another motive: collectors tend to like bargains: “It’s the possession for comparatively little money that excites them,” Mueller writes. Then, there’s the nostalgic angle. “There are collectors who feel a sense of history when they assemble precious items,” Mueller writes. “By owning antiquities, they feel closer to the past or perhaps even dead ancestors, important people, or circumstances of long ago.”

According to Mueller, some collectors are motivated by “the enjoyment of arranging and rearranging a collection. Though this may serve as a means of control, it could also simply be the demonstration of organizational skills applied to collecting as taste and knowledge accumulate. Last, and certainly not least, is that all reinforcers to collect involve anticipation,” Mueller concludes. “The collector’s craving allows her to imagine anything she wants about the desired returns the object will bring. We know that it is in this phase that the pleasure center burns most brightly. Once the prize is obtained, the pleasure center quiets. In other words, the anticipation of the reward is more exciting to our pleasure center than possessing it. This explains, in part, why collecting frequently transcends a mere pastime and often becomes a passion. It gives sufficient pleasure that the participant wants to continue it more and more vigorously.”

Origins, exterior

Adam Meyer is a 40-year-old resident of the Dictionary Hill neighborhood of Spring Valley, in East County. He works at the Port of San Diego as assistant director of real estate, leading the team that manages redevelopment programs, including those for Seaport Village and the Chula Vista Bayfront. He’s married to a UCSD biology professor; they both have a passion for collecting.

One room in their house is dedicated to all things tiki. “When we bought our home, one small bedroom came with wood paneling and shelves, so that became our tiki room,” Meyer says. He’s got hundreds of tiki mugs, both new and vintage, and assorted other tiki memorabilia. The rest of the house is furnished in a sleek, clean mid-century style, with furniture, lamps, and barware he and his wife picked up at thrift stores and estate sales. “The house was built in the ‘70s,” Meyer says, “with a sunken living room. So it goes along with our style.”

Valencia returned to the fair this year with a collection of several dozen items tht his dog Trixie, a nine-year-old pug- chihuahua-poodle mix, happened to pick up or dig up over the last year.

In addition, Meyer says he has a modest collection of vinyl LPs and quite a bit of memorabilia associated with San Diego Bay. “I’ve got 30 or 40 matchbooks for restaurants and other businesses that used to be on the Bay,” he says, “along with menus and ashtrays.” Meyer says he’s been a collector all of his life, a habit he picked up from his mother. “But I don’t have any specific collection where I have to have every single item,” he says. “It’s more things I like and find at a really great price.”

Meyer came to my attention through his collection of old Lucite napkin holders, which he exhibited at this year’s Fair. Lucite is a form of acrylic resin, semi-transparent and available in many colors. It was used mostly for jewelry in the Forties, but during the post-war housing boom Lucite became a popular material for decorative items, including napkin holders. “Just picture the one in the center of your grandmother’s table,” Meyer says. “Maybe that table was made of atomic pattern Formica and a chrome edge, as we invoked in our display this year at the fair.”

Meyer’s collection consists of more than 30 napkin holders, a colorful assemblage of owls, mushrooms and daisies, and one with a yellow smiley face in the center. It originated with his mother, who was walking through a flea market in Pittsburgh in the late ‘90s when she saw one in the shape of a Christmas tree. “She bought it because she liked it,” he says. “Then we got another because we thought it was funky and kitschy. My dad hated it. He grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Pittsburgh, where most homes would have been decorated with items such as this from the local five-and-dime store. He felt they were tacky and that my mother had better taste. But we kept buying them. One would catch our eye at a thrift store, and then another and another and another. They would sit out for awhile, and then end up in an empty toaster oven box in the basement. It was more about the hunt than displaying them.”

In 2019, Meyer’s visit to his childhood home in Pittsburgh coincided with his mother’s decision to clean out her basement. “I hauled the collection out here with the plan to sell them. We purchased most of the napkin holders for $1 and maybe a few for $2, and they seem to be selling for as much as $25 now — some more, some less. To honor the collection, I thought I would put them on display at the Fair.”

After that, he brought them to October’s East County Junk Trail to see what he could get. The “trail” is an annual event, now in its eighth year, at which several East County antique stores and pop-up vendors have a sale on the same day. Meyer went to buy as well as sell. “I stop at the thrift store weekly, and the swap meet on as many Sundays as possible,” he says. “I also go to estate sales. I like the hunt, and I love a great deal. I am willing to sell stuff and get as much joy from that. Searching is very stress-relieving for me.”

Finders keepers

Jan Tonnesen, 73, is a veteran local musician — he’s still revered by music fans for his days as the “Troy Dante Quintet (later, Inferno),” backing Jose Sinatra — and resident of La Mesa. For years, he managed Wahrenbrock’s Book House, once the biggest used bookstore in San Diego County prior to its closing due to fire in 2009. So of course, he has an impressive collection of books, including upwards of 100 on tattoos and tattooing and a similar number on beer and brewing. “For a while, I wanted to build the best bibliography of books on tattooing, but nobody cared, so I gave up,” he says. “And I stopped collecting beer books when I stopped drinking.”

Adam Meyer’s collection of lucite napkin holders originated with his mother, who was walking through a flea market in Pittsburgh in the late ‘90s when she saw one in the shape of a Christmas tree. “She bought it because she liked it,” he says.

Photograph by Matthew Suárez

Tonnesen’s present passion? Bookmarks. He’s got maybe 200 of them, some dating back to his Wahrenbrock’s days and others picked up over the years at thrift stores. “I have metal ones, cloth ones, all kinds of ones,” he says. His oldest is a paper bookmark from the early 1900s, shaped like a parrot with the phrase, “Tis a wise bird that knows its place.” His rarest? “Probably this World War II bookmark” urging people to collect kitchen fat and donate it to the war effort. It’s a hobby unlikely to break the bank: Tonnesen will browse through books at bookstores and thrift stores, and if he happens to come across a bookmark, the store owner generally lets him have it for free.

Tonnesen’s bookmark hobby has also led to another collection: Joker cards. “A lot of people used them for bookmarks,” he says. “So when I’d find one in a book I was buying for the store, I’d stick it in this drawer, and all of a sudden I had a whole stack of them.” His favorites include one shaped like a heart and another featuring the Cheshire Cat and the slogan, “We’re all mad here.”

Tonnesen says he built his book collection because he likes to have them around. “I want to have them in case I want to read them again, or show them to someone, or loan them out,” he says. His bookmark and Joker collections, on the other hand, “are just for fun.”

Some collections cost even less to build than Jan Tonnesen’s pile of bookmarks. Another exhibitor at this year’s hobby show at the Fair was Nicole Harris, a 55-year-old school teacher whose favorite pastime is spending time in the great outdoors. Her collection: heart-shaped rocks, of which she presently has upwards of 150. “I’m not even sure this is a hobby,” Harris says. “I love to be outdoors, and I like to leave places better than I found them. My motto, when hiking, biking or walking on the beach, is to leave no trace. Unfortunately, I spend quite a bit of time picking up trash from others. I always think that if everyone just picked up one piece of trash, it would make a huge impact and a huge difference. No one wants to see trash when they are in the great outdoors!

“One day when I was picking up trash, I found a rock in the shape of a heart. I was actually pretty tickled with my discovery. That was over 20 years ago, and I was instantly addicted. The heart-shaped rocks bring such joy. Each heart rock is so unique and special. It feels like finding a needle in a haystack. It’s always a reminder that love is all around!  I am always surprised on every hike, every mountain bike ride, every beach walk, when I spot a heart-shaped rock.”

Like most collectors, Harris has her favorites. In her case, it’s a rock she picked up at a particular location that evokes fond memories. “Some of my favorite heart-shaped rock that I have found have been on a hike out to Cape Flattery, which is the most northwestern point in the United States,” she says. “Others are from Pike’s Peak in Colorado, which is the highest road in the continental United States; Homer, Alaska, on a beach hike; and the Oregon Trail in Wyoming.”

When enough is enough

Some collections are finite. I’m speaking from experience here: about 20 years ago, I started collecting first editions and early printings of early 20th Century American authors, including Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, John Dos Passos, and John Steinbeck. Once I had gathered all of their published books, and various other works of classic as well as modern literature that I enjoy, I stopped. My collection topped out at about 400 books, and I keep them in three lawyer’s bookcases I bought years ago at the fair. I haven’t added to it in at least 15 years, but I certainly like having my books around me.

Other collections have no natural limits. If Meyers finds a cool tiki mug or vintage San Diego Bay item, he’ll pick it up, even though he’s not spending every waking hour on eBay or driving around to antique stores in a quest to build the biggest and most comprehensive collection in the world. “I think it’s really just the thrill of the hunt,” he says.

One room in Meyer’s house is dedicated to all things tiki. “When we bought our home, one small bedroom came with wood paneling and shelves, so that became our tiki room,” he says.

Photograph by Matthew Suárez

Then there’s the flip side to collecting – getting rid of what you’ve accumulated, regardless of how long it took you to gather all those precious items, or how much you spent, or how far you traveled. Dave Kusumoto, a 65-year-old public relations consultant, recently ditched his impressive collection of movie posters, which took him nearly 50 years and an estimated $150,000 to build. He’d buy at fan fests during the early years of San Diego Comic-Con, hit live auctions in New York and Los Angeles, and buy from dealers both in person and online. At its peak, his collection included nearly 1000 posters, lobby cards, stills and press books, including such valuable rarities as original theatrical posters for Casablanca (estimated value, $10,000-$15,000); Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious (estimated value, $3000), It’s A Wonderful Life ($18,000), Gilda ($25,000-40,000), City Lights ($4000) and Pinocchio ($10,000).

Getting rid of prized collections is actually quite common, Kusumoto maintains, “and related to advancing age or lack of insurance or never wanting to leave money on the table — or fearing that what you own will wind up in estate sales, fetching pennies on the dollar.” In his case, Kusumoto said, he decided to liquidate after major countywide wildfire evacuations in 2003 and 2007.  He lives in Rancho San Diego, just a few miles from the edge of the fires, which also coincided with his 50th birthday. That led to a lot of personal reflection about people who downsize, in part to minimize the clutter they leave behind for their spouses or heirs to handle.

“After that second evacuation to Qualcomm Stadium, I said, ‘Enough! I’m not going to prioritize non-portable stuff with 15 minutes left while everything else gets left behind to burn.’ During that first evacuation in 2003, I owned a truck, which made things a little easier to carry things out. But large framed posters are bulky, so the seed to unload my collection was planted then. During the second evacuation in 2007, I had no truck, and was forced to get more picky about what to save. The exercise of choosing what to save is the same as choosing what gets destroyed. The whole thing was madness. But my nostalgia isn’t yours. My stuff should be saved for younger people who have a genuine interest in classic movies.”

Kusumoto said he began selling everything piecemeal, some of it online, but “the bulk I consigned to a fellow named Bruce Hershenson, who runs a global movie memorabilia auction house in the Midwest” — eMoviePoster in West Plains, Missouri. “But I did everything slowly, over 20 years, dumping things ‘from the bottom up’ — that is, selling or giving away titles I could live without — and saving the most sentimental things, which isn’t the same as the most valuable, for last. As recently as 2019, I was still letting ‘lower value,’ but more sentimental to me, posters out the door. Some of the last vintage pieces I let go were a British 30x40 from the 1964 release of A Hard Day’s Night and two posters from 1967’s The Graduate. I think they fetched only $4000 altogether. What I have left today are a few low-value items linked to sentimental titles — and some, get this, are reproductions which are, ironically, displayed in some of the same frames which once housed my originals. They can burn and be bought again at Walmart if I want. Peace of mind, and only I know the difference.”