RIDING THAT HOBBY HORSE

Folk Who Collect are Colorful
shared by Torrey H. Brinkley

It has been fun developing a hobby over the years, where one has a chance to meet others with similar interests. Doing hobby work alone in life would be quite tedious and boring. But, everyone uses a hobby with different goals & perspectives, and often achieving different results. Look at some friends of this writer, who also share the same enjoyment of collecting historical automobile literature:

Steve K. mostly has collected Jaguar sales literature, as he also has enjoyed owning & driving older models of this British car. It took him 19 years, but he finally compiled a coffee table book of all the Jaguars ever made, with photos he captured inside & out of this famous marque.

Andy K. bought himself a 4-cylinder Porsche back in the 1960s and has kept it running & in good shape ever since. He has also gathered Porsche literature, and shared such at various Rocky Mountain Porsche events. He was privileged to run his white Porsche for several years in the Steamboat Springs auto race high in the Colorado Rockies.

Pete T. started collecting auto sales literature back in the 1940s and has amassed quite a collection of interesting folders, booklets and prestige items on nameplates from around the world. He tries to help many others obtain literature for their prized vehicles.

Keith D. is an attorney for a New York burrough, and also has been obtaining literature on various new cars for the last 2 decades. He and his wife gave up their cars, while living in the Big Apple, but the sales literature keeps him abreast of all the latest trends in the car industry.

Richard B. was an east coast transplant to the Denver area, who brought along some fine old auto literature which he started collecting back in the 1930s. Many of the nice pieces that he saved include the special automobiles which he owned & drove down thru the years.

Paul G. is a computer industry businessman, who also owns a Ferrari. He has accumulated some very nice pieces of literature on the Ferrari marque, and has become such an expert that he has been named President of the Ferrari Owner's Club in the USA. Currently he needs a wheelchair, as he suffers from M.S., but his advice on Ferraris still is widely solicited.

Robert S. left his computer customization company to sell European cars in downtown Denver. He sometimes travels to Europe and appreciates all the wide variety of cars that are manufactured elsewhere. He displays a nice collection of auto literature on his salesroom walls.

Erwin M. is a Dutch lawyer, who has had an interest in American cars for several years. He collected literature on autos whenever he could attend prestigious European auto shows from London(UK) to Geneva (Switz.). Recently, he started to purchase 1970s American land yachts like Cadillacs and Thunderbirds (in very good considiton) to show off among European friends with similar interests.

Jay K. was a salesman for Chevrolet in Texas for many years. But he also managed to accumulate much in the way of original sales catalogs. He then started selling such thru an extensive mailing catalog. Customers from around the world were glad to purchase old & newer literature from him. This also made possible many yearly church mission trips to Brazil, where Jay shared of his faith in Jesus Christ.

Gary D. owned and managed a Denver office building, but also had a passion for oddball European cars. He collected sales literature and toy models of these unusual cars, and found these easier to store, display & maintain than the actual cars themselves.

Bert S. was a New Yorker who moved to Madrid, Spain and started up a auto showroom for ex-patriots. There were many fancy European autos he had for sale, and he made sure that all his customers could see & read about the other potential offerings. So, he had made some cabinets full of original sales brochures on autos from Alfa Romeos to Ferraris to Volvos.

What do you have as a hobby? If it involves collecting something, make sure that it is lightweight, like postage stamps or feathers. Our hobby is getting too heavy for our backs as we get older.