How Did You Get Started Collecting?

[67Zenith]

I'm kind of new here and I have to say it's like a breath of fresh air to be associated with many other vintage electronics collectors. As I read through these topics, I sometimes wonder: how did these other guys get started? What sparked your interest in saving and restoring? Why do you do it?

For me, it has been a lifelong interest. When our suburban development was being constructed in the mid and late 1960s I followed the Bell Telephone installers around, summer after summer. Some of the Bell guys thought it was funny that a kid around 9 or 10 years old wanted to see how the telephones went in to the houses and some of them taught me a thing or two about installation. Then I was fascinated when our 1960 Zenith console went on the fritz and Mr. DeLeo, the tv repairman, came to the house to repair it. He talked into the set as if it were something alive, referring to the set as "she". I thought wow this guy is really into this. As the years went on, one could not help notice how the so called "progress" of telephones and tv sets (my two favorites) dwindled in comparison to the greatness of the 1960s. About 1984 or 85 I began to collect. The sidewalk curbs in my NJ suburb were abundant with tv sets from the 1960s. I only took one, a 1967 Zenith color console. It has been with me since and is currently in dry storage. It will move with me when I move again next year. Also still have my family 1964 RCA Victor portable. Have a couple others but I should have collected many more back in the 80s and 90s. And Western Electric rotary telephones LOL man you could have as many as you wanted in the early 1990s and I took plenty - people just threw them in a box in the basement or the garage. I had so many, every color, desk set, wall set, Princess, Trimline. In 1985, when my parents retired, I also pulled out the 1963 olive green one and the red one my family had since 1963. I still have 10 of these phones and they all work fine. I added one 1972 olive green touch tone for daily use but the rest are rotary and the red one is in current use. My siblings can't fugure out why I am still attracted to these things from our childhood years (but they have come to know that this is the real me LOL). My friends think my place looks "vintage" because I also like great, solid furniture from the 1960s, so I guess my home looks like a trip down Danish Modern memory lane when one visits me. When I show them pics of my '68 Buick Electra 225 they can hardly believe that this huge car was once a normal part of daily driving in the USA and moreso that I have owned it since 1987 and I still drive it now and then. That's my story. Feel free to tell your story. It amazes me that many people much younger than me are truly interested in saving and restoring vintage electronics and cars and I'd like to hear from them.