An old friend’s will instructed that his amateur photography, thousands of slides that he took over the years, be delivered to another friend he was confident was qualified to archive the trove for the ages. The reason for that confidence is that the recipient owned one of the largest, and to the limited extent that I’m capable of making such judgments, most comprehensive collections of vintage pornographic images on earth. He’d even published several books on the subject.
As the executor for the deceased, the responsibility fell to me to deliver all those slides as well as the remainder of his oeuvre—prints, computer hard drives, for instance— to the erotica collector at his rural home along the New Jersey/Pennsylvania border. I raise the situation and the setting not to shock or amuse, at least not primarily to shock or amuse, but to suggest that whether you collect abstract expressionism, cheerful Russell Wright dinnerware, or playing cards that when held up to the light show couples in various states of coital athleticism doesn’t make all that much difference.
The urge to own, to appreciate, and to share is similar across collecting categories, for better and worse. A sure sign of the passionate collector is the fervent desire to show you just one more thing. Sure enough, that’s what happened when I pulled into the connoisseur’s driveway, and he greeted me with a bright smile and a level of anticipation that I immediately recognized as a threat to my timetable. I’d simply planned to drop off our mutual friend’s slides, turn around, and head back home.
Scandalous imagery wasn’t the only thing this fellow collected. His barn was filled with neon beer signs, and every surface in his living room was graced by art deco nymphs—on ashtrays and lamps—or posing lithe and naked with no obvious utilitarian justification. His wife appeared as proud and admiring of her husband’s acquisitions as he was. Where another person might have seen clutter, she found beauty.
I can offer no empirical evidence, but my anecdotal belief is that collectors share a common gene. It’s only a matter of time until science catches up and discovers that somewhere along those gossamer strands of DNA and double helixes resides one or more pieces of code that separate the serious collector from the civilian. To bolster my gene argument, let me offer a few snippets of personal biography. My father owned the most complete first edition collection of the works of Horatio Alger Jr. and served as a biographer of the “rags to riches” author. My mother was more a hoarder than a collector, though the line distinguishing the two can at times feel murky. She assembled collections of carved antique Chinese rose quartz and Meissen figurines that have since fallen out of fashion and currently reside in my basement.
At my father’s instigation, I, too, started collecting American first editions, attending book auctions with him at Parke-Bernet (since acquired by Sotheby’s) while I was in middle school. That morphed into a more self-inspired desire to acquire every comic published by R. Crumb, the underground cartoonist behind such memorable characters as Fritz the Cat, Mr. Natural, and Shuman the Human. I don’t recall sharing my comic books with my dad, but I believe it’s to him that I owe the primal urge to collect.
Yet I don’t consider myself a serious collector in the strictest sense of the word. I’m more of an accidental curator, an archivist by default. We live in a fifth-generation house in the Hudson valley that’s filled with random objects. And often multiples. Vintage ashtrays. Paperweights. Antique inkwells. Cherubs in various poses and multiple mediums. Horner harmonicas. Victorian lamps. I haven’t even broached the subject of my grandparents—on my mother’s side they collected impressionist paintings while my father’s parents seemed addicted to the excitement of buying “dollar boxes” at country auctions. How else to explain our motley collection of dishes and silver-plated cutlery?
There’s something else that unites collectors across categories. Their biological disinclination to divest. Sure, they’re happy to lend stuff, especially to museums. And you’ve never met more generous people when it comes to sharing their knowledge and guiding you through the splendor of their acquisitions, no matter how inattentive you may appear.
By the way, just as I assumed, it was no easy task politely separating myself from that pornography collector and getting back on the road. However, I look forward to returning there when I can spend more time with him. Perhaps even for this column. The Obscure Connoisseur’s subject is my adventures among collectors, the things they collect, and the qualities that recommend them to the readers of The Magazine ANTIQUES.
There’s a lot wrong with the world, but one thing that’s right is that daily feeling of being in the moment as one hunts for the next great object, whether pricey or humble, and the pleasure it awards when you show it off to visitors. And even more so when you cherish it while no one is watching.
