It's Not About Me

My Collections Most people might say that I am an obsessive collector…and after creating this long list of stuff, I must agree with you. However, I blame my parents for this obsession. As I stated earlier in this book, my parents started me on this journey when I was just a kid on our Sunday afternoon rides looking for antiques. Also, growing up and having 12 surgeries in my first 14 years, I was not able to engage in sports and a lot of other group activities so collecting stuff became a natural way for me to fill my days! What follows is a summary of over 20 different collections that I have assembled over the last fifty years or so. It has been a joy of mine to learn much about our history via collecting these objects. confederate money but that was just the beginning of my insatiable appetite for collecting. In 1966, as I was leaving Bolivar to go to my first ever real job at Westinghouse in Pennsylvania, I told my father I was taking my grandfather’s W.J. Savage & Co. sign with me that had been laying on a pile of lumber in the garage. This sign had been made by my father’s older brother, Gene Savage and had once hung outside of my grandfather’s store (which closed in 1945) : • Advertising Signs: As a kid, I already mentioned that I collected coins and stamps and

This one sign would be the beginning of one of my largest collections of advertising signs. I collected signs from shows and auctions primarily in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Tennessee over the last 55 years. The next six pictures highlight some of over 300 signs and related items hanging in our Cordova home today.

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