We’ve come across some interesting collections over the years and no matter how eclectic or left of field the items maybe, they all seem to enrich the life of their owners, and we think that’s the most important aspect. Here’s our favourite 10 thus far.
10. VINYL
One man who has his fair share of CDs, but also still swears by the warm crackle of vinyl, is Alan Howe, a senior journalist for the Herald Sun newspaper. Over the years, Alan has amassed an enormous collection of around 2000 records and 5000 CDs, which adorn the walls of his impressive music room.
He says his obsession was hatched from birth, but it wasn’t until 11 years ago, when he found the perfect block of land, that he saw an opportunity to provide a dedicated spot for his passion. He and his wife set out to build their dream home, which – for Alan – had to include a purpose-built room to keep his records, instruments and various bits of music memorabilia. The result is a quaint cabin, detached from the rest of the house, allowing Alan to make as much noise as he needs no matter what time of day it is. “I never set out to start a collection, it just happened by accident really,” he explains.
“I’ve been into music since the day I was born. When I got older I played in a few bands and it just seems that music has always played a large part in my life.
“I always found that if I heard a song I liked at a friend’s house, I couldn’t leave it at that, I’d have to have it in my collection the next day.”
9. LIGHT GLOBES
Light globes aren’t the most lavish item to collect by any means; however, they certainly make for an intriguing story. The vast majority of Andrew’s collection is stored in a shipping container in the backyard, while the front of his house has a room dedicated more generally to his interests. To the untrained eye that room may look a little disorganised (only Andrew can admit if that is true), but he can find anything within a matter of seconds – even if it’s in a box, under two boxes, under a sheet, under a table…
There are globes all over the place – some wrapped up, others lying out in the open – there are countless pieces of electronic equipment and regulators, computer parts and miscellaneous devices to work on or to adapt anything. It may appear that very little has a place, but everything has a purpose. If your work station is meant to be a reflection of your mind… then Andrew has a lot going on.
At the time ManSpace went to visit, Andrew had over 10,500 globes in the collection, however he says that is currently expanding at almost one a day, with one “significant or valuable” globe added every month. The source of these globes has varied through the different phases of his life…
8. HAND-OPERATIVES
Dr George Santoro AO may be described as a collector. However, what he collects may be a little harder to define. George has some 16 magnificent typewriters, each one a classic model with intricate details you could study for hours.
Unlike many collections seen by ManSpace though, George’s typewriters are not stored together in the one place – some are in the workshop, others scattered throughout the house. In order to see them, George suggested we go for a walk.
It was on this little guided meander through his magnificent house that we started to realise George collects far more than just typewriters. There is a 1913 Philadelphia hand mower that took over a year to find all the pieces to get it working again. A magnificent Singer sewing table that can be folded into different shapes for various uses sits against a wall in another room. There are even convict handcuffs hanging from the wall next to an important barbed wire display.
It may appear a little disjointed but it makes perfect sense. Everything is hand-operated. Everything is mechanical by nature. Everything is made of individual parts in an era when they built to last or could be replaced if required to restore it to full working order.
7. PARKING METERS
Of all the items in Alan’s house, the two most obvious themes are Rolls Royce and parking meters. The former is a childhood fascination he has carried through life, the latter took up much of his employment history.
“I first got into a Rolls Royce when I was 15 – I even got to have a drive,” he says. “I couldn’t even tell you the model, but I fell in love. I thought it as the most amazing car and I was hooked. “I had a few Matchbox cars about 20 years ago, but didn’t really start collecting them ‘till maybe the last 10 or so,” says Alan.
“I’ve stopped because I’ve run out of space. I approached it by groups that I like – I started with fire engines, then trucks and then obviously Rolls Royce. But then I got a real one so I stopped collecting the models,” he adds with a magnificent smile.
It shows admiration for a worker who was clearly respected and well-loved by his colleagues – in fact; it spreads far wider than that. Alan has a number of meters inside and outside the house. They have all been given to him by various people and, in a number of cases, different councils were good enough to send him new plates when he wanted to restore them.
As a nice touch, he has bolted a row of them alongside his driveway; it’s an excellent way to get money out of your family if you ask me…
6. MOTORBIKES
One of the best motorbike collections in Australia is located in an old ice cream factory in Cairns. With over 40 bikes of significance and a mountain of memorabilia and history, some have even said it’s the best tourist attraction in Cairns. Except for one small issue … it’s not actually open as a public exhibition.
It certainly explains the immaculate neatness of Hoppy’s collection and the reason why so many people assume it is a commercial operation. Every piece has a specific place and is in the best possible condition it can be. Additionally, the collection is in the same building as his office, allowing him to look out on it and enjoy every day.
“The memorabilia and the history are more important to me than the actual bikes. The collection essentially built up over many years through the connections I’ve had in my life.”
In that sense, Hoppy’s bikes are far more than a collection; they are a chronicle of his life.
“It started when I was about 13-years-old living on the farm in Victoria. Dad hated motorbikes – he had one because that’s all he could afford living in a country town, but he kept falling off it. So he was never keen on letting me get one.”
Although Daryl would end up “with the same car for years”, Hoppy was bitten by the
mechanical bug and started working with motors throughout his personal and professional life.
5. SPORTING CARDS
In a purpose-built and well-protected shed in his backyard, Graeme has, among many other things, 160 albums of sporting cards, with each album containing several sets. On weekends, he and his brother John (who’s treasurer of the Australian Cartophilic Society) attend up to nine weekend garage sales and most card and collectible fairs even though, “You don’t have a lot of success at garage sales.” But one day, some ten years ago, he did get lucky. “I found a set of Hutton’s Pies footy stickers, which are something of a Holy Grail for collectors and worth about $1200. I paid 50 cents. They were stuck in a book and when I got home I started picking at them and they all just peeled off and were perfect.”
Graeme Dickenson began collecting when he was a child in Melbourne’s western suburbs in the early 1960s.
“Because everyone barracked for a football team, and footy stars were heroes to us kids, we naturally bought them. Our family were all Melbourne supporters and we bought the whole set of cards from the local Coles store and had them framed and put on the lounge room wall.”
4. WINGED BANDITS
It’s not often you come across someone who has a private collection of historical planes… man or woman.
Judy owned 10 acres of land next to the Tyabb airport so once the planes begun to morph into
a collection; she decided to build a hangar on it, which has now been joined by another out the back. Further down the track it turned into a maintenance and restoration business and in a roundabout way that is how the Old Aeroplane Company came to fruition.
The uncluttered floor space looks more like a showroom with roughly a dozen aeroplanes on display.
And while she doesn’t get to fly as much as she’d like to, she’s constantly surrounded by magnificent wings and all of the things that her passion entails, which we think is pretty special.
“I don’t really have a favourite plane in my collection. It’s kind of like choosing which child is your favourite – they all exhibit individual characteristics and I love them all.”
So what lies in the future for this collection and the woman that owns it?
“There are no plans to expand my current collection – unless something irresistible comes along; I think I’m pretty content so I’ll continue doing this until the passion fades away.”
We hope it never does…
3. MILITARY VEHICLES
It’s not every day you meet someone whose collection needs to be housed in a warehouse the size of a Bunnings, but when you combine military vehicles with a bloke whose energy knows no bounds, that’s exactly what you’ll find.
So it’s one thing to be fascinated by tanks but to find them, restore them and then build a museum to showcase them all is beyond remarkable. Before I go on, when I say restore, I really mean restore. He has wonderful vision, an amazing work ethic as well as the energy of an 18 year old… oh and a little bit of crazy which he openly admits.
“It’s certainly been an interesting life and I reckon I’ve averaged 60 hour working weeks for the past 60 years. It hasn’t done me any harm other than the fact that some people think I’m a bit crazy. You don’t have to be crazy but it helps if you are, at least a little bit,” he laughs.
“We opened the museum on December 4 1993 and we sold up in April 2006. My wife ran it from the front desk with a coffee shop and cash register but it was hard to make money from it and I still had to work full-time to make ends meet.
He was never going to give it all away though and since the museum was disbanded he’s been busy collecting and restoring once more. His oversized shed is still packed to the rafters with tanks and an assortment of military vehicles, as well as a dedicated workshop and storage area. Then there’s the outdoor wrecking yard that houses tonnes upon tonnes of old tanks, Chevy chassis and wheels. It resembles a tank graveyard but John assures me that nothing is scrap metal here.
2. TIN CARS
Brian Dixon’s man space is more a little boy’s dream, for in it there are over 80 immaculately restored vintage pedal cars. There are also trikes and scooters, and even a merry-go-round for toddlers with pedal cars instead of ponies.
So you’d guess from all this kid’s stuff that Brian is re-living his own childhood days but no, he says jokingly, “My older brothers had one between them, but I was a deprived child.”
It wasn’t until the late 1970s when Brian obtained his first pedal car, an old Clipper a farmer had destined for the tip. “I thought I would do it up if Sue (his wife) and I had another son.” But the Dixon’s last born also had a pedal car-deprived childhood. “I didn’t touch it for a long time because it had a lot of parts missing,” says Brian, “So by the time I got around to finishing it he was too old.”
However, the Dixon’s grandchildren have been the beneficiaries of Brian’s hobby, although his wife thinks it’s more than a hobby.
“She keeps telling me I should take a bed into the shed.”
Brian’s sizeable brick shed was built by himself while professional builders were constructing his house. As the pedal car collection grew he needed additional space, so Brian disassembled an old farm shed and put that up next to the work shed.
Most of his collection has come from within the central Victorian region, and often for free.
1. TWO-WHEELED WONDERS
Bicycle enthusiast James Macdonald has amassed a collection of over 200 bicycles that, quite literally, have become a part of the furniture.
What do you do when you run out of room in the house for your collection of choice?
Easy. You lift the house up eight feet, of course.
James arguably has the largest collection of bicycles in Australia. And if we’re wrong about this, then it’s definitely the largest collection in the Garden City.
“All of my stuff has been sourced in Australia and I don’t have the internet, so I’m a traditional collector who takes what he can get and is satisfied when you don’t find anything, which is most of the time. Nowadays, if you want to collect you just get on the internet, punch it all in and it arrives in the mail. Whereas the traditional collector goes to swap meets and comes home disappointed; you go to op shops and never find what you want. But when you do, it’s something special.”
“I have around 200 – a lot,” James laughs. “They have been culled from 2000 that I bought home and they would have been culled out of 20-40,000 bicycles I’ve looked at and didn’t bring home.
