The weekend’s here and you’re on the hunt, prowling through estate sales and the like for your next big find.
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Like many busy network professionals and harried mothers, Nilik Minassian has a weakness for the McDonald’s Drive-Thru. But as a vegan, Minassian isn’t after the food. She’s got a hankering for the Happy Meal toys.
By day, this IT manager builds the infrastructure that lets Warner Music Group in Burbank, Calif., deliver digital content to 5,000 users at 150 international and domestic sites. Off the clock, she is busy trying to preserve childhood memories for her three daughters – 8-year-old twins and a 4-year-old.
“I’m fascinated with the toys themselves,” Minassian says. “It takes you back to the moment, what children were interested in during that era, what was big. I envision my children opening a box in the attic one day.”
So far, Minassian has collected more than 100 toys since her twins were toddlers. (She often buys doubles, letting her daughters play with one set, while she packs away another.) For the record, while her girls love the french fries and the Chicken McNuggets, she notes that you can buy the toys separately from the meals.
While the Happy Meal toys get tucked in the attic, Minassian’s other collection – teapots – is prominently displayed in her home. In the past few years, she has amassed a collection of about 10 full-size teapots and 60 miniature teapots, found at antique shops and garage sales, or given to her as gifts. Among her collection are a hand-painted Russian teapot; a gold-plated Chinese dragon teapot from her grandmother; and a musical teapot, the likes of which she hasn’t again seen. Minassian is attracted to the teapots for the intricate detailing. While her IT work is “highly technical, [collecting] is going back inside who I really am. This puts me in touch with that. Deep inside I really want to be an artist,” she says.
Weaving a history
Minassian is far from alone in her passion for collecting. Interest in antiques and collectibles has skyrocketed in recent years, thanks in part to the rise of Web sites such as eBay and the “Antiques Roadshow,” the most-watched show on public television. Being able to research your favorite stuff on the Internet has made it easy for more people to get involved in collecting.
Like Minassian, Katherine Stroud is an IT manager and has two collections. The drivers are similar to Minassian’s: one puts her in touch with her artistic side, and the other helps instill a sense of history in her children.
Stroud says she doesn’t get much of an artistic outlet in her work as manager of network and systems technology at Bloomington Hospital and Healthcare Systems in Indiana. Her job has her overseeing seven people at 30 WAN sites and seven people in the operations group, serving 2,200 users at the 153-bed hospital.
So about a year ago, she took up weaving again, an interest she first explored in a college course in the 1970s – and now also collects weaving paraphernalia. Over the past five years, she has collected a floor loom, an inkle loom (a loom used to weave monks’ belts), a small potholder loom, spindles, cones, bobbins, shuttles and books on weaving. On her many looms, she makes bookmarks, belts and sashes.
Weaving has been just the creative hobby Stroud, who has been involved in arts all her life, wanted. “I was so busy with my career,” she says. “Even if I don’t finish something, it’s still worth spending the time creating.”
Her other collection – memorabilia from World War II journalist and Indiana native Ernie Pyle – gives her a way to connect with her family. She became interested in Pyle’s writings because they provide a different perspective on war from the trivia and statistics that interest her husband, a WWII buff. She enjoys Pyle’s human-interest stories.
“He really made it seem like you were there. He focused on the personal stuff – what they ate, what it was like to be in the trenches, what it was like to be away from home,” Stroud says.
When her children were younger, collecting the Pyle memorabilia was a family affair. “It was a way of encouraging our kids to develop an interest in World War II,” she says.
The Strouds have scoured eBay and antique stores to find items related to Pyle – collections of his newspaper columns, a first edition postage stamp honoring him and their favorite, an issue of Life featuring him on the cover.
Mining for diamonds in the rough
The family connection also prompted Neil Hull’s interest in antiques.
“It’s in the blood,” says Hull, IT director at the Kansas School for the Deaf in Olatha and son of an antique-shop owner. “I got hooked as a kid hanging out with Mom. I still call my mom to this day, saying, ‘Mom, is this worth buying?’ “
A self-professed pack rat, Hull plans to follow in the family tradition and open an antique shop when he retires. Because that’s years away, he spends his time searching for furniture, glassware and antique fishing gear. His favorite find is Duncan Phyfe furniture from the early 1800s, which he admires for its craftsmanship.
During the summers, Hull and his wife will hop in the car, head two or three states away and look for antique shops and flea markets off the beaten path.
Hull also spends his weekends combing garage sales and estate sales. These are often where you can find “diamonds in the rough,” he says. “So many people have no idea of the value of what they have.”
Much of Hull’s collection comes from Asia, where he spent 14 years in Japan working in IT. “Over there, something’s not considered old until it’s 400 or 500 years old.” As a consequence, he found many 100-year-old items that people in Japan didn’t value. He also collected a lot of mahogany furniture from Bali, where items are constructed from disassembled boats.
Hull’s hobby provides him an escape from the hectic pace of IT. At The School for the Deaf, Hull has spent the last few years upgrading to Unix and Windows servers and is now in the midst of equipping the school for video and distance learning. The school, which opened in 1861, has about 500 students and staff members.
“In this field, we’re so focused on the latest and greatest,” he says. “It’s relaxing to be able to step back and grab things for their simplicity.”
