Here Say is a project in community storytelling. We travel to a new place each week and ask people to share true stories about things we all experience: love, family, learning and more. To see where we've been, check out our interactive map. And to hear your favorite stories from last season, you can find our free podcast on iTunes.
We met Eric Gooding, an electrician who normally peruses the book section at antique malls.
“The last time I was in here, there was the History of Boone County and it was 50 percent off and normally it’s like a $150 dollar book and I’d been watching for a decade to find it and I got it for $75 so, that was the deal of the day that day. It’s just one of those things that one day I may need to get into it and they might quit printing books one day and so I’d figure I’d grab it. It was a local history book and I think it was originally printed in 1890 and they did a reprint in 1980s and they’re just, they don’t print them anymore."
Gooding also told us about everything he collected growing up.
“Stamps, comic books, just all that junk, you know...baseball cards. I’ve always been lucky enough to fall into the wrong decade, so everything I got isn’t worth anything. I miss it by about 30 years.”
Doug Langston has been antiquing with his wife for 30 years. They plan their vacations around antiquing and he recalled finding a walnut corner cabinet during a trip to Indiana.
"It was in a real small town. We just happen to stumble into it on a Saturday. They were actually having a small town festival of some kind, and we found this real small antique store in the corner square, and they had this, well the guy told me that he actually had it in his master bedroom the day before. So he had had it for probably 20 years and then we bought it from him. He said ‘I haven’t had it in here but a day.’ So we’re really lucky to have stumbled into that so we went ahead and got it and of course it’s in our second bedroom now. So, it went from his bedroom to ours, and it’s gonna be there a long time.”
We met Ann Hall, who was visiting from Topeka Kansas with her husband. She talked about how she got into collecting.
“It all started with my grandma’s candy dish. Okay, it was a pink, Mayfair candy dish. We could only find the bottom half of it when she died. So, chances are the top part got broken. You know, but people don’t throw things away. So I found, I couldn’t replace the lid at the time, so I just bought another candy dish and then we went to this shop that specialized in depression glassware, and it got me hooked.”
Jeff Hopkins is a vender at the antique mall. He became interested in being a vendor during his stint in the military.
“I was military for a long time and at different locations we were stationed, we would go to auctions and we just kind of got addicted to going to auctions and finding treasures like ‘Wow this is all this lamp went for. Oh man look at these rockers, they only went for you know, $50, and they’re from the 1800s. So, the more we bought, the less room we had in the house and we had to do something to feed our habit. It’s a lot of fun. Finding the treasures, going to the auctions, spending the day with people, competing for little treasures is sometimes a lot of fun. You never get everything you’re after because somebody’s after it a little harder.”