Couple share love of collecting
RICHFIELD TWP. - In Dale and Chris Thomas' fairy-tale world, there's a place and time where people don't fill their time, space and thoughts with collections.
It's not just their imagination either. Once upon a time, the longtime Richfield Township couple used to dwell in that realm. It's a dim memory.
In the here and now, their basement is filled with Hot Wheels, Matchbox and other toy cars.
One bedroom is virtually wallpapered, floor to ceiling, with hundreds of dolls - Barbies, her friends and a variety of distant cousins, from Raggedy Ann and Andy to dolls bearing the likeness of Elvis and other celebrities.
Other dolls are maneuvering to take over other strategic fronts in the house. But they face stiff competition from thousands of toy vehicles, Avon perfume and toiletry bottles, Tonka trucks, John Deere collectibles, other toy tractors, toy cement mixers, Coca Cola memorabilia and perhaps more - every time the Thomases discuss their arsenal of articles, another item comes up.
Collecting was largely an afterthought for most of the Thomas' lives.
"I used to collect salt and pepper shakers," said Chris Thomas, 65, but that was 30 years ago. She tired of collecting the items, she said.
"I had a model car collection when I was a kid," said Dale Thomas, 58. "It's long gone. I have no idea what happened to it."
In 1981 - the year the couple were married - Chris Thomas, who spent her first 16 years in Burton, thought about her husband's Christmas stocking when she noticed a little car.
"I said, 'You know what? I'm going to buy some of these old cars for his sock,'" she recalls.
That unlocked the door, and before long, the door had been flung open wide to an invasion.
Dale Thomas put his first little cars on display.
"I just got to where I got to liking them," he said.
Now they've taken over part of the house and demand more storage room and more exhibition space.
"When I get my basement finished I plan to put them in permanent (display) cases," said Dale, who retired in 1998 after 30 years of working at the Chevrolet V-8 engine plant.
At least 180 dolls in Chris' doll collection are arrayed in cases in a bedroom, attired in their best finery, mostly beaming with apparent joy at their starring status in the friendly country household - a household where toys and dolls are playthings of adults, not children.
"I go in there and take (the dolls) down and dust them and look at them," she said.
Little Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars, that typically measure 3 inches long or less, outnumber every other collectible in the house combined.
Tonka trucks were an early preference for Dale Thomas, and he has boxfuls of the trucks.
"I don't even know how many I've got," he said. "Maybe 50?"
In the late 1990s, after joining the Two Cylinder Club, a group partial toward John Deere equipment, Dale Thomas began collecting Deere articles. He said he has all of the 22 or 23 coin banks the company made.
Some collections lead to others.
After acquiring Deere model "hit and miss" engines, Dale reached out for such engines from other makes, such as International Harvester.
He has accumlated at least 100 model collectible tractors based on Deere, Allis-Chalmers, Farm-all, International Harvester, Ford, Oliver and Case.
One of the collections honors Dale Thomas' late grandfather, Roy Polson of Fenton. Polson, who owned Polson Cement Co. - a maker of cement mix and cement blocks - on the current W. Shiawassee Avenue site of Whisperwood condominium complex, taught Thomas to drive.
Now Thomas collects a very diverse group of model cement mixers in memory of his grandfather, who died in 1982 at age 92.
Another part of Thomas' collection is a tribute to his late father, Delbert Thomas, a mechanic for a car dealership in Holly and for Wismer-Wright Chevrolet of Fenton.
The collecting is a good fit with his love of cars, Dale Thomas said.
"I've always been around cars," he said. "I've bought cars, fixed them, sold them. As a kid I bought model car kits."
Chris Thomas teamed up in 1993 with other collectors in the Crossroads Village Doll Collectors Club, she said.
A group from that organizations banded together to start a Barbie club, Thomas said.
"I like Barbie," she said, but the main reason for singling her out for a club of its own is that Barbies are cheaper to acquire than most other dolls.
Also, "there's gobs and gobs of accessories" to collect.
Like other girls, Chris Thomas played with dolls as a girl. For good measure, she and a cousin dressed up cats, "put them in buggies and took them for rides," she said.
Thomas prefers Madame Alexander dolls because "they have such cute faces," but they're more expensive.
Thomas has assembled other doll varieties, too. For example, a show business segment includes Barbie-like images of Marlo Thomas, Lucille Ball, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Elvis Presley and others.
Chris Thomas said all but about 50 of her Barbies were gifts from others or prizes she won. On the other hand, Dale Thomas has purchased almost all of his.
The cars, dolls and other favorites are culled from all kinds of business and events, including antique shops, flea markets and yard sales.
"It's taken us as long as eight hours to get to Houghton Lake because of the many stops along the way to seek out collectibles," Chris Thomas said.
Dale said he buys most of his little vehicles from department store and toy store shelves.
"Every day I do something," he said: Buying, cateloguing, repair, cleaning, organizing, calling other collectors and more.
"My dad thought I was absolutely crazy to do this stuff," said Dale Thomas, who spent his first 27 years in Fenton.
Chris Thomas doesn't get much more sympathy from her daughter.
"I tell her, 'you're going to get all of this stuff,'" she said. "She says, 'Mom, I don't want it!'"
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posted by infomegamedia | Sunday, January 20, 2008
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