Popeye, what's so special about the sailor? The concept of collecting a specialized item like Popeye was never our intent.We loved searching small antique shops (and large antique malls), to see if something caught our eye or just toreminisce "my dad had tools like this one or my Aunt used salt and pepper shakers like these on her kitchen table." At this time I had been sort of a "Pin Head", one who collects Lapel or Hat pins, for a couple of years and found a handful of older pins from Pep Cereal boxes.These were of cartoon characters like Betty Boop, Mutt and Jeff and of course Popeye.The Popeye ones stirred some old memories of his cartoon series in the 1950's where he would get into all kinds of troubles but when ate his spinach his "muskels" would display a picture of a battleship, it's guns, a tank or an anvil showing the force after spinach, you knew the bad guys had a real lesson coming!
My next step on this road was to decide to find a "couple" of Popeye pieces to display.At first Popeye memorabilia was somewhat hard to find, was way more expensive that we wanted to spend or was in such bad shape it was not interesting, but we were persistent and found some low to medium priced items which just fed the fire. Soon I discovered the Popeye's 50 year anniversary started to cause a higher demand in the character.More and more people were cleaning out old toys and comics to supply this demand in yard sales and consignment stores and it snowballed into what we see today.
A lot of new toys, dolls, reprints of cartoons, new issues of old tin toys and even a set of golf club covers.This new interest spawned specialty shops, we found one at one of the Casinos in Las Vegas that was moving out and had super clearance prices.Needless to say we did a lot less gambling and more outright spending that day. So here we are checking out the shops in the1990's and on a trip to visit our sister and brother-in-law in Southern Illinois, we were talking about our new obsession and they said the guy who started Popeye was born and raised about two hours away in Chester Il., would you like to visit the town while you are here - Of course!What a bonanza!This place does Popeye credit, they have Popeye picnics, displays, a statue and a museum that houses the official Popeye fan club.This visit showed us there was a large fan contingent out there and our interest grew from there.
But why Popeye?It's hard to say.He doesn't fit today's hero qualities, his English is atrocious, but his down to earth qualities"I yam what I yam!" and "Strong to the finish" are appealing to someone who was brought up in the '40's and '50's.His ethics tinged with sarcasm also is appealing.He loves his sweetie Olive Oyl (one of histories great romances) but his ego sometimes makes him let her drift away (she can be fickle you know) but when she is in trouble he's always there for the rescue and the sail off into the sunset, until the next episode... He's not only my hero, but easily every one else who thinks about it. Now we are at over 400 pieces in our collection, who would have thunk it?
Author: Charlie Hopper
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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