February 27, 2006

A motley collection

When I was little, I used to collect everything: rocks, bottle caps, baseball cards, pogs, video games, whatever. If this little kid in Northeast Philly could get his hand on it, he was collecting it.

Over the years, I've tried to cool my collecting habit, since, uhm, I have like one closet in my apartment and I have no idea where I would put anything if I kept collecting. (Plus, all my old collected crap is in my parents' house.)

I'm sure I'll end up collecting something trivial eventually, but I doubt I'll come up with a collection as cool as Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky, who the Wall Street Journal interviews today:

Some collectors now accept that younger people don't want their stuff. Philadelphia Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky, 64, has collected the last editions of 79 daily newspapers that closed down since 1963. His adult children don't want the old newspapers, which fill a closet. "The only kind of paper my family wants is greenbacks and stock certificates," he says.

He hasn't been able to find a university to take his collection, either. And now he's under the gun to get rid of it. He is about to marry his third wife, who is 27 years old, and in the prenuptial agreement, there's a clause that he must dispose of the collection by Dec. 31. She wants to store her shoes in that closet.

"At least I can wear my shoes," says his fiancée, Jennifer Graham. "He never reads those papers, and besides, he likes how I look in my shoes."

Collecting a bunch of final editions of newspapers that have folded. Now that's a real newspaperman. Let's hope the Poynter Institute has some extra space.

Who's Going to Want Grandma's Hoard Of Antique Gnomes? [WSJ]

Posted by D-Mac on February 27, 2006 12:54 PM
Posted to Collections , Newspapers , Stu Bykofsky

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1587

Comments