By Jess Wellar
When the editor assigned this story, I admit my nostalgic heart skipped a beat, thinking back on everything I loved to collect as a child. After conferring with friends and family, I’m convinced everyone has amassed something at some point in their lives: baseball cards, stamps, coins, Matchbox cars, etc. Determined, I set out on a mission to track down seasoned collectors in Centre County who gather unusual items.
Game On
The first person I qualified was Ken Wozetek of State College. Wozetek boasts a staggering collection of video games and memorabilia somewhere in the neighborhood of 17,000 items—arguably one of the largest, most impressive collections of its kind. (The world record is currently held by a gentleman in Texas with more than 24,000 items.)
“My basement is like a museum. I collect console video games of any system that has come out in the U.S., such as Nintendo, Sega, and Atari. I’m a set collector, so I try to get one copy for every single game in each system,” Wozetek offers.
“For example, take the Nintendo DS. I have all 1,750 games for it—one copy of each game in the system. And for PlayStation2, I have all 1,814 games in the set.”
Wozetek has managed to amass fourteen complete sets and boasts collections for sixty-six different gaming systems. He says he started acquiring video games purely by accident in 2005.
“It’s really my wife’s fault—she started it!” he laughs. “We were getting ready to move my wife from her apartment and I noticed a tub that was labeled ‘games and puzzle books,’ so I opened it up and inside there was an original Nintendo! So we hooked it up and played games all night like Dr. Mario, Double Dragon. Then we moved into the new townhouse, hooked it up again to play, and from there, I started looking on eBay for games I used to play as a kid.”
Wozetek claims he will never stop collecting, but his focus may shift slightly. He loves games too much to ever give them up entirely, and his son loves to play the newer games with him when he has the chance.
“I can’t see myself ever selling everything off and taking the money,” Wozetek adds. ”But I do think there’s a lot we can learn from playing the games of old, and new video game developers can learn a lot from old games, too. I could see myself shifting my collection to a library or learning institution at some point.”
Yes, I Want the Receipt
The next curious collector I spoke with is actually a close friend of mine from State College. I had always assumed I knew everything there was to know about April Gunsallus, having been friends since the eighth grade. But when I casually mentioned my article assignment, she admitted to having a collection of paper receipts for every transaction completed since she graduated college. I was speechless … and intrigued. What would possess someone to save such a paper trail?
“I’ve been collecting data on myself for the past 25 years in the form of paper receipts,” Gunsallus explains. “Every tank of gas, every cup of coffee, every transaction big or small, I keep the receipt in a shoebox.
“I’m downright perturbed if I don’t get a receipt at the end of a transaction, such as when the gas pump printer is out of paper. I’ll walk inside, stand in line, and make someone print one out for me,” she admits. “And if I’m in a rush, I’ll scribble down at least the date, gallons, and price per gallon, usually on the cover of a pack of paper matches. I’m old school like that.”
Gunsallus quickly points out that all this data is hers, and hers alone—and that is precisely the point. She can do with the data whatever she pleases, even burn it eventually if she wishes. But in an age of ubiquitous surveillance and cellphones tracking every move, she loves knowing that she is the only one to possess the data to calculate how many coffees she drank in her lifetime, or plot inflation, among other economic data points.
“It’s also just fun to recount being in a certain place when I look back at my receipts,” Gunsallus notes. “Maybe I’ll make an art installation someday.”
Close Shave
Bill Harvey, also a resident of State College, informs me his collection started with a Google search after paying too much for a mediocre shave.
“I was tired of paying $5 per blade,” Harvey explains. “So I joined Dollar Shave Club and this vintage razor popped up with Badger & Blade. Curious, I went on eBay and bought an old razor and it really worked well for me, and my collection just kind of just grew from there.”
Although they’re still quite popular in other countries, vintage razors are not as easy to come by in the U.S., and Harvey says he really has to hunt for a bargain. His oldest razor dates back to 1913, but he prefers to use blades from the 1970s and ’80s for the best possible shave.
“When they manufactured razors, they were solid in the turn of the nineteenth century,” he continues. “The old razors were made in brass and then plated so they last. Nowadays these cartridges aren’t made nearly as well. I currently have 700 razor blades that were made in the ’70s and ’80s … more than I’m ever going to use in my lifetime. I used to have over a thousand, but I’ve started to sell some; I actually wear a beard for almost half of the year so it’s a bit ironic.”
Welcome to Lionelville
Next on my list was Jim Sampsel, an enthused collector of trains for over twenty-five years. Sampsel loves trains so much that he’s actually devoted his entire Marion Township basement to the collection, and with the help of his wife, Gloria, has built a charming town around the trains.
“My dad bought my first steam engine when I was born in 1950,” Sampsel shares. “He would set the train up around our Christmas tree every year and I would scream with delight. When I bought my own house in 1988, I decided to dedicate one room for the train layout.”
Named after the manufacturer of the toy trains, Lionelville includes everything one could expect to find in a quaint town: a gas station, a church, plenty of bustling storefronts with people and animals, a firehouse, and even a mountain. Sampsel says he’s run out of space for Lionelville to expand, but he’s always on the lookout for new items to incorporate in the town.
“We now have a McDonald’s restaurant where I push a button and the restaurant talks,” he says proudly. “My wife and I designed the storefronts and the lights, even the highways that go through the town. We tried to make it as realistic as we could by making the scale as close as possible. Through trial and error, we learned.
“I have four trains in the set, but my favorite is a steam engine that is identical to the steam engine that used to sit at Horseshoe Curve in Altoona; it will actually puff out smoke when it runs. I have four grandchildren now and they love watching the trains, too. I want to pass it on to them some day.”
Respect for Rhinos
Perhaps the most unusual collection I uncovered was that of Bill Schroder. He has been collecting rhinoceri since his “aha” moment forty years ago. He also runs a blog, YourInnerRhino.com, and seldom does a day go by without a post.
“I have always been an advocate for all animals and have illustrated constantly, as well as doing research,” Schroder explains. “But in 1983, I sent a thank-you note to my aunt and uncle, and casually decided to draw a rhino at the beach [on the notecard]. And when I finished that illustration, I had a ‘eureka’ moment and knew that rhinos were the answer for me, even if I did not know the question.”
Schroder’s collection includes roughly 300 rhinos of various materials and sizes dotting every room of his house, even his garden. He is also quick to point out that since rhinos are gray, they don’t require much dusting—thank goodness.
“The collection’s expansion is directly related to what I find in my travels, which are now all pleasure related since I’m retired,” Schroder says. “Many of my rhinos have been gifts from friends, plus those I run into myself. I don’t consciously repeat an example, but if I get them as gifts, I love them just the same.
“My collection is about respect for rhinos, all five species, and a hope that my blog will raise awareness of all nature and its relation to us humans. Humans are not rhinos, but the relationship of all living things is surprisingly uniform,” he concludes. “I am interested in stimulating thought in those who read my work.”
‘A Large, Personal Scrapbook’
The last collector I spoke with bleeds blue and white and loves all things Happy Valley. An ’85 Penn State alum, Lisa Schroeder has been saving issues of Town & Gown since she returned to the area over 20 years ago.
“When I moved to State College in 2002, I started reading the Town & Gown magazine and just loved all of the local stories and articles regarding Penn State,” Schroeder remarks. “It became for me a kind of keepsake of annual events, restaurants, and locations I liked to visit, updates on charities I support, and memories of folks who I knew.
“It’s like a large, personal scrapbook that I didn’t have to make,” she adds with a chuckle. “Back in the day, if you wanted a memory you kept it in a photobook so you could go back and look at it, and turn the pages. These days, we have thousands of photos but we don’t really go back to look through them all because they’re on our phones we lost, our hard drives we don’t use, or the cloud. … I have no reason not to keep collecting.” T&G
Jess Wellar is a freelance writer who lives in Bellefonte and loves to travel every chance she gets.
