Escape the ordinary, embrace the odd

Before we dive back into the rabbit hole of weird and wonderful things people collect, let’s take a step back. How did I end up down this road? More importantly, how can you start finding incredible treasures of your own? It all started in 1969 at Ray Shaub’s auction house in Quarryville, Pennsylvania. I was just six years old when I bought an antique porcelain jardiniere for my grandmother. She was the one who sparked my lifelong obsession. And let's be honest—it is an obsession. We collectors always tell ourselves, "Just one more piece..." Fast forward to today: I have been buying other people’s stuff for 57 years and selling it for 55. My very first sale? A vintage Hubley fire engine sold to a neighborhood kid. The Best Secret to Sourcing: Go to the Auction Capital Over the years, people always ask me: "Where do you find all this great inventory?"The answer is in my roots. I grew up in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, which I consider the absolute auction capi...

Where do we start when looking for the ultimate collectible? Let’s start with an item hidden in plain sight, one where absolutely no one can give you an exact count of how many copies still exist. We are talking about vintage paper, formally known as ephemera. Most people never thought about preserving the paper in their daily lives. They read a newspaper and immediately used it to wrap fresh fish or stuffed it into a wall cavity for makeshift winter insulation. Yet, against all odds, these transient scraps survived. Today, they form a fascinating, unpredictable market for collectors.Here is a look at the everyday paper items that turned into historical goldmines. 1. Newspapers: Time Capsules of Major and Minor HistoryNewspapers are unmatched because they capture history in real time. Collectors hunt for front pages showcasing massive sports upsets, broken world records, the declaration of wars, or the signing of peace treaties.However, the real history is often found in the margins. T...

  The Art of the Unusual: 21 Years of Collecting Beyond the Ordinary Twenty-one years ago, we started a journey together. Over two decades later, our bond is stronger than ever, and so is our shared obsession with the unconventional. While most couples bond over mainstream hobbies, we found our passion in the margins. We curate, collect, and sell the things most people walk right past—the strange, the historic, the beautiful, and the beautifully bizarre. Our Golden Rule: Buy What You Love From day one, we established a strict rule for our business and personal collection: We only buy items we would proudly keep for ourselves. This philosophy changes everything. We don't chase fleeting market trends or look for quick, soulless flips. Every piece of inventory passing through our hands is something we genuinely appreciate. If an item never sells, it simply finds a permanent home on our shelves. This ensures that everything we offer has passed a strict test of personal passion and qual...