The Sorting Phase

Still sorting.

Although The Toyman keeps saying he's getting rid of stuff, the volume of toys in the basement doesn't seem to get much smaller. Maybe it's me. But I don't think so.

I know that there is a lot of sorting to do, and I also know that for him to be able to finally get rid of the stuff, he has to have a certain mindset before he can comfortably part with stuff and not feel as though he's missing out on something, or that he won't have anything left when he's done. He'll want to make sure he doesn't sell something he should have kept - him having regrets after something has left his possession is the last thing I actually want to have to deal with.

I guess this is the collector's dilemma - at least for some (I didn't have a lot of trouble getting rid of mine), but I also think this is just a bit like the mind of a serious hoarder. The basement might look like a hoarder's nest, but at least it isn't full of garbage and food wrappers.

Most of it is the toy collection, although he has had his share of old papers that we didn't need to keep (ask our kids about that!) He's had less of a problem getting rid of some of that. Several large storage buckets have already been taken to a professional shredder, and another one is waiting to go out.

The problem is the toys. Not all of them - there's some he doesn't seem to have a lot of attachment to, and those are easier to toss into a "sell" bin, but then there's the rest.

John Deere Gas Pumps, 1/64 airplanes, and some miscellaneous gas pumps.

The John Deere toys are probably the largest lot. They're still sort of spread out in the basement, so only "loosely" sorted into piles. Eventually he plans to have them all together and then sell them off, except for one or two that he'll keep. Some of the John Deere stuff holds a lot of memories for him.

Just a few from the John Deere Collection

The first "real" snowblower (not some dinky snow thrower) was a big, powerful John Deere.

He spent many summers haying on his best friend's farm (who was more like a brother) with John Deere equipment (and old John Deere 1010); became friends with an avid collector of JD memorabilia who was the brother of his friend.

He's got so many memories attached to these toys ... and paring them down takes a lot of time, because most of these toys bring back a lot of memories. His friend passed away riding that old 1010. He still misses his brother-friend ... a lot. And though he has other close friends, it's a loss that probably won't lessen any time in the near future.

These John Deere toys are stacked high on a shelf I can't reach. I wonder why?

Then there's also the Canadian Tire toys (lots of those) ... and I'm not entirely sure if he has decided on whether he'll keep those, or sell them. Most likely he'll keep at least some of them because they are a Canadian store. (Oh, he just read this and says he's keeping them ... all, lol).

There are also a small batch of toys from Eaton's ... Eaton's doesn't exist any longer. That was a sad demise for a store that began in the 1800s. He doesn't have a lot of those banks, but we live in a town where there still is the T. Eaton's family summer home. We knew a family that lived there for a while, and when they put the house on the market, we tried to buy it ... sort of.

We looked at it several times and while we loved it, we also knew there was work to be done and it was priced a bit outside of our price range. Add the extra costs of the necessary repairs and (at that time) we felt that it was more than our income could handle. <sigh> I seriously wished we had bought it, but that's water under the bridge. I am glad though that the people who own it now have made it a wonderful B & B (see: Creighton Manor).

Yet another bin ...

See, he's not the only one who has a bit of the collector's mind. For me, collections are about history. It's a lot harder for me to pass by things if they have something of a history attached to them, like the Eaton's banks ... they're not old (older, but not antiques) but the history of the Eaton family and their store in Canada is related, and makes for an interesting discussion over a couple of toys with a good coffee (or, beer as some collectors might prefer).

Do any of you remember that "chickenman series" with the tag line "he's everywhere, he's everywhere" rendered in a somewhat panicked tone? Yeah, that's what goes through my mind whenever I head down to our basement (more accurately, the words in my mind are "it's everywhere, it's everywhere").