Weird. I always wanted to ask him on the CGC forums if his name was an homage to Sweet Lew Lloyd, but then thought his name was spelled differently, Sweet Lew wore #32, and I didn't want to seem like an idiot asking random people if they were Rockets fans, so I decided not to. lol
Aw geez. A Yankee? I was hoping it was Sweet Lou Dunbar, but he wore #41... not 14. Anyway, he seems like a nice dude on the forums.
I collect vintage cast iron cookware (skillets, waffle irons, dutch ovens, muffin pans, etc.). I take old, rusty cast iron that looks like trash and I completely restore it. It ends up looking like new. Some of my pieces are from before the civil war. If you come across any cast iron cookware (that isn't Lodge) let me know!
When I used to drive around rural America, you could stop off at pretty much any "antique store" and find tons of that stuff. I mean, they were everywhere. Usually right next to some old farm equipment. You could pick up some cast iron pans and a rusty old scythe the size of a horse for a song! On the way out, grab an autographed picture of Elvis while you're at it.
Decades ago I was leaving the field after a game back when you could exit by walking on the field and leaving out the gate in left field (Pre-Royals Stadium), Lou (the Royals 3rd baseman at the time) was being interviewed on camera by the 3rd base dugout. I was a punk kid at the time and wanted to get on TV so bad that I walked in between Lou and the interviewer. The look I got... But hey I was on TV...I think... I have quite a few baseball stories. We were leaving a Spring Training Yankees game and crossing the with the crosswalk light and a car about hit us while making a left turn out of the stadium. In the car was Joe Torre (driving), Don Mattingly (shotgun), Yogi Berra (what a little old man he was then) and someone else though couldn't tell who. My reaction was what-the-heck-dude before realizing who was in the car but Joe got my gesture and just looked at me with a "what?" look. I guess that's how they drive in NY. Then there was the time (again Spring Training) Ken Griffey Jr grabbed the T-Shirt cannon from the person and hit me at close range (<30') in the chest with a T-Shirt which about knocked the wind out of me. He gave me a oops look.
Unfortunately, nowadays finding good pieces is difficult and expensive, even if they're in bad condition. Like I say... if you come across something, let me know!
Low-hanging fruit is out there, it’s just shifted. Estate sales, Craigslist, FB marketplace, flea markets (the cheap kind) networking/word of mouth. People are aging out of their keepsakes or dying and their family just wants to unload everything.
The internet screwed that up. You can't arbitrage small town America any longer. Anybody can find values and a willing marketplace with a few clicks.
...and I check all of those almost constantly. This is absolutely true. Example: Goodwill used to have plenty of cast iron pieces. Now, all Goodwill stores have instructions to sell their pieces only on their online auction site. It's a bummer.
I'm not so sure if that's a "completist" or just a "hoarder mixed with collector". Usually a completist has a defined goal. This guy sounded like he was just buying up entire collections from other collectors/dealers and retreating to his space in rural America, and no one other than his family may have known about the collection. In a weird way, I have to appreciate that. There are a lot of these type of collections that come out of the woodwork every so often (maybe not on this scale, though). In comic books, the DC Universe collection put together by Ian Levin (remixed Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, etc. and, I think, did some work for the Dr. Who tv series, though I can't remember what) where he collected a copy of every DC issue up until the early 2000s was pretty incredible. That was auctioned off not too long ago, but I think he had sold it before that - not sure. There's another collection from Christine Farrell of "all DC's" that's coming to auction in the next month or so that's even more incredible because of the condition of some of the comics is so good. These 2 collections are insane because of how difficult some of the issues are to acquire, but oddly enough, their personalities seem to be 180 degrees apart. Ian seemed to want notoriety while Christine lived quietly and as a bit of a recluse later in life - but both were completists. On a side note, I was shocked to find people like Nicholas Cage, Bill Mumy, Ruben Blades, Mark Hamill, etc. are/were huge comic book collectors. But like I said, this guy looked like he was just buying everything up from dealers as opposed to having any rhyme or reason to what he was buying, but I could be wrong. What a mind-boggling collection, though.
