A few weeks ago I decided on a whim to contact Harry Rinker through his website (Harry Rinker). I had visited the website and read several articles posted there in which Rinker expresses his views on a number of issues important to the antiques and collecting businesses. I asked to quote from one of the articles, and (just for the heck of it) also asked if he would consent to be interviewed.
Within a couple of days, Rinker responded to my requests with permission to use his article and, even better, agreeing to a phone interview!
The interview took place on the morning of June 12, 2003, and lasted a little over an hour. The notes I took will be the basis of more than one article, and it is with tremendous gratitude to Harry Rinker that I begin with the following questions and answers:
1. You've been in the antiques business for many years. How did you first get interested in collecting and what age were you? Harry grew up in Pennsylvania German country, in a large family that saved "everything". His parents and older relatives were thrifty, because they grew up in the Depression and knew when things were "too good to throw out". Their attics and basements were full of the handed-down family belongings. Harry wore hand-me-down clothes and played with passed-down toys. This was normal for everyone in the 1940's and early 1950's. At Christmas a child got one toy and perhaps several items of needed clothing. When one married, everyone in the extended family contributed household items to help the newlyweds get started. Harry remembered that you made a list of what you needed, and "picked" from the offerings the relatives provided!
Harry believes that he knows something others don't know: there's a "collector's gene" in everyone's DNA. Among his statements were "Collectors are normal, it's the non-collectors who are sick" and it's his job to "go out and help those sick people get well!" His earliest memories are of collecting, in fact all his memories of childhood revolve around collecting. He saved (and still has, meticulously filed) all his homework from about 3rd grade on...
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