- Hello, everyone.

Matthew Ozanich here and welcome to Destination Michigan.

In today's episode, we're gonna be asking the question, what is it we love so much about collecting things?

Some collectors are keen to acquire as much as they can, as often as they can, while others wait patiently for that perfect piece to add to their collection.

Now, our collections can reflect the sense of style, a passion for history, and in some cases, they are just so odd that you cannot help but be enamored by them.

Whether large or small though, what we collect is sort of irrelevant.

What it really all comes down to is what it means to the individual that sees the value in these everyday items.

In this episode of Destination Michigan, we're gonna look at some very interesting collections and the people behind them.

(upbeat music) To kick off our journey today, we thought we'd take a quick trip down Memory Lane to some of the great collections of Destination Michigan's past.

We've been to so many museums and libraries over the years and have heard some really remarkable stories.

So here's a quick look at some of our favorite DM collections.

- [Matthew] If there's one thing we've learned over the years of visiting museums here on Destination Michigan, it's that no two are alike and each and every one of them serves a purpose.

And in many cases, we've seen collections that cannot even be contained to one building or sometimes even 10.

In many cases, when you're perusing the exhibits at your favorite museums, it's most likely that you're seeing less than half of what that organization has in its total collection.

There simply just isn't enough space to hold everything that they've collected over the years.

And of all the museums we've been to, some of our favorite ones to visit are the ones that are found nestled in small towns across the state.

Telling the generational stories of families and villages that in some cases were never home to more than a few hundred people at a time, yet their stories can be just as engaging and powerful as the ones found in our big cities museums.

And these vibrant and crowded communities with so many options of things to do, museums still stand out as must visits in places like Grand Rapids, Lansing, and Detroit.

Now, at nearly every museum you'll visit, you'll find artifacts under glass that you could easily hold in the palm of your hand, but sometimes the artifacts are so large that you can actually walk inside of them.

Case in point, the Dossin Great Lakes Museum in Detroit, where they took an entire bridge from a ship on the great lakes and planted it right in the middle of the museum.

In the case of Historic Charlton Park in Hastings however, the buildings are the collection.

The staff here even says that though it may be a bank or a blacksmith shop, it's still treated like an artifact, an antique, and is cared for accordingly.

Regardless of what your interests are or what you may be into, there's a collection open to the public in a museum somewhere in the state that you would almost guess it was tailor made just for you.

- Falling temperatures and changing leaves aren't the only things that some of us look forward to come September and October, fall time also ushers in one of our favorite pastimes, football and the joys of the pig skin has led to one Ludington man's unique collection, and Stefanie Mills is here to show it off.

- I began collecting helmets in, I wanna say late 2009, I started the process by writing to schools for the helmet logo details.

- [Stefanie] For Todd Hansen or Scoop as he's more commonly known, one idea spiraled into something much bigger, literally.

- Not long after that, I heard from coach Wes Goal at Manchester and also coach Tim Lont from Holland Christian and they said, "Hey, we'll do you one better.

We'll hook you up with one of our helmets, you just have to come to our school and pick it up."

- [Stefanie] The idea to shift from collecting decals to helmet was swift for Scoop and it's quite impressive to see in person.

Just pardon his renovation during our visit, helmets take up a lot of space when they're parked in a construction zone in his basement.

- Very first helmet that arrived, I actually have the date here, it was February 26th, 2010, and it was from coach Peter Stuursma East Grand Rapids.

And the very next day, I gotta Reed City Coyote helmet from coach Monty Price.

And then it snowballed from there.

- [Stefanie] Nearing 350 helmets in his collection, most are from Michigan schools, but there are some out of state ones too.

Still, no matter where they come from, every single one comes with a story like this one from Virginia.

- So this is the Goochland Bulldog's helmet.

And this is the high school that Justin Verlander graduated from, the great Detroit Tiger pitcher, now with the Houston Astros.

Ed Harwood who was a Ludington resident, Ludington graduate, he is an assistant coach down there at Goochland.

He's the one who made this happen for me to add this to my collection and it is my one and only Virginia helmet.

- [Stefanie] Scoop is a sports fanatic as you can imagine.

His passion for his beloved Ludington Orioles is legendary and his love for sports is also well documented even at an early age.

- You're gonna get a kick outta this story.

Second grade, this is Susan Snyder was my teacher, either for first grade and second grade.

My report card comes home to my mom and my dad, and it says on the back, something to the effect, "Todd is a very sweet and caring child.

He has been doing great lately in his studies, but his main interest lately seems to be tops baseball cards."

Well, I kind of think back to when I was little guy growing up here in Ludington and the bubble gum machines had the little, I mean the mini mini helmets.

And I was just always fascinated by the colors and the logo decals on those.

And I remember collecting those and I also have quite a mini helmet collection as well of both NFL, well, actually NFL college and high school helmets on the mini helmets.

But the regulation size helmets, people say, "Why?"

I say, "Well, the colors, the logos, the history behind the schools, and each of these helmets has a history and a story behind it."

Just something that I thought would be rather unique and it's something that takes me back to my childhood, I guess you would say.

- [Stefanie] So if you're keeping count, there's a total of maybe around 600 or so high schools statewide, now, not all of them have a football program.

Scoop thinks he's around 150 shy of having collected them all.

He may get there and he definitely has a wishlist.

- Top three, the Constantine Falcons, the Gwinn ModelTowners from the Upper Peninsula, number three would probably be a tie between Elkton-Pigeon Bay Port Laker, also New Boston Huron, and even Junction Superior Central team, which is up in the Upper Peninsula as well.

So I've just recently got a couple Detroit schools that were on my wish list, and that was Detroit Martin Luther King and also Detroit Cass Tech.

So I've added those two schools of late.

(upbeat music) - We now move from football to pinball as our next story takes us to Traverse City where folks are getting together every week to compete in a pinball league, put on by our next collector who is the pinhead that acquires, repairs, and shares his machines with the community?

- I think the first time I discovered pinball, I was maybe four or five years old.

My mother and father were both in bowling leagues and the pinball machine at the bowling alley, and I managed to bump a nickel off of 'em and that was it.

It was from that day forward.

- [Chris] And just like that, a passion for pinball was born, but the high score wasn't Scott's only goal.

He soon became equally enthusiastic in the art of refurbishing, restoring, and repairing these play fields.

- It was sort of accidental.

I basically finished my high school credits early and I was kind of an electronics wiz as a kid and self-taught, and I had teachers in school that allowed me to do correspondence courses.

So I completed that.

I had pretty good background in electricity electronics for my age.

I was playing pinball at one of those same bowling alleys in between jobs one day and a fellow came to work on, it was an electro mechanical arcade game.

I watched him scratch his head and work on it and work on it and finally I couldn't keep my mouth shut and said, "Dude, you're looking in the wrong place.

I think the problem might be over here."

And I helped him fix it and he said, "Hey kid, my boss is probably gonna wanna talk to you."

And I went and saw him the next day and hired me on the spot.

So I started working there fixing jukebox amplifiers and pinball machines and it was just so natural.

And by the time I was 19, I was signing the checks.

And by the time I was 21, they made me a partner.

And by the time I was 25, I had bought out the other people.

And since then had bought 17 other amusement and vending companies with one goal in mind, and that was to acquire the pinball machines.

(laughs) - [Chris] Scott's desire is to bring pinball to the people, but he needed a location match for the public to play his games.

He found a perfect partner with Russell Springsteen at Right Brain Brewery in Traverse City.

- My ultimate plan was to open somewhere here in Traverse City with 50 to a hundred pinball machines, sort of a pinball museum, but yet you could come in and play.

It would not a no touch, look only to play it, feel it have fun with it, have a ball, do some leagues and tournaments.

And he looked at me and said, "I've got all this space, why don't you just do it here?"

And that was it.

- [Chris] The good times began to roll, and soon a club of pinheads started a weekly tournament to find out who is fastest on the flippers.

- On our pinball club nights, every Thursday night, it's like the highlight of my week.

And just seeing the joy on the player's faces and it's so much fun to see how much they appreciate a well maintained clean game.

And they just have so much fun playing it and competing and it's rewarding on that level.

It's rewarding on a business level, it's rewarding personally for me to play and test my skills against the game and against the rest of the player base.

- [Chris] Among Scott's treasures includes this Herculean cabinet, that's a rare find.

- One that I really love is Atari Hercules from 1978, basically the largest production pinball ever made.

There are very few known left to exist, I believe maybe 50 or so and it uses a cue ball for the ball.

And you have to pretty much have a wingspan to get both flipper buttons, you have to reach out so far.

Another game from 1978, ironically called Rotation VIII by Midway.

It's a pinball play field built into a glass top cocktail table.

So the four people set around the cocktail table and the play field of the pinball machine rotates to your seat when it's your turn.

- [Chris] Now, if you're looking to add to your gaming collection, good luck trying to pry a pinball from Scott's hands.

- People will come by my shop here wanting to buy a pinball machine and I really don't sell 'em.

Maybe one day my sickness will be cured and I've already told my kids that it's probably gonna be your problem because I'm probably gonna die before I feel like I can turn loose of any.

Right now, there's a game behind me called World Cup soccer.

So some of the folks in the pinball club expressed that that was one of their favorite games.

Well, I had one stored away, so I dragged it outta storage and it's being restored, gonna end up at Right Brain 'cause a couple of the guys said that was really one of their favorite games.

So the last few games that we've taken over there have been requests from the pinball club that, "Well, that was my favorite game in college," or, "I found that two years ago somewhere and played it and had such a good time."

And that again is one of the things that juices me is seeing people have fun and be happy.

- We here at Destination Michigan have been known over the years to dive into archives and collections, searching for everything from artwork to photographs to help us get a glimpse into Michigan's past.

And we have found that a great way to actually hold the past in our hands is through vintage postcards.

And next, we're gonna meet up with Postcard Wally to dive deeper into the world of vintage postcard collecting.

- Collectors are people who, I heard somebody say that they'd like to create order, that's how they create order in their world.

I don't know the psychological background, I just know I enjoy doing it.

- [Stefanie] Wally's collection started with a gift from his aunt, Ruth.

She gave him the postcards that she'd received from her teacher friends who spent their summer vacations traveling.

That stack of cards quickly turned into a shoebox collection that grew significantly over the years.

- It's the history and it's the art.

I really like real photo postcards, which are black and white postcards that are actual photographs and they're printed on the backside and Kodak and other manufacturers made a postcard paper so that these could be addressed, put a stamp on and mailed.

There are literally postcards from every little bitty town in Michigan and every little bitty town in America, many that don't exist anymore.

So it's a lot of history.

- [Stefanie] The 1893 Columbian World Fair held in Chicago is credited with starting the craze of sending picture postcards in the mail.

The cards featured an elaborate illustration that celebrated the event and left a space to write a quick message.

By the turn of the century, postcards became a staple at the main port cities in Michigan.

As the state grew, so too did the business of creating picture postcards.

- By that time, all these photographers were out taking pictures of all of these towns.

People were sending postcards to their relatives.

This was Twitter in 1907, this was how people communicated.

For 1 cent, they could write on the postcard and sent a picture of their town, or if they were fortunate, they had a photographer take a picture of their family or their farm so they could send an actual photo of them to their relatives and friends all over the country.

And pretty soon there were like literally billions of postcards being mailed, because a lot of people liked the artwork or they liked to keep the history.

They would put 'em in albums and they actually made die cut albums where you could put the four corners in and preserve.

And they sat in antiques for a hundred years until people started getting 'em out.

And what really drove the craze in Michigan was when all the centennials celebrations of all the towns started up, people were looking for pictures of their history and this was a perfect example of them.

- [Stefanie] Unlike collecting sports cards, there is no master list of what was produced or printed.

It is an endless search to uncover a new card or even an original one of a kind.

Like most collections, condition is important, but some collectors look past the condition and are more drawn to the message included on the reverse side.

- And that's the beauty of it, you never know how many cards are out there.

You always try and find the best possible example of the card, but some people want 'em canceled.

They want 'em written on the back, they read the message.

It really is a beautiful hobby because you'll never have it all.

This is a really nice card of the Diamond Rio band and they're on the front steps of the Michigan State Capitol perfect example.

I saw this card and I said, "I gotta own it," and I paid a lot of money for it.

And I bought it and stuck it in my album, okay.

So years later, I'm putting it on Vintage Michigan Postcard to show.

And I turn it over to look at the cancel date and it's 1914.

It says, "Dear Milton, when you see this bunch hanging around down to Detroit, Wednesday, look me up.

The Rio band will be there for the G.A.R parade."

Signed, Governor W. Ferris, that's Governor Woodbridge Ferris.

This was from a Michigan governor to this guy.

And I didn't even know it for 10 years, but that's why the message on the back is sometimes so cool.

- [Stefanie] It's not just uncovering hidden treasures or rare fines that keeps Wally interested in collecting, it is the community he's discovered among his fellow collectors.

- It's a wonderful group of people.

They're so knowledgeable and they're so sharing and you'll see this at shows.

They'll say to their friends, "Oh, I found a card for you," and they'll run across the room with a card and show it to 'em.

I see these people, it shows maybe once, twice a year and they're friends.

So I literally have thousands of friends all over the country because of this hobby.

That's just a wonderful thing.

(upbeat music) - [Matthew] The greatest benefit we have from the items we hold in our collection is what we can learn from them, and some are held specifically for the purpose of education.

Here on the campus of Central Michigan University within the museum of cultural and natural history is housed one of the largest collections of preserved animals found anywhere in the country.

From Florida ceiling and every nook and cranny are species from around the globe preserved in a variety of ways.

For instance, just in these liquid field spirit sample jars, there's approximately 5,000 specimens housed inside them throughout the collection.

- These are white perch on the small side.

- [Matthew] Now, while some mounts are more of a traditional form of taxidermy, some of them have actually been freeze dried with all of their parts still intact inside and out.

And certain animals are posed to look like they would if they were out in the wild, and so well preserved that you'd swear they're about to walk out the front door.

- Some of these are a little bit further afield than the great lakes.

And this was a collection that we got from a guy that did Tax Army from Canada, Manitoba.

He was really into Tax Army, did a really good job.

- [Matthew] Now, while some may find a collection like this of Ted spooky, it's actually incredibly informative.

While these mounts get brought out to entertain local school groups, they are also vital to educating students in the university's museum studies program.

- In this case, this is now one of the professors, Dr. Seefelt, she's the one that did the tax me on and probably when she was a student.

- [Matthew] In fact, many of the experts behind Michigan's most love museums got their start in the program right here at CMU.

(upbeat music) For some, their collections are all about nostalgia.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it, even though it may need a little TLC to restore it to its former glory.

And for our final story today, we are here right in Downtown Bay City to meet Mike Bermudez, a man with a passion for all things retro.

Downtown Bay City has long been known as the place to go if you're on the lookout for art, antiques, furniture and lots of other odds and ends.

And keeping that tradition going is Mike Bermudez, a true efficient auto of retro and vintage styles with his shop Retro Attics.

Now, while this is a store, it's also almost like a museum of mid-century style and design.

How did you get started in this wild goose chase of hunting down all of this great stuff?

- Honestly, I've always had a fascination with vintage, with mid-century before I knew it was mid-century or it was anything valuable or collectible.

I bought a couple of my first pieces when I was still in high school before I could drive.

So I've always had a fascination with it.

- [Matthew] This early fascination was nurtured and bloomed into what you see today.

Unlike with most collectors, Mike started with one piece and then one piece turned into two, two turned into three, and before you knew it, there was no more space left in the house.

- We wouldn't have friends over just because you walk in and there's like the hoarder trail going to the kitchen.

- It wasn't exactly that vintage showroom that you thought it was.

- No, not at all.

No, no.

I think at one point I had like five couches in my living room just 'cause they were so cool.

- Absolutely.

Well, all this stuff in here is cool and I think it's 'cause it resonates with me, obviously with you too and with a lot of people that vintage is so cool.

Obviously, you've been collecting these pieces for a while.

Is vintage still cool?

Is that still a thing that people are really seeking out.

- Anymore, vintage is it.

It's become so popular, even with people that have never looked at or thought of getting anything vintage for their house.

So I think it's finding a whole new audience.

- Now, when you go around and you're trying to find these pieces, where do you look and kind of what are you looking for?

- Luckily enough, I've been doing it long enough.

I get calls from customers and families all the time, like almost daily.

And I always recommend, "Hey, if there's something you have, when you're thinking about selling it, send me pictures."

I get texts of furniture pictures every day.

And then I also have like little routes I know with different thrift stores and antique malls.

- We'll keep it at that.

- Little spot, yeah.

So I know if, and sometimes I just feel like going out and hitting the road, go spend some hours driving, I know I'll find something.

- [Matthew] The artwork and furniture found around Retro Attics can trace its history back to furniture makers and designers from all over the country.

But in fact, many of these eclectic pieces were built and sold right here in the Great Lake State.

- In its heyday, I'm gonna say '50s, '60s era, Michigan was quite the industrious furniture building, sort of the capital of the United States.

Everyone thinks of the automotive industry, but just in Bay City, I think from the '20s to the '50s era, it was something crazy like 20 some different manufacturing facilities here in Bay City- - Oh wow, just this city?

- Making furniture.

Yeah.

And then Grand Rapids was furniture heaven.

- [Matthew] Oh yeah.

- All the big manufacturers there, you had Herman Miller, Steelcase.

Plus I think it was such, with the auto industry, it was such a blue collar state.

Everyone paid really good money for their items, like I'm gonna keep that.

Even if it went to the basement or the cabin up north, like people never really got rid of anything.

- [Matthew] One of the most recognizable styles you'll find at Retro Attics is tiki, and boy does Mike have a lot of it, but what caught my eye was this classic looking bar set.

And before we departed Mike's shop, I figured we'd ask him to tell us a little bit more about it.

- Let's talk a little tiki here.

Well, what is this piece?

This is a pretty impressive piece.

- This is Witco.

- Oh, okay.

I know that name.

- I think the average person might be familiar with Witco, Elvis furnish, the jungle room with it.

This piece came out of an old tiki bar that was in Holly, Michigan, but it was filthy.

I wiped it down with just a cleaning vinegar solution to get all the dust and debris off it.

But I think I'm gonna redo the top and it's rough, it's rough to the touch.

- Oh yeah.

- Should be a little smoother.

- What year approximately, would you say this was from?

- I would say probably '60s.

It's all chainsaw carved and then basically set on fire and then you polish it up.

- Is that how you get all this cool texture on the front here that I'm seeing?

- It is.

- You just take a straight up just a flame thrower to it?

- Yeah, it'll burnish all the wood and then you take different brushes, soft brushes, wire brushes and you get all the char off it.

- Oh gosh.

- And that's what you're left with.

No piece is identical.

Like you can have three of the same statues, but each one has its own personality.

- And you said there's still a really good market for tiki stuff, there's still a fan base.

- Huge market.

If you post it online, the tiki people will find you.

- And they don't all live on the Las Vegas strip?

- No.

- They're all over the place?

- They're all over the place.

- Tiki fans everywhere.

- Everywhere.

Quite a few just here in Michigan.

- Really?

- Yep.

- Who doesn't want a tiki bar?

It seems fun and relaxing and everything.

- Yeah, just loungy, good times.

(upbeat music) - And just like that, this episode of Destination Michigan comes to a close.

And from everyone here at the show, thank you so much for watching and we'll catch you next time.

(upbeat music)