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Toy collector inspires memories
  
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By YVETTE OROZCO
Paul Schupka is doing it again.
For the past two years, Schupska has been bringing back countless memories with his antique collections of everything from toys to baseball memorabilia.
“One older gentleman told me last week that it reminded him of his childhood,” said Schupska.
Displayed at interval periods throughout the year at the Fairmont branch of the Pasadena Public Library, his collections are always evolving.
“I just added some circus toys from the 1930s,” he said, surveying the glass case in the library’s foyer.
Schupska has collected thousands of items and the rooms in his house have reached beyond full capacity, but still, he keeps finding that one piece missing from his collection.
Schupska’s baseball memorabilia made its debut this past spring and his World War II pieces brought visitors to the library in close contact with history last year.
Since October, Schupska has been showing his toy collection during the holiday season, something he’s done every year for the last two, but as with all his collections, something is always different.
Visitors who may have seen his last collections, he said, will see something new this time – at least to them.
His toys range from the early 20th century to the 1960s and ’70s, a long period Schupska considers the golden age of toys.
While he has amassed many of the pieces rummaging through estate sales or the Internet, much of collections come from his own history.
Growing up in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, Schupska comes from a long line of toy owners: an older brother and sister, a father who saved his own toys from the first World War, and a mother who did her best to keep everything in order.
“She used to threaten me and my brother that if we left our toys on the floor, she would throw them away,” said Schupska. “I lost a lot of the toys we had like that.”
The Lionel trains snake along once side of the display case while an entire circus sits on the top shelf. On the other side, U.S. astronaut John Glenn is an action figure from a time when NASA was marketing the space race to early 1960s children like Schupska and his older brother.
“This has been through everything, in the mud, the water,” he says as he carefully takes John Glenn out of the case.
Schupska can reel off the cultural backdrop of his pieces by memory — when they were made, what trend they mirrored — and his passion is their historical significance.
But his attachment is personal, like his father’s own lead-based soldier from World War I.
“These are part my own family’s history,” he said.
Schupska’s collection of antique toys will be displayed at the Pasadena Public Library’s Fairmont branch through December.
For the past two years, Schupska has been bringing back countless memories with his antique collections of everything from toys to baseball memorabilia.
“One older gentleman told me last week that it reminded him of his childhood,” said Schupska.
Displayed at interval periods throughout the year at the Fairmont branch of the Pasadena Public Library, his collections are always evolving.
“I just added some circus toys from the 1930s,” he said, surveying the glass case in the library’s foyer.
Schupska has collected thousands of items and the rooms in his house have reached beyond full capacity, but still, he keeps finding that one piece missing from his collection.
Schupska’s baseball memorabilia made its debut this past spring and his World War II pieces brought visitors to the library in close contact with history last year.
Since October, Schupska has been showing his toy collection during the holiday season, something he’s done every year for the last two, but as with all his collections, something is always different.
Visitors who may have seen his last collections, he said, will see something new this time – at least to them.
His toys range from the early 20th century to the 1960s and ’70s, a long period Schupska considers the golden age of toys.
While he has amassed many of the pieces rummaging through estate sales or the Internet, much of collections come from his own history.
Growing up in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, Schupska comes from a long line of toy owners: an older brother and sister, a father who saved his own toys from the first World War, and a mother who did her best to keep everything in order.
“She used to threaten me and my brother that if we left our toys on the floor, she would throw them away,” said Schupska. “I lost a lot of the toys we had like that.”
The Lionel trains snake along once side of the display case while an entire circus sits on the top shelf. On the other side, U.S. astronaut John Glenn is an action figure from a time when NASA was marketing the space race to early 1960s children like Schupska and his older brother.
“This has been through everything, in the mud, the water,” he says as he carefully takes John Glenn out of the case.
Schupska can reel off the cultural backdrop of his pieces by memory — when they were made, what trend they mirrored — and his passion is their historical significance.
But his attachment is personal, like his father’s own lead-based soldier from World War I.
“These are part my own family’s history,” he said.
Schupska’s collection of antique toys will be displayed at the Pasadena Public Library’s Fairmont branch through December.
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