Interesting Collections

There is a couple that I have known for quite some time. They used to come into my museum, plus I made a custom agate window for them several years ago. They came to my agate presentation at the Ottawa County Parks Nature Center on Sunday. While there they invited me over to their house. I couldn't go that day, but was able to squeeze in time yesterday.

In addition to having several jars of agates as well as other rocks, they also have collections of trains, model cars, and hundreds of dolls including some of the coolest China dolls,international cultural dolls, teddy bears, and raggedy Ann and Andy dolls I have ever seen. Both my mother and grandmother liked dolls, so their collection brought back memories.  There were numerous train tracks, but since the trains were moving even the sports setting on my camera didn't capture very good images.  Here is one photo that is not too bad.

Here is a conductor doll near one of the train track sets.

This teddy bear greeting you when you walked down the stairs to the lower level.  Some of the dolls, including this one I think, were made by my friends. 

Some of their agate jars......

They also had several hand carved wooden statues..

The two largest collections are the model cars and the dolls.  They built custom shelves and cases to hold the vast collection.  Walking through their house was like walking through a museum.

Some of the dolls are very, very old.  This one they bought at an estate sale and had it restored.  She is holding a picture of what she used to look like..

I really liked the international dolls acquired from all over the world.

There were cases of model cars throughout the house.

They used to own a 1955 Chevy just like the large model bellow. 

After the accident, Frank's father turned the hood of the car into this tool box -- and then painted it green.

They also had a collection of hand carved animals.  Some were organized into nature scenes.

 

Karen is also an accomplished painter.  Here are two she painted of the Grand Marais beach.  I was quite impressed with the quality of the paintings.  I may be selling some of them in the museum's gift shop next year.