Scoopy Collection
by Lorine Parks
Today we learned that the pleasures of being a collector lie not only in finding that certain item, but also in making friends in strange places, learning the generosity of strangers and finding out a little more about the world wherever you go.
Bill Held, a fellow Rotarian from the South Gate club, showed us a fraction of his extensive collection of All Things Snoopy, which is a branch, but a mighty one, of collectibles of anything by Charles Schultz, the man who drew Peanuts. Held has over 2,000 items and he says when he goes through the boxes, it’s like discovering new pieces for his collection all over again.
His cartoons can be read as autobiography, if you know how to translate them. The little ice skater with whom Snoopy falls in love, the one with the soft hands, is really the new love in Schultz’s own life after he and his wife separated.
The Schultz family lived in Needles, California for a year while they were in the process of moving west from Wisconsin, which would eventually land them in Santa Rosa, near San Francisco. The desert scenes where Snoopy visits his brother Spike are “drawn” from these memories.
Coming home after serving in World War II in a tank unit in Germany, Schultz enrolled in art school, where he met “the little red–headed girl”, another mysterious character in his real life. He was turned down by Walt Disney Studios, but finally New York Syndicate took his strip, “Little People,” and without telling him, changed the name to Peanuts, a name he never liked but never later changed.
Among the Snoopy items are hand painted figurines, stuffed toys, music boxes, t-shirts, plaques with Snoopy sayings on them, plates, coffee mugs, playing cards, cookie cutters and jewelry, a wristwatch, alarm clocks and bobble-head dolls.
Snoopy comes dressed as a World War I aviator ace complete with his doghouse as his Sopwith Camel; as a skier; as Joe Cool; and skating on his frozen birdbath, where Woodstock often appears with him.
It all started for Held when his mother gave him a Christmas ornament of Snoopy. They say William Randolph Hearst began his career as a collector when his mother gave him a Persian rug.
One of the most remote places where he has found a Snoopy item is near Ft. McKenzie in Canada’s Northwest Territory, at the end of a dirt road where Held was driving on business. He found an old Snoopy figure which the owner of the café was willing to give to him. Held reciprocated by finding out that her husband collected Garfield books, and when he got back to California, sent some to that distant outpost of civilization. Collectors can make the world seem smaller.
And being a collector takes you to unusual places, where your new collector friends can show you a deeper view of their home town than any tourist book can.
As every true collector will tell you, the joys of collecting go far beyond the prizes accumulated on the shelf.