Collecting, A Personal Narrative.

I wrote this yesterday on a snowy, boring Sabbath. It deals with Occupied Japan collecting but heavily references my love of coins. I hope you guys enjoy reading this and post your own reasons for collecting.

Why I collect Occupied Japan memorabilia, an "I am bored on this snowy day essay" by Terry Sewell

Some people may look at the curio cabinet in my parent's basement filled with Occupied Japan porcelain figurines and wonder why a young man at the ripe young age of 20 will spend his free time with dolls instead of chasing young women and raising Heck. Well, this story has three parts, three greatly different parts that pulled me into this obscure yet growing pastime.

The first part I am sure every collect can relate too, whether your poison is match books, coins, stamps, classic muscle cars or even dead celebrity hair, the "disease".

We jokingly refer to collecting as a disease to our peers. Like all jokes this one carries a grain of truth. We like to collect, conserve and curate, the 3 C's of our collectibles. We become stressed and emotionally sick even at the thought of something happening to the things we invested so much of our finite time on. The "disease" struck me at the turn of the 21st century.

The year was 1999, I was a young 5 year old boy during the height of both the Pokemon craze and Y2K. I started systematically collect Pokemon cards, more so than other children my age. I went to a rural k-5 school of about 100 children. I started trading with them. My mother would buy me a pack of Pokemon cards a week for being a well behaved boy. I noticed some cards come up more often than not and if no cards came up at all but other children had them they must be next to impossible to find. I figure out that if I offered two common cards for a rare card at school the other child would take the trade. They would think I was a fool trading 2 cards for one until they went on to buy several packs and kept getting the same cards I already traded them. Pokemon cards caused too many fights at school. Rather than using this as a teachable moment to explain economics, trades and how in real life there are "no-backsies" District 14 decided to ban the cards on school ground. The incompetence of District 14 and the greatest communist danger of all, public school, will play a pivotal role throughout this essay so heads up to foreshadowing.

DId I mention I was Canadian yet? Oh ya, I am Canadian. I'm sorry, I didn't have a choice. The year 1999 and 2000 was an interesting year for Canadian coins. For the new millenium the Royal Canadian Mint decided to put out 24 circulating quarters, 12 in ‘99 and 12 in ‘00. They also released a cash grab aimed at young numismatics (coin collectors) called "The Adventures of Zac and Penny Money". My mother I think got it for me as a birthday present seeing how much I liked collecting Pokemon cards. It was a light hearted picture book and coin folder set describing the meaning behind all these new quarters we would surely be seeing in our milk money. I read the book and looked for the coins. What really drawn me to this book was the fact in the ‘00s a new cartoon was on the air waves called "Jackie Chan: Adventures". It followed a cartoon version of Jackie Chan traveling across the world looking for magic talismans with different animal symbols on them. The 12 symbols of the Chinese zodiac on those little disks were so much like the 12 ‘99 coins I couldn't help but compare myself to Jackie Chan traveling the worlds and fighting ninjas while looking through my pocket change.
Ok, so part one is over, I have the collecting bug, the disease, the lust for dust, the funk for junk, the desire to acquire etc etc. It is understandable that I got into trading cards and coins, to manly and popular hobbies. How did a boy from the middle of no where, New Brunswick get into Occupied Japan collectables? To this day my father will still argue with me that Japan and China is the same country (sadly, not a joke) so I didn't get it at home. Was there some shady Occupied Japan dealer hanging outside my school? No, just a shady drug dealer. So where then? Let me tell you.

Part 2

I don't know all the details and frankly I don't care to know but growing up I used to go visit my great aunt Lou. She was great in both a genealogical sense and a personal sense. She was a very kind old lady that mellowed in her old age. I suppose it is not uncommon for people faced with death to assume a demeanor similar to a futuristic loving utopia knowing they will never see it in their life time. She was a blast and I loved her. She lived in a house with her confidant and good friend/distant cousin aunt Glenda (aunt being a respected, honorary title). They were more like Batman and Wilfred than Bert and Ernie, you know?

Anyways when aunt Lou died I think that was my first experience with death, if not her my Maine Coon "Winston". Anyway, Aunt Lou left her house to something like 6 people in her will. My aunt Kookie, aunt Mary, Ma and Pa, aunt Glenda and some family people living out west or something. I try to stay out of it being the child in the family but I guess what happened is everyone said Glenda can keep the house she spent a bajillion years living in/ up keeping/ looking after aunt Lou in but the out west guys were a hold out and wanted money and crap. I guess wills and money make people greedy. I can not stress enough how hard I fight to be ignorant of the whole situation. I don't give a crap and don't want to.

So fast forward to about grade 6, about ‘05/'06. Aunt Lou and aunt Glenda are queer ducks with out there tastes. Imagine the most gaudy front yard or kitchen you have ever been into and crank that up to an 11. All those cut out plywood folk art silhouettes and LED solar lights and naked baby statues with wings, ya, all of that and more. It was a house of folksy, kitschy awesomeness. One day aunt Glenda brought in a box for me. She said she knows I like to collect (coins) so she brought in some collectables for me. they were mine if I promised never to sell them. The people out west wanted all this crap to sell or throw and aunt Glenda seen this stuff as more than objects worth money but as a lifetime spent collecting and enjoying. Anyone with the "disease" knows exactly what I am talking about. I said yes and opened the box.

Garbage, box of garbage. I gave my world not to throw this stuff out and I still have it in the box she gave me, well, most of it. Amongst the dollar store dogs, the kinder egg dogs, the chipped up no name dogs and plastic vending machine dogs there were some nice examples of different dog breeds marked "made in Occupied Japan". Those pieces I took out and dusted off. I put them in the old, empty curio cabinet that was left to my mother when one of her relatives died.
So that is how I got my first taste of Occupied Japan collectables, now, we will go on to learn how I cemented by Occupied Japan collecting in part 3.

Part 3

Why did I keep up with Occupied Japan collecting, well, it all started with the Beverly Hillbillies and a hate crime, seriously.

Back a long time ago in the dark ages that was the late 90's early ‘00's it wasn't uncommon to watch shows on one big, 50 pound T.V. in the middle of your house. We just didn't all have lap tops and tablets back then. My father introduce me to a host of golden age situation comedies teaching me all about the comedic effects of misunderstandings and double entendres. Out of all the shows we watched together I took a special liking to both Petticoat Junction and The Beverly Hillbillies. When I just started grade 6, the same time I received all those dog statues, I decided I needed structure in my life and thought maybe music lessons would be fun. Naturally I decided to learn the banjo so I could play the Ballad of Jed Clampett.

Well, there was no banjo teachers were I lived so I got into violin lessons. You need a good left hand to play the violin, keep this in mind as we progress with this story.

About 3 or 4 days into middle school I ment one nasty pear shaped boy that will progress this story down a more, bluesy path. We will come him Logan (as that is his name.)
One day he walked past me out on the soccer field and shoved me to the grown growling "Get out of my way." I got up to me feet and said something to the effect of "Excuse me, did you not see me". I am being dead serious, I was so chicken hearted before the world made me bitter, I didn't tell him to suck a lemon or anything.

To this he responded in the complete irrational way of saying I was a racist and that the only reason I had a problem with him slamming his 200 pounds of fat into me for no good reason was because I was a racist and only said something to him because he was native. I was flabbergasted at this false accusation. What you have to keep in mind here is that the Woodstock First Nation reserve is filled with a bunch of fair skinned, blond haired, blue eyed aboriginals that do not speak their ancestral tongue. I have never met Logan before and said "Listen, wrong is wrong regardless of colour and truth be told until you pointed out your race I thought you were caucasian."

Logan wasn't the smartest of lads and he said you called me a cock what?!?! You will pay for this, we will get you you racists. What you kneed to know is right or wrong, Woodstock First Nationers stay together and act like one big gang. I have known them to kill each other over drugs and money but when it comes to outsiders they are best of buds.

I was taught to turn the other cheek so when the would start up at me I would take it in silence, for years.They would do different heinous things to me, usually cornering me in the bathroom. When I would go to the teacher they would say that they didn't see it and it was their word against my single word. I grew to fear bathrooms and started displaying OCD behavior. They knew what would bother my OCD and attack me that way too. I suffered a soft tissue neck injury that caused me to suffer from temporary paralysis and sent my OCD into overdrive. I would wash my hands so much that my knuckles would be bloody and raw, if that wasn't sore enough one day when I finally had enough and when I was jumped on the train track I threw a left jab into one of my assailant's face.

My left hand was waaay to sore to keep playing the violin. I was almost done with music until I discovered a nice handles instrument, the harmonica!
Since the diatonic harmonica requires different harmonicas for different keys I had started to amass different ones, different woods, different companies and before you knew it I had a collection. I started to seek out older harmonicas that could tell a story. I continued with coin collecting all this time and I started getting interested with coins made from off metals during WW2 due to war rations. I was amazed to find out that during WW2 Hohner Harmonicas had to get rid of the 6 pointed star on its instruments because the Nazis thought that symbol was to close to the Shield of David. Speaking of off metals since Hohner and all of Germany was boycotted during WW2 and all metal was going towards the war effort Americans started making their own all plastic harmonicas. I need these for my collection too!

The fact that you can use harmonicas as a piece of material culture to examine the effects of WW2 was amazing to me, I wanted more and more WW2 themed harmonicas. Then I found one, a harmonica made in Occupied Japan. It reminded me of those dogs I had in my curio cabinet and it all fell together. My love of WW2 era off metal coins, my love of collecting, my aunts old dogs and playing the harmonica, it was a trifecta of a reason to start collecting. I started grabbing up anything marked Occupied Japan at flea markets and yard sales!

So this is why I collect Occupied Japan memorabilia, thank you for taking the time to read this. Share this essay, print this essay, whatever, I do not care, have fun.