tow be or not toe be

 There are some dedicated collectors in this world

    I have a collection of nutcrackers.  But these are not your ordinary buy at the store nutcrackers.  

    Almost all of them were made in Germany, including some when there was a West Germany and an East Germany.

    And yes, there may be 1 or 2 from some other country, but most are from Germany.

    Jackie has Santas for her collection.  Most are hand carved or hand crafted but some are not.  Some are glass, like the one I bought her at the market in Chicago.  I liked it so much, I bought a second one the next year and wondered why it seemed so familiar.

    We have a display case full of them.  Well, I call it a display case.  But we probably have over 100 of the two types.  

    The girls are not Santa or nutcracker collectors, so I don't know what will happen to them when..... well, you know.

    Which brings me to the topic of Toby jugs.  

    The Tribune had an article about  them today.

    These are from England originally and are ceramic figures of people.  Not just he face, but the entire body although the face is 90 percent of the jug.  Toby jugs have been around for over 250 years,

    A man in suburban Chicago started collecting them when he was a teenager.  When he was stationed in Europe with the military he would send cases of them home.

    After he was married, he still collected them and displayed them in his home.  One day his wife said, "Get them out of here."

    So he converted space in a building into the American Toby Jug Museum.  According to the Trib,  it is open Tuesday afternoons and attracts several thousand visitors a year.

    He died a few years ago, but left provisions for the museum to be funded for five years after his death.

    Well, the time is up.

    His widow and their daughter have begun selling some of the 8,500 Toby jugs.

    8,500!!!

    Sports figures, presidents, royalty, the Beatles, Harry Potter and Star Wars characters..... all will be sold either in parts or as a whole.

    When his widow was asked why she was selling, she had an honest answer.

    Toby jugs were his thing, not hers, and she didn't want to have her family figure out what to do with them when she goes.

    Reading the story, it almost made me want to go to the museum just to see the Tobies!

    An figure out what to do with our nutcrackers and Santas.

Peace an Love