How I got started in collectibles

Even when I was young I had a mad curiosity for old things. I knew that these things represented history in one way or another. We didn't have all the technology that is out there today so kids really got imaginative. As I child, I loved books... but not just any book...I loved the old ones! I used to pretend I was in the era of the author, or his characters... it was fun. I think I can a least in part, credit my 3rd grade teacher for nurturing this love. Mrs. Evans had a closet full of old books and she would let you go pick one for good behavior. Some kids thought this was the dumbest prize ever... But I relished in the glory of picking my own special old book. I would step inside the big walk in closet piled everywhere with books. First I would scan covers.. i really liked the neat EMBELLISHED covers. Then I would randomly inspect various books for content. By content, I don't really mean what the book was about, Hey, I was only in third grade. I mean that illustrations and especially little papers that were sometimes tucked in the pages were highly valued by me! Believe it or not, even that young I had the concept of checking the published dates and thinking
"Whoa, I have got me a gold mine here!" Well, maybe not those exact thoughts.
To this day I still have some of those books. I had a chest that i rescued from a garage sale where I kept my books and later all the new old things I would find and cherish.