Treasures or Trash

Austin-Healey Friends

As time has moved along and most of us have accumulated a lot of Austin-Healey parts, posters, books, pictures, trophies, magazines, manuals, bits, and pieces … there will come a time that these “treasures” will need a new home. I am considering an article for the Healey Marque Magazine on planning for the day this will happen. Our cars will find new homes, perhaps with the kids or grandkids, but what about all the other collectables? I know my wife has little interest in transmission gears, fuel pumps, and starter motors. Seems like our SJAHC members also have a lot of stuff and have the same concerns.

May I ask our readers if they have any thoughts or have made any plans for the future distribution of their prized possessions? I see the Jaguar folks have https://coventryfoundation.org. Do we pack it all up and send it to the Healey Museum? My column is directed towards technical service so if there are any ideas relating to supporting technical services are appreciated.

As a mid-lifer, I have some opinions on this. You reference two very different components of being a Healey aficionado - collectibles/knick knacks and spares. Perhaps the former is better-suited for a museum (my wife doesn't necessarily 'love' seeing the few things I have spread around the house) while the latter needs to be accessible to the Healey community going forward. We've all seen the scarcity of certain items increase in recent years. Further, we all have experiences with poorly made / functioning new parts. Parts cars have dried up or are being restored and marketed at high-prices. Therefore, period spares are becoming all the more important.

Yes, I realize that warehousing items for the future takes space and money (storage units ain't cheap anymore). But, I think its worth contemplating how to accomplish rainy day preservation.

I've had the same thought, but so far, no conclusions. In my case, the greatest concern is probably the disposition of the Healey library.



This is most (not all) of it. Please forgive the duplicates. There's a little bit of the hoarder operating there, but sometimes people give you a copy of a book you already have and can't decline a gift. Sometimes you find one so cheap you can't resist. Sometimes you find one in better condition than your existing copy and want to upgrade. When you've been chasing this stuff for decades, "duplicates happen."

Anyway, the cars are cars; there's a market and prices are tracked and numerous dealers are available to take them on consignment where they'll return a reasonable - if not top dollar - return for me in my post-driving life or perhaps for my heirs.

In amongst the common spares I have some choice items, but not a ton and so there's not a fortune to be had there.

The paper stuff is another subject. In addition to the books there is a lot of sales literature - and some really rare stuff - and posters. Marketing these items individually to get the maximum return would be a large chore, and of course you'd have to know which are the rare items and roughly how much they might fetch. It would be a sizable project to dispose of it all and get a reasonable return. I'm a big fan of the Healey Museum, but they have limited space and who know how much of this stuff is already there and collecting dust in a store room where the lights haven't been turned on in several years?

The disposition of all "the stuffs" - to use John Sprinzel's term - is a growing concern.

In 2001 I replaced the cracked/repaired iron head with a DWR AL version. For 18 years I moved the old head from garage to garage, thinking one day I would have a need for it. Last November I was faced with another move and finally threw the head in the dumpster. About two months later I saw an ad from someone who wanted to buy an iron head even if cracked/repaired so long as it was useable....

I have a bin of starters and generators that I collected and used for the first five or so years of ownership till I went over to an alternator and gear starter. The units have been rebuilt/repaired and would probably provide fine service to someone. Who would like to come and get them?

Mine is not a Healey, but a TR6. I have a son and daughter neither one wants anything to do with my car or the spares that I have accumulated. My wife "puts up with my hobby" but has no interest or desire to drive the car.
This weekend I got to see my 5 1/2 year old grandson for the first time in many months due to the virus. When he came to my house the first thing he asked for was a "ride in grandpa's convertible". I took him for a short ride twice. On the second ride I said to him "maybe one day you can drive it" his response was a question: "will you save it for me grandpa?"
While there are many years of growing up for him to do I wonder if he will still feel the same way when he's "old enough". My TR6 will be completely foreign to him when he will be driving (or a car that drives him).
Maybe it's best to start looking for a good home to someone we feel will care for our cars like we do before a family member has to make that decision for us?

When I first started driving and working on old British cars I was young and didn't have much money. BL was about to go down the tubes, and there was a school of thought that parts supplies would dry up. I acquired about an extra TR4A and a half when I got my first 4A in 84 or so. I also kept everything.

Through the wonders of eBay and the internet I sold quite a few parts over the years, but had kept an ever growing mass through three moves. The last move was after more than 20 years of parts accumulation in one place. I sold what I could, offered parts to the local club, but still ended up taking two pickup loads to the scrappers. Mostly things like old brake drums and dented or rusted panels that would "still be good for patches and repairs" (and I used many as such over the years.

Anyway, people sometimes talk of feeling free of a burden or whatever when they get rid of a bunch of stuff. I felt no such joy, but have to say it was time. If I hadn't used it in almost 30 years I wasn't likely to in the next ten, giving it up didn't bother me much.

The library is a whole nother deal. I have a room full of books, manuals, and magazines. I finally dumped a lot of the magazines, but still have a roomful. Some worth a bit if pieced out, most not much, but overall probably not worth more than the time spent to dispose of it.

I went to a local classic car museum a couple years ago. They had a nice library section. I asked if they took donations. They said that is how they got all the books they had already.

Tough subject as it causes us to reflect on our mortality. We've probably all collected stuff over the years that we might need "some day" and as long as we own the cars still have the same thought. The more practical of us will have made plans for the orderly disposition of our treasures where others like me will probably hold onto this stuff to the end, leaving our heirs to come behind us and sweep up like the guy in the parade in "Peabody and Sherman". I'm afraid that the interest in these cars will pass when we o and most of our treasures will end up in a landfill. As our Roman friends said, ​Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.

I just did something I've not done before on this forum. I did a search of all Healey forum posts using the key word "wanted". I got a very nice list of the needs of a bunch of folks with posts that started with the word "wanted " in the title. Most of us tend to title posts that way when the subject is something we want. In my spare liesure I'll look through that and in the not too distant future when I realize that my knuckle busting isn't happening anymore I'll start divesting.

When I was rebuilding my car I would have been over the moon if someone had called out of the blue and said "I see you need some front drum brake housings and backplates". I put disc brakes on a while back and can't imagine why I'd need them . I'll say pay shipping and they are yours ( this is actually true). Most of why I havent offered them up is I want them to go to someone who actually needs tham and they will be a PITA to ship.

Thinking that having the original parts to go with my car if I sell it might get me more money is, at least for me, a bogus benefit. If someone wants to buy my car when I'm ready, I won't care if it might be worth a few extra dollars because I have spare parts.

Last year when we were thinking of moving, I went through the garage and collected all my 'extra' Healey parts laying about. We have a member in the club with a really big garage and lots of spare parts so I though I'd add to his collection. I hauled them over in various containers and told him I thought most of the stuff in the containers were Healey but wasn't sure. He would go through them when he had a spare moment and 'file'. Later I stopped by and he said you aren't going to believe this - another friend had stopped by looking for some weird part for a vacuum (I think). He said he had gone to a bunch of hardware stores looking for a replacement and couldn't find anything close. Keith told him to go look in the green bucket in the trash cans ready to be picked up. The unknown part had been in the stuff I had dropped off before that Keith had just gone through the day before. Crisis averted!

It's stories like that that makes us hold on to all that old stuff.

Marie Kondo quote

"To cherish the things that are important to you, you must first discard those that have outlived their purpose. To throw away what you no longer need is neither wasteful nor shameful."

And, without getting too philosophical:

Lin said:

“In order to be free, one must let go of attachments, everything you own ends up owning you.” H. D. Thoreau​

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Several years ago I lost some car storage, a hangar at a nearby airfield where I had about six cars and some parts, and I also stored a glider there at the strong suggestion of the airport manager (a city employee) and as a favor to the historical trust that owned it (I effectively solved a problem for them and the airport manager by taking it off their hands). A few years later that same airport manager evicted me from the hangar since I was not using it for its intended purpose, that is, for airplanes. Never mind that he was the one who rented it to me, was present when I moved in, and foisted the glider on me. But that's another story in the continuing saga of man's inhumanity to man.

In any case, I searched high and low for alternative storage, and even considered buying some kind of building from which I could not be evicted, but this area is pretty expensive for real estate and I couldn't find anything at any kind of reasonable price. I ended up selling five of the dozen or so cars I owned at the time. At first I was pretty unhappy about all of this, but then a few things happened.

1. I was forced to decide which cars I loved the least. I sold the ones I used the least and enjoyed the least. I didn't miss them much.
2. Every to-do list for those sold cars disappeared.
3. I had more time with the remaining cars and enjoyed them more.
4. I had a pile of cash that I used to add one expensive (by my very modest standards) car to the fleet.
5. I FELT UNBURDENED, EVEN LIBERATED.

The lesson I took from this is that when the day comes and I sell my cars - assuming I live long enough to dispose of them myself - I will shed a tear and then look up and smile, unburdened by the machines and with many pleasant memories remaining. It won't be that bad. In fact, I might wonder why I didn't do it earlier.

This is depressing. I decided I'm not going to die!

Well we all know that within a short time of throwing something out that we have stored for years we are going to need it.

I too had a major stash of exotic and rare parts, engines, transmissions and fifteen cars spelt p-r-o-j-e-c-t-s in a purpose built barn with several four poster lifts. Car guy’s paradise but it was time to trim the automotive holdings and so began the process of car reduction surgery. A few of them were completed and sold, then the projects were sold - luckily all to good and appreciative homes. The house with barn were sold and I moved into a smaller home with a two car garage. The whole process took five years.

Today I have two collector cars left including my Healey, both finished and then ironically Covid-19 strikes, turns the world and life upside down. I would have been thrilled to have kept the old place and could have spent days, weeks, months, holed up and working on my projects. I still have many of the books and literature, a few scale models and have decided that maybe collecting scale models of cars I would love to own is the way forward. I do admit to suffering occasional twinges of seller’s remorse and separation anxiety but yet the cars and parts I thought would have to be surgically removed from me are now more fond memories than actual pain and suffering....

Thanks you all for the comments on this topic. Look for my article in the Healey Marque magazine, perhaps in October issue.

I rented a mini-warehouse for 10 + years at $120.00 per month to store car parts, and other items I considered to be of great value. One day, my wife pointed out that I had spent more than $15,000.00 to keep >$1000.00 worth of stuff. When I cleaned it out, I found that most of it to be of little value. Next is the attic with the stuff (including Healey parts) that I put up there 32 years ago.

tahoe healey said:

This is depressing. I decided I'm not going to die!

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Yup.... I think that's the best plan.

Steve

Michael Oritt said:

I have a bin of starters and generators that I collected and used for the first five or so years of ownership till I went over to an alternator and gear starter. The units have been rebuilt/repaired and would probably provide fine service to someone. Who would like to come and get them?

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Hi Michael,
Shoot me a list of what electrical stuff you're looking to move and I'll see if I can help move it out for you.
Thanks,
Jake

I like keeping hard copies of articles, blueprints, etc. That said, i've been digitizing parts of my library to keep it from getting completely thrown out one day. Some of that info is invaluable and it'd be a shame if it was lost to time.

Can I just have all that literature you have As a former Chef I have about 1,500 cooking related books Now I’m starting with Healey stuff I’m up to about 8 and this has been collected in the last couple months ��