What makes a Collection and a Collector?

Nov 29

Stamp collectors. Watch fob collectors. Milk glass collectors. Doll collectors. Car
collectors. Bit collectors. Thingamabob collectors. When does an accumulation
become a collection? When does an accumulator become a collector? A study of how it can happen, unintentionally and unknowingly. How and when did an
accumulation of tempered iron, engraved silver, and beloved stories become a
legacy of Richie Morgan, bit collector, rancher, and horseman?

The interest started early, during the formative, rough and tumble years of a little
boy in an agricultural world. The people were intriguing, the work was fascinating,
the world was calling. Richie watched the cowboys with their yarns of a life free and
exciting, come into the farms and ranches. He listened to them as they spun their
stories to the eager ears. He tried their cigarettes (in secret) and dreamed to make
their stories true. That seed of horses, cows, and cowboys was planted, ready to
grow.

The trajectory of this dream began a couple of years earlier than Richie had
thought. In 1936, Liberty High School welcomed their student back from an arduous
bout of spinal meningitis. Morgan had spent several months recovering from the
threatening disease at his grandparents’ home in San Jose, very near the F.M. Sterns
Saddlery. This was the hang-out for Echevarra and other bitmakers, the supplier for
the cowboys working the rich delta ranches, the haven for Richie. During this time,
as he walked for therapy, he realized he could walk down to that inviting store with
all the tack, the saddles, the bits, and the cowboys with all their stories and
knowledge. The young man quietly listened, absorbed it all, and then started
cleaning up where he could, helping display stock, thanking Mr. Sterns for allowing
him to be there. As he left the little store to go back to school, Mr. Sterns gifted
Richie with anything he wanted on the magical wall. He chose a simple, leather
headstall, one of his first pieces of tack. Therapy wasn’t so bad after all. And the
seed of interest grew more.

1936, hair slicked back, clean jeans, paper and pencil ready, Richie Morgan returned
to Liberty High. The administration said, “Welcome back. Here are your classes.”
He said, “Where is the football?” They said, “You can’t. You had spinal meningitis.”
He said, “No sports? I’m going with the cowboys.” The sixteen year old returned to
Sterns Saddlery and bought his first bit to put on that headstall he had just been
given. It was on consignment, a used, pretty shiny silver-inlaid spade bit. And he
started his dream with the cowboys working the fancy horses with the cattle of the
California Delta.

Such was the start of the accumulation, but that seed of collector had been planted
and was growing even before he got that first bit. A true collector, no matter what
the collection might be, has to almost live, eat, and sleep with the items. Spade bits and the horses that worked with them were in Morgan’s heart and mind.