Beer cans and X-Men: What people in the Twin Cities collect
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A collection of vintage barware. Photo: Courtesy of Cathy Swope
People are born either minimalists — or collectors, says Longfellow homeowner Cathy Swope, who's amassed dozens of cookbooks, jigsaw puzzles and vintage lamps, among other items.
The big picture: We recently asked Axios Twin Cities readers to tell us about their collections and received a flood of responses spanning nostalgic X-Men to cross-country license plates.
The intrigue: Research suggests you can improve your well-being when you join a hobby group or engage in more social elements of your hobby, like attending car shows.
"When we remodeled our not very big kitchen, the designer suggested no island and cabinets on the bookcase wall. I'm sure that was better for future resale, but I'm not remodeling for the next owner, I'm doing it for how I live in the house," Swope tells Axios about her wall of cookbooks.
State of play: 50 years' worth of beer cans sit atop a ledge near Coon Rapids homeowner Debbie Heilig's vaulted living room ceiling.
- It was her idea for her husband to display his collection, which he grew with cans found in farms, houses, antique shops and liquor stores.
What they're saying: "He had so much fun sorting his beer cans and deciding what to put where, organizing the scenic cans together, the sports cans together, even deciding to only put U.S. cans in the house," Heilig tells Axios. (He stores foreign beer cans in the garage.)
💭 Bri's thought bubble: Some of my most vivid memories with my grandma are of us standing in front of a vintage curio cabinet, filled with opalescent perfume bottles. I loved hearing stories about where they came from and which ones she liked best.
- She told me the perfume bottle collection would be passed down to me one day because she treasured sharing those stories with me.
- Now, I'm the proud owner of dozens of little glass bottles that hold hundreds of generations-old happy memories.
- When I display that collection one day, I hope people will ask me where each piece came from.
Here are a couple more reader notes we had to share:
🦹♂️ "X-Men" superfan Chad Eldred's Cottage Grove loft is loaded with memorabilia from the classic animated series.
- "As an adult, I'm collecting pieces that I didn't have the means to own (or really even appreciate) as a child, so I'll sometimes find myself just sitting in my loft and letting myself take in the nostalgia and joy of being surrounded by characters and stories that meant so much to me," Eldred says.
🚗 Brandyn Raduenz's house in Le Sueur is covered with license plates, which he started collecting in 2015 after winning one at an auction.
How it works: "I use them around the house as backdrops on a shelf to give the items in front a way to stick out a little more," Raduenz tells Axios.
- Small plates serve as wall decor, filling open spaces between picture frames, and an assortment of farm-related plates adorn his entryway ceiling.
☕️ On St. Paul's West Side, Michael Turbak built a kitchen shelf to display his wife's collection of coffee mugs with people's names on them.
- There's a cup of Joe waiting for Ruth, Donna, Charles and Paula, among many others.