Started collecting Dixie Cup ice cream lids as a very young boy in Brooklyn. Had an uncle who was a bus driver and he would bring me transfers (in full books; unused) that were really neat. Soda pop bottle caps were a big favorite of mine, too. as well as marbles. Then when my mother and I visited my aunt in Reno who was getting a divorce at the time (1951; we stayed 6-weeks), my mother and I would walk from 555 Imperial Blvd. to downtown several times a week and stop in every place that had a door to pick up matchbooks, napkins and evey imaginable thing you can think of from everywhere in town. Our favorite hangout was Harolds Club; we knew everyone (everyone) there was to know. Got to meet some lawyers in town who later went on to bigger things; met Frank Sinatra at the Riverside... and fell in love with Ava Gardner at 9-years-old when I saw her walking up the steps to the Reno Post Office. Couldn't take my eyes off her legs. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

Anyway, my mother continued collecting Reno "stuff" up to the mid-60s (by writing the clubs; friends she had made... and whatnot). Talk about matchbooks, keychains and napkins and, and, and... there was no end.

She also did Carson City and Virginia City.

Never a chip, though.... all those years and not one chip.

The collection was broken up in the late-60s (but I did manage to keep some nice stuff ).