Saturday morning, after finishing my "Barn Fresh" post, I asked Lloyd to call our friend, Jeff Storck, to see if we could come by for a visit. I wanted to do a story about an amazing home collection and Jeff's penny scale collection immediately came to mind. Jeff had been in touch with Lloyd recently about some penny scales that he was ready to sell, so it was the ideal destination for us both. Jeff was happy to meet with us, so we headed out into the beautiful Loudoun County, Virginia countryside.
We enjoyed the ride over the green rolling hills, autumn foliage just beginning to peak through, as we cranked up Bluesville on the radio and held hands.
Jeff has a few secluded acres that can't be seen from the road, and this is the view that greeted us as we entered his property.
Jeff and his wife, Liz, came out to meet us and brought us inside to chat for a few minutes before Lloyd and Jeff got down to discussing what he was ready to sell.
I needed to watch my step, getting into that shed!
Crossing the Potomac River on White's Ferry into Virginia
Jeff and his wife, Liz, came out to meet us and brought us inside to chat for a few minutes before Lloyd and Jeff got down to discussing what he was ready to sell.
Here are a few shots of the Storck's kitchen. As you can see, Jeff picks up a few signs in his hunt for penny scales.
Jeff has been collecting scales for 30 years. He started his collection with small candy scales and grocer scales when he lived in California. He says the larger penny scales were harder to find out west. When he moved to Virginia, he had about 50 scales. Now that number is closer to 450! That is quite amazing, considering that Jeff has a full time job that has nothing to do with collecting. Jeff's wife, Liz, told me that when she first met Jeff, "He would buy anything that looked or even smelled like a scale." Now that he is nearing retirement, he wants to cull the collection down to the best of the best because he realized that he will never have the time to restore all of the scales he has. That is where Lloyd comes in. We are here to take those scales off Jeff's hands.
So we headed outside to the first outbuilding to begin the deal.
Lloyd agreed to take everything in that first building, with the exception of two scales!
Then we headed over to the next shed to see more.
I needed to watch my step, getting into that shed!
It was worth it, though!
And if you are thinking, that was a lot of scales, wait! Next he took us to a trailer for more.
These were all just the scales that had not yet been restored. The best was yet to come! Jeff took us to a building he had constructed on his property, just for the purpose of storing scales and working on them. Lloyd says that Jeff probably has one of the best scale collections in the world, and you don't have to love scales to appreciate the incredible array of styles that he has acquired.
Jeff likes to have every color of each style!
In this room, Jeff has valet scales that did not take a coin, but instead were purchased for use in private homes.
In this video, Jeff shows the valet scales and how they were used
You might think that there couldn't be more, but there was. Next, we headed to Jeff's basement to see the very best of his collection.
Watch this video to hear Jeff narrate the story of some of the best scales in his collection
We concluded our tour with some of Jeff's most whimsical scales. Jeff had scales in the shapes of soda bottles, milk cartons, Mr Peanut and Humpty Dumpty. Those had been manufactured by an advertising company in Ohio. Jeff told us that the Humpty Dumpty scale had been manufactured for an amusement park in Louisville, KY. He had only seen a picture of one until a man called him who had one. Jeff said negotiations for that one took 3 weeks, "and every time I talked to him, the price went up!" That made me laugh. We know what that's like!
Lloyd and Jeff concluded their deal and Lloyd loaded a few of his purchases into the back of our pickup truck. A trailer will be sent back next week to pick up the rest of our purchases.
If you would like to learn more about penny scales and the history of their use and production, visit this website: http://www.theamericanweigh.com/media/media_coverage/AmericanProfile-1.2.2011.pdf
We thanked our gracious hosts for the tour and their time and we headed down the road. Our next stop was a roadside bakery / art gallery / winery , where we bought a couple of delicious pies and a couple of bottles of wine to take to Lloyd's eldest daughter and her family. Lloyd couldn't wait to upload photos of his new penny scales to Facebook! Check out those photos at http://www.facebook.com/coinopwarehouse .
If you have a collection that you would like us to visit (or buy!) or share in a post, email me with photos to pickerswife@gmail.com.
Awesome! Thanks for sharing.
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