Accessing Thy Self

I don't want you to dwell on this for too long, but I want you to take a quick mental inventory of everything you have in regards to vintage American automotive as well as relating memorabilia. If you've taken more than 10 minutes to get to this sentence, then you've taken too long. This could be anything from a hot rod or muscle car (or truck), associated parts, neon signs, old gas pumps, vintage car magazines, posters, toys - the list is almost endless. But the idea is to get a general idea of what you have, be it a lot or a little. Then add this to the mix - what if a natural disaster came along and wiped it all out? Or, if you had about 60 minutes warning to get out safely, what would you take with you? It can be a daunting task if you get really caught up in it.

If you really think about it, most likely about 99% of it is replaceable. That's one of the main reasons why insurance for this stuff (or your stuff) exists. Think about it - we have insurance for our car, our house, maybe even for an RV or boat we may own, but what about your hot rod? Or going even further, your cool automotive memorabilia? I'm not here to push a certain type of insurance and/or company. I'm just saying with the wildfires out west, floods down south, robberies in large cities, and anything else negative you want to throw on the collective woodpile, makes it a question of when... not if.

When I say this stuff is "replaceable", I mean a duplicate can be purchased if the first item is lost. For example, I have countless Hot Rod, Car Craft, Popular Hot Rodding, and Super Stock magazines from the 60's. More than I can count accurately in my head. I have a bunch of vintage Fleer racing / trading cards. I have hundreds of vintage red-line Hot Wheels toy cars. I also have a bunch of classic muscle car brochures, posters, and other rare advertising inventory. Believe it or not, rare as it is, it is replaceable. I have insurance on it and if anything happens, I can replace it.

However, it begs the question, "how important is it?" If push came to shove, my wife and I have already talked about what we would take; the list is very small and consists of our laptop, our DSLR cameras, our phones, our wallets, and clothes for a few days. That's it. And it would take all of 90 seconds to gather it up and get out if necessary. Someone asked us once if that list could be narrowed down even more - where you could only take one item. Of course it could; it would be the laptop. The reason being, all our irreplaceable photos are on there. Years worth of family shots, kids, grandkids, scans of old photos that are long gone.

And that's the bottom line - while our vintage American collectibles are indeed cool, rare, or whatever description you want to tag them with, they are replaceable. You, nor your spouse, your kids, etc., are not. It all comes down to how do we honestly access ourselves?


Until next time, peace out.
Dave