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Toys in the basement
How about an entire toy museum?
Friday, Nov. 20, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by DARWIN WEIGEL
Donald Knepp of Huntingtown has been collecting toys for 28 years and his basement toy shop proves it.
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When John Major wrote an e-mail to the newspaper describing Huntingtown neighbor Don Knepp's toy collection, it was a pretty impressive endorsement.
"His basement has been set up to replicate a country general store," he wrote. "Inside, he has collected hundreds and hundreds of children's trucks, cars, fire engines and other items that are truly amazing. Believe me, it's something to behold."
It is, indeed, something to behold. Knepp's basement display is full of toys — not just ordinary toys, but cool boy toys like cars, trucks, jeeps, tanks, fire engines, motorcycles, planes, trains, an Erector Set and — the grand prize — a Daisy, Red Ryder, carbine-action, 200-shot BB gun, still in the original box.
Better still, there's no one muttering that dire prediction, "You'll shoot your eye out," and there isn't a Barbie doll or tea party set anywhere in sight. How cool is that?
Knepp, 72, retired as a lieutenant after 31 years on the Prince George's County Police Department. "I loved every minute of it," he says of his police career, "but I don't miss it at all." Originally from Western Pennsylvania, he started collecting toys about 30 years ago, he recalls.
"A friend of ours wanted us to get an antique shop with them … so we went to an auction to get stuff for the shop. There was a box with a lot of odds and ends in it, and this little green toy was in it. And I told Angela I had that type of toy when I was a kid and I'm going to buy it if I have to pay $40 for it. I got the whole box for $2 and that's where all of this started."
Angela, Don's wife, says she wasn't sure about the toy thing at the beginning.
"I remember we were at an auction in Pennsylvania and he had just paid $40 for some little airplane, or something," she recalled, "and I thought, ‘Oh, my God, he's lost his mind.' He has a lot of toys in boxes that won't fit in here," she added sweetly, not looking at all disappointed.
Knepp confirmed that, as full as his basement display is, it only represents about half of his collection; the rest is packed away in boxes, or elsewhere. "I have one of these Jeeps," he mentioned, picking up a handsome, foot-long model of a World War II-era army Jeep; "a real one — a '42 Ford. It's been in the barn for eight or nine years and keeps wanting to come out."
The collection spans a broad spectrum of types, styles and makers and includes metal, plastic, rubber and glass vehicles of many types, with an emphasis on fire engines and related equipment.
"He's got a fascination for fire trucks and things, which is really interesting, because he was a police officer, and he doesn't have a fascination for the police cars," said Angela.
While Knepp said that toy collecting can be an expensive hobby, he's been fortunate to find nice pieces at reasonable prices.
"I find my best buys actually in antique shops, because people who deal mostly in furniture and glassware and stuff, may come across a nice toy and they don't have toy books to document the item. There's O'Brien's toy guide [‘O'Brien's Collecting Toys], it's kind of the bible for toy collectors, and just about every toy that's in here [my collection] you can find in that book."
Indicating a large truck in the display, he said, "This company, I think, made 14 toys and I have 13. The last one is a big Lincoln, a '49 Lincoln, with a long house trailer, like the ‘I Love Lucy' movie [‘The Long, Long Trailer']. One like that in a box would go for $2,000 or $2,500 today."
"We've been to auctions where [other] bidders have spent more than $100,000 on just a few toys – that's just amazing to us," Angela added.
Angela herself is also a collector, but in a smaller way. She displays her collection of Goebel "Redhead" figurines by Charlot Byj upstairs in the couple's home.
Asked what visitors have to say about his collection, Knepp replied, "All the women say, ‘How do you dust it?' Well, I don't. Dust holds most of it on the shelves, probably. It really isn't a problem at all."
