Mall Helmets, Adoptions & Hummel

We.., that’s it, after years and years of collecting, with the passing of this Christmas – I’ve finally managed to complete my “Salute to Destitute Children of the World” Hummel Figurines.

They are incredibly life-like, the craftsmanship is astonishing – you can almost hear their bellies crying out in hunger….

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How did I ever start collecting Hummel, never mind the extremely difficult to find Impoverished Children Collection? Well, I suppose it began when my Mother adopted her first Guatemalan refugee baby after the big earthquake. She was looking for a new hobby after the government started regulating the amount of narcotic in cough medicine. Being a bit of a trailblazer, was mom, she chose to pursue competitive third-world adoption. Mind you this was years before it became a hobby synonymous with celebrity.

While mom enjoyed the collecting, at time she seemed ill-prepared for the aftermath, the whole ‘actually taking care of the kids’ she adopted part…. look, I suppose this isn’t really the time to go into it, suffice to say – several government agencies quickly became involved, including Child & Protective Services and we ended up losing all the kids… except for one, Mom was allowed to keep one, I still call her my sister. A little girl who came to us with a mild case of teenage onset mental retardation. We made the best of a less than ideal situation. To this day, she is forced to wear a helmet to the mall for her own protection. That hasn’t stopped her, she refuses to accept limits on her abilities and I think she has done incredibly well for herself, despite the primordial dwarfism, Merry Christmas little one… merry christmas.

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I believe it was this early and deep-seated exposure to children less fortunate than myself that created the desire to collect the ‘poor children’ Hummel figurines. An unexpected benefit of my collection – it presented itself as a unique, safe & sanitary way to let my children interact and learn about bums, hobos and tramps…. anyway you slice it, that’s a triple win.

So after all this time, low these many years – the Hummel has come home to roost and my collection is complete – it`s an impressive display and has received many complements when I let guests into my climate controlled, pressure sensitive, humidity regulated, viewing chamber and the whole collection has been estimated to be worth in excess of  “tens of dollars”…… jealous much?

Anyways I get to relive a part of my childhood and remember some of the adoptees we lost in court, my children get to learn about scum and I’ve made an investment for the future where it’s predicted these figurines could eventually fetch a pretty penny… hello antique roadshow 2045…

So as you can imagine this was a pretty great holiday and I’m still excited – to be completely honest with you, it’s been a long hard road to hoe finding all these figurines and a fair amount of my excitement is firmly rooted in my finally being free of the quest to find them all… well that and….

…I am now free to begin assembling my true collecting passion and fulfill my ultimate destiny – to accumulate the worlds most prestigious collection, outside of the Louvre and the Guggenheim of course, of sad clown paintings….

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Have a Great Day.