October 2009
A Nod of Approval for this Collector
by Phaedra Greenwood
People collect all sorts of things that reflect the culture they live in. Nancy Sowle is proud of her collection of 374 American bobble-headed figures and about 150 kitchen timers that stand together on a shelf in a small merchandise place, Landon Store in Stanley. She also has a fine collection of demitasse teacups and saucers.
Stanley, about 40 miles south of Santa Fe, is the farming and ranching community where collector Sowle grew up. Her husband, Dan Sowle, is also a collector of and dealer in antique barbed wire.
When Sowle started collecting bobble heads at the age of seven, they were called “nodders.” Bobble heads are popular figures about four or five inches high of cartoon figures, celebrities, political figures, TV and movie stars, religious and sports figures, and animals.
Her first one was an elephant that a relative brought her from Albuquerque. “I’m not really collecting them any more, but now and then, someone might give me one,” she says. The figures are called “bobble heads” because the heads are on springs, so they wobble if you touch them. “I have a lot of sports figures, football and baseball players from the National League and the American League, one hockey player, and a basketball player,” she says.
She also owns a collection of over 100 demitasse teacups and saucers from all over the world. “Several of them are antiques. One was made in Occupied Japan, and one in Prussia, which hasn’t been a country for eons,” she says. She started collecting cups when she was about 10. The first ones were solid colors, red, blue, yellow, and white. Then she branched out into floral patterns. “They’re dainty and elegant—really pretty. They play well in my lighted cabinet in the living room.”
The most fun collection she displays is of novelty kitchen timers, she continues. “I have over 150 of those, too.” She started collecting timers when she noticed them in “junk” catalogues. “My collection took off like wildfire because of the novelty,” she says. “Friends would call to see if I had this one or that one, and then surprise me. But I bought most of them myself.”
The novelty timers come in all shapes and sizes: pots and pans, fruit and vegetables, or animals. The animal ones, which were once operated by batteries, went off with animal noises. “The cow would moo, the dog would bark, the cat would meow,” she says. Sowle also has some of her childhood toys on display. “I have eight or 10 dolls that stand about eight inches high that my grandmother crocheted dresses for,” she says.
When the Landon Store closed in 2000 they decided to use the shelf space for Sowle’s collection of dolls and timers. “Now it’s a hangout for us with the collection, a TV and wood-burning stove,” she says. “The collection is on display for anyone who wants to look at it.”
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