THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 28, 1996 TAG: 9604250200
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 18 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: MARY ELLEN RIDDLE
DATELINE: KILL DEVIL HILLS LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
You may go into Norm Martinus' shop looking for a specific piece of memorabilia, but you'll end up taking an unexpected ride down memory lane.
It's easy to turn back the clock in Nostalgia Gallery, while poring through stacks of plastic-covered antique and advertising art filling bin after bin.
Maybe you came looking for a picture of Elvis or something with a Coca Cola motif - but then you spy genuine slides from the 1964 World's Fair in New York City.
Suddenly, you're sitting beside Daddy again, swirling through ``It's a Small World.''
Tobacco advertisements call up memories of Papa's smoky, stubbly face. Car pictures send you back to Canada in the '50s, when the black-capped lads jumped on the running board of your car singing ``Frere Jacques'' and hoping for a quarter.
It's quite a journey Norm has prepared for you. It's spontaneous, it's original, and it's yours.
Since 1993, when Norm first opened Nostalgia, he has watched folks come alive in his shop as they finger an old baseball card, unfold a vintage feed sack or flip through a Dick Tracy comic book.
He spent so much time collecting paper that he was asked to co-author an edition of Warman's Encyclopedia of Antiques and Collectibles on paper memorabilia.
Norm offers a complete package at Nostalgia, including a full-service frame shop. Pick out a 1920s Maxfield Parrish print, and he'll mat and frame it for you.
And Norm is a perfectionist: no overcut mat corners here.
The items can really get personal. Folks have actually come in looking for a picture of their grandmother who posed as a child for a Fairy Soap advertisement.
How about a Norman Rockwell print showing a teacher and her class, published the day your favorite teacher was born? Or a calendar page from the year Mom and Pop married?
``If you can combine the artwork, the date and the nostalgia, then it really becomes a fun thing,'' Norm said.
Norm sends memorabilia to serious collectors all over the nation. He keeps his eye open for that missing link, and though he's not a professional appraiser, he can give you a good idea of how valuable your attic findings are.
A woman in her 80s once came into the shop saying that her husband had been after her to get rid of some childhood things. She showed Norm some stuff she'd saved, and he ended up giving her a wholesale market price for her almost-thrown-away treasures.
The woman was ecstatic; she couldn't wait to get home and wave $150 in front of her husband's face.
Norm likes making people happy. The retired IBM personnel director greets his customers with: ``Welcome to the neat-stuff place!''
He turns sorrow into joy by framing an old needlepoint piece for a customer. ``It was all she had of her mother's,'' Norm said. ``She came in and she welled up.''
Norm says a walk through his shop sometimes gets mothers into trouble. ``More mothers get cursed in this shop, because they threw all this stuff away,'' he said.
He's heard tales of men returning home from the war to find their closets cleaned out by Mom.
But some youngsters hung on to their treasures. Norm says one customer of his is actually putting his kids through college by selling sets of 1950s Topps baseball cards he saved in mint condition from his boyhood. One Mickey Mantle rookie card alone was worth $2,500, and he even had duplicates.
It's not always obvious what will become valuable someday, Norm said. Sometimes it's the packaging more than the item itself that gains value. And of course, collectibles and antiques that have never been opened really make the price climb.
But value depends most on what collectors are interested in. Norm's advice: ``Collect what you like.''
``It's fun,'' Norm said. ``People have a love for this stuff. I can almost give you a story behind everything.'' MEMO: Mary Ellen Riddle covers Outer Banks arts for The Carolina Coast. Send
comments and questions to her at P.O. Box 10, Nags Head, N.C. 27959. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by MARY ELLEN RIDDLE
Norm Martinus' greeting for customers at his collectibles store is:
``Welcome to the neat-stuff place!''
by CNB