Menomonie Historical Society sponsors collectors day event

The Rassbach Heritage Museum is presenting its first Collectors Day — a celebration of collectors and their collections. Local collectors will share their treasures with the public. Explore unusual and fascinating items with some of the area’s top collectors and learn why collections are so important.

The event will be held September 24, 2022 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the museum’s Holtby Hall. The free event offers fun for all ages and visitors may see items that they didn’t know people collected. Visitors can talk with collectors of all ages to learn the history of their treasures — from coins and stamps, to sports, music and movie memorabilia and fishing lures. The stories behind the collections are often as interesting as the items collected.

In addition to current collections, the Dunn County Historical Society will exhibit a collection of souvenirs collected by lumber baron Henry Eno Knapp and his wife from their travels around the world. Included are such unique items as a firefly cage, Japanese storybook and a new year’s stamp.

The event will also feature a raffle of “starter collections” donated by several of the participants. 

Collectors Day was the idea of member and museum volunteer Mark Quilling, inspired by a similar event at the Florida Museum of Natural History which has been running for more than 40 years. “I was living in the Twin Cities at the time, and first contacted a museum there about the possibility of doing something similar,” said Quilling. “They had no interest and I put the idea on the back burner. Once I retired to Menomonie, I contacted the staff at the Rassbach Heritage Museum, and they thought it was a great idea.”  

“It should be a wonderful event for us,” said Executive Director Melissa Kneeland. “A collection can act as a window into the interests, beliefs, culture or heart of an individual, group or entire community. Collections are usually unified by a theme and gathered for study or as a hobby. Our museum presents stories from the Dunn County Historical Society’s collection of photographs, papers and artifacts. We even have collections within our collection, including the Knapp travel collection, historical tools and fishing lures, fossils and Civil War artifacts.”

Quilling is a true collector at heart. He has been collecting since he was a kid, starting with keys and then later coins, stamps, postcards and on to a wide variety of other items.

But the gift of a single matchbook from one of his grandmothers sparked a passion for his primary collecting focus. “It was from the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas, and had printing on the matchsticks. I had never seen anything like it. I soon obtained a similar matchbook and started picking them up whenever I would see them,” he said. He then sought out and joined a collecting club and found mentors to guide him, and established long-lasting friendships along the way. Asked about his favorite item from among all his collections, Quilling points to that first matchbook, which he still has.

“Our first Collectors Day will be a fascinating look at the unique collections of people in the area,” said Kneeland. “We hope it not only piques visitors’ curiosity, but inspires them to share their own collections in the future, as we hope to make this a yearly tradition. Or if they are not collectors yet, perhaps they will start one of their own.”

The Rassbach Heritage Museum is located at 1820 John Russell Road, in Menomonie’s Wakanda Park.