Collections is a series from The Show devoted to the things we acquire and treasure.
Most collectors of presidential items have a specific niche. Maybe it’s campaign buttons, bobble heads or White House Christmas cards. Maybe they focus on a handful of select presidents or a certain time period.
Not Steve Ferber.
He just likes collecting what he calls "pieces of history." Ferber and his wife, Lori, own Lori Ferber Collectibles, and in the past 51 years they’ve accumulated items from every single president — and some presidential hopefuls.
The rows and rows of tall shelves in their Scottsdale office are filled with medals, signed letters, campaign swag — even strands of hair from past presidents.
"I started when I was a child in school," said Ferber. "First, like a lot of people, it was postage stamps and that grew into political and presidential items."
Ferber says the first pieces he ever collected was probably a souvenir from the inauguration of Franklin Roosevelt. Ferber says at any giving time, his website has close to 10,000 items — including, for example, signed letter from President Harry Truman and the the error paper from the Chicago Tribune in 1948 that declared "Dewey Deats Truman."
"We have several copies of that," said Ferber. "It always amazes me that people spent, you know, 4 cents to buy that newspaper in 1948, and today it’s worth between $2,000 and $3,000 each."
He said once an editor from the Chicago Tribune called looking for one of the papers.
"And I asked him, I said, ‘Well why don’t you just get one from the Chicago Tribune? He says, 'I tried to, we don’t have one,'" said Ferber.
Ferber has a whole binder filled with items from President Jimmy Carter, including a ticket to his inauguration and invoices from the Carter family peanut farm in Georgia.
Feber says his colelction is also known for havaning many items from President John F. Kennedy's adminstration and his assasination.
"For instance, this is a press kit for the media to what’s known as the 'Texas Welcome Dinner,' where President Kennedy was going to speak that night, he was assassinated, unfortunately, earlier in the day, and they had to cancel the event. So the tickets, the invitations, the programs from the event are collected ravenously," he said.
People even collect hair from past presidents, Feber says.
"A little difficult to know for sure the authenticity of those, but you rely on provenance, you know proof that an item is from the family passed down from years to years, and there are authenticators that look at those types of things," he said.
His collection includes a framed piece containing hair from George Washington.
The inscription reads: "Lock of hair of general George Washington given to Colonel Powell by Mrs. Powell, who had received it from Mrs. Custis L. Powell."
"So, they actually knew who received it originally, who received it next. And the authenticator who is very well known and very well respected issued a certificate of authenticity ..." Ferber said.
Ferber said he and his wife have agreed not to keep the ever-growing collection in their home, intstead storing it in their office.
"There is not one political or presidential item in our house. Once we moved into the office, the agreement with Lori and I , which — instigated by her, was there's just not gonna be the clutter in the house anymore. So we’ve become minimalists at home. But in our office, as you can see, we’re anything but."
Ferber contunies to collect items, even though not all of it has been cataloged online yet.
"And of course my wife reminds me all the time, ‘How come you’re still buying more things, even though you’ve still got three rooms of things you haven’t listed yet? And I just tell her it’s a disease. When you do this as long as we have, you just can’t stop."
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