Firefighting Antiques
Before Steampunk: Star Wars’ 1800s Roots
By Steve Erenberg — More than 30 years ago, my wife, Helene, and I started collecting. She loved tribal masks—African, Oceanic, Indonesian, etc.—while I focused on medical, scientific, and industrial artifacts. "George Lucas’s designers must have found inspiration in these smoke helmets.” I've spent my career as a creative director, painter, and sculptor, so I always approached collecting as an artist. Over the years, without even realizing it, our collections began to influence each other until they merged...
Firefighting Memorabilia, From Crown Coaches to Cairns Helmets
By Maribeth Keane and Brad Quinn — I started collecting firefighting memorabilia in the 1960s around the time I became a volunteer fireman here in Orange County. My great grandfather was a fire chief in Massachusetts, so I guess it’s in my blood. After we moved from Massachusetts to California in the ’60s, I could hear from my house the volunteer fire department’s siren going off several times a week. That created an interest in firefighting, too. Eventually, I was hired by the California Department of Forestry in San...