Oaks, Pennsylvania
They say one man's trash is another man's treasure, but in
Pennsylvania's American Treasure Tour it's as though the concept of
trash never even existed.
Consisting of a collection of collections, the American Treasure
Tour's whiplash-inducing variations in content and interest are the work
of a single, secret private collector. Located in a pristine, former
tire factory the myriad nostalgia-inducing items number in the tens of
thousands and are separated into related groups across the 100,000
square foot facility.
There are collections of beautifully restored self-playing
orchestras, gangs of life-size clown statues, countless stuffed animals
hailing from carnivals and promotional campaigns, decades worth of movie
posters, grandfather clocks, porcelain dolls, nutcrackers, signs, and
almost anything else one could imagine from the last century or more of
cultural memory. There is even a full assortment of vintage automobiles.
The thing that sets the American Treasure Tour apart from its similar
junk box rivals is how immaculately restored and preserved every piece
in the collection is. The cars look like they just rolled off the
factory line, the dolls look as though they were never played with, and
almost all of the polished wooden music boxes still plays tunes. In fact
many of them have been upgraded to play at the touch of a tour guide's
iPad.
Due to the large amount of man power required to operate the space
and the sheer size of the collection, tours are by appointment only and
are conducted via private tram service that driven throughout the
sprawling collection. No one is sure why the anonymous owner amassed
such a collection of memorabilia, but many a traveling tour group is
glad that they did
