"It won't be easy," Spomer said, standing in the back room of the former car dealership turned museum. The back room is full of classic cars. Most of the time, Spomer has 18 to 20 of his cars on display, including his 1957 Venetian, his orange Corvette, and Robert Kennedy's King of Worthington, his Turkey Day. It included his 1966 sleek red Pontiac that he signed aboard when he attended the parade.
It's all part of history, part of a collection, something Spomer has spent more than half his life building. His love of cars has lasted his entire life, but the collection is a credit to his wife Janine. Janine is an antiques enthusiast and encouraged me to ride with her when she went to the auction. Together they built Spomer Classics. Since its opening, car enthusiasts, history buffs and the curious have flocked to the Worthington Museum. The museum has hosted many large groups on one of Spomer's two-hour tours. People come from nearby. They move across state lines and sometimes from outside the country. “Two weeks ago we had two guys from South Africa,” says Spomer. "That's the biggest thing. I miss people because I got to talk to people all over the world." Many people come to see the cars, but Spomer says they're really a secondary attraction.
"We always have people coming in here and saying, 'I gotta see the car,' but soon all they see is the neon signs." said as he walked along. "Signs, clocks, memorabilia, that's what they really want to see. They don't understand it until they walk in." His first neon signs - Pontiac and Fireball V8 - came from an auction in Scotland, South Dakota. There is a Coca-Cola sign for a gas station run by Spomer's father. It's where Spomer first put gas and got into the automotive business. Towering above one of the cars near the rear is an 11-foot-long revolving sign found in a grove of Decorah, Iowa, in 1953. Spomer cleaned it himself, as did most of the signs he collected. Restoration is all part of the process, and Spomer jokes that it could never do without some kind of project, whether it's a car or a billboard, like figuring out how to find space for a giant revolving billboard. "That rotator actually came out of the Phillips 66 sign in Worthington," Spomer said, adding that a friend in his coffee group gave it to him after hearing about his new sign. rice field. "Fully shot. It took him six months to get everything working." He pointed out other signs and a friend told him about it, or a contact tracked him down and offered to sell him, or someone somewhere said they had signs and stories. Said there was Spomer seems to collect both. "There's been a lot of research done on this," he said.
In a room so jam-packed with lights and signs that the walls are hard to find, stories about how Spomer himself obtained the memorabilia mingle with the history of the item. Interspersed with tales of the auctions and antique stores he collected are automotive trivia and historical tidbits related to the various items that make up Spomer's collection. According to him, neon signs became popular in the United States in the 1920s, first appearing at a Packard car dealership in Los Angeles. The 1926 National Auto Show in New York's Madison Square Garden was a hit, and the neon wave that followed spread throughout the advertising industry. That spread is on a full technicolor display inside Spomer Classics, but the neon sign is just part of the collection. Porcelain and Tin, Illuminated Milk Glass, Spomer owns his one of the largest collections of motor vehicle signs in the country, with more than one piece being one-of-a-kind. "I have quite a few signs that are over 100 years old," he said. The thing — it goes into a historic building downtown. ” Spomer intends to give, and possibly return, some pieces from his collection to people for whom memorabilia are of great value. However, most memorabilia will be for sale.
Since deciding to sell, Spomer said he has received visits from some of the country's top auction firms, with the majority of the signs heading there. will be split into two auctions in North Carolina. The first auction he took place in February, and additional auctions have not yet been decided. "It will take time, but it will be interesting to watch," Spomer said. "Many of these are very unique." Spomer keeps a few signs along with a handful of cars he has no intention of parting with. And although he's decided to close the museum, he doesn't plan to give up his hobby of restoration anytime soon, and he encourages anyone still interested in a tour to call 507-360-9557. Recommended. Some cars could be sold and some could go to auction, but Spomer has yet to decide where the rest will go.
"It was a wonderful trip," he said. "For the simple fact that all the wonderful people we meet do this. It warms my heart to see the look on their faces when they light up this place. , said they were aiming to restore memories, and one day, memories really hit the mark."