Jim Burridge: The ‘collector’s collector’
A noble passion for preserving history and culture
Miller & Miller’s December 4, 2021 sale featuring the collection of Jim Burridge (pictured above) set records in Canadian advertising.
Jim Burridge is an anchor in the seas of his changing neighbourhood in Scarborough, Ontario. To know Jim is to know a passion for collecting the past. With his crisp-pressed polo shirt tucked neatly into his slacks, he stands tall as the articulate spokesman for all collectors irritated by today’s “throw-away” world. Climbing the stairs into Jim’s second-story flat is like traveling 65 years back in time.
“The serious collector, whether the passion is for vintage soft drink and gas station signs, glassware, comic books, toys, folk art, or anything else that strikes his or her fancy, performs an important role in society today,” he says. “And that role is to preserve history.”
Nobody knows and values history more than Jim Burridge. He recalls his father’s surprise as a door-to-door salesman for Hoover long before every Canadian household had hydro.
“The silly (or cunning) housewife told him she did not have hydro after he had dumped the prescribed quota of soil on her carpet to demonstrate the Hoover he was trying to sell her”.
It was only after his father secured a 100-foot extension cord to remedy the situation that he realized the housewife misled him deliberately to get a free cleaning. There is nothing that Jim doesn’t remember.
There is no doubt that the assemblage that fills Jim’s upstairs apartment pays homage to the era of his childhood: a world of orange, red and yellow pressed steel toys, glass soda bottles, milk, ice and coal deliveries, and the corner grocer. It is in this world that Jim finds comfort and fondness, so he has surrounded himself accordingly.
Jim credits serious collectors as “the true repositories of history – those who ensure the survival of the artifacts of our culture.”
Jim himself, at age 77, fits seamlessly into the passionate collector role. He’s been that way for most of his life. “I was a fanatic collector of comic books when I was a kid,” he recalls.
Later selling those treasures to finance a trip to Europe, he rediscovered his passion in the early 1980s when a friend led him into a comic book shop in Toronto.
“My friend predicted, ‘once you go in, you’ll get hooked, I swear to you!’”
Jim’s buddy was dead on. Inevitably the collector bug grew and he found himself buying toy kitchen and kitchen appliance memorabilia and replicas. “I loved miniature cook stoves and found some made as early as the 1800s. Some of them actually worked. I remember scrubbing creosote from a beauty that had burned wood.”
Recalling his friend’s comic book prophesy, Jim laughs. “I was hooked. I was a collector. There was no doubt about it.”
Along the way, toy kitchens segued into soft drink, gas station and petroleum memorabilia. Working for a delivery company in downtown Toronto in the 1980s afforded Jim the opportunity to discover what collectors today would kill for. Toronto was a mecca of nostalgia shops and Jim was a regular at all of them. He found the signs advertising Coca-Cola, Orange Crush and Canada Dry irresistible. “Didn’t pay much more than $60 each for them,” he volunteers. No one could have predicted those same signs would be worth thousands of dollars decades later.
Jim recalls finding one treasure in particular. “Years past, soft drink and petroleum companies would advertise their products on store kick plates and door plates. But they had to be tough since the signs got the toe and elbow of customers coming in.”
One fine day, Jim came upon a 1953 porcelain kick plate beauty advertising Coca-Cola. “I paid $400 for it. My family thought I was crazy. I knew it was a treasure.”
Jim Burridge calls himself “a pure collector.”
“Some collectors I’d call ‘speculators’—those who buy with the aim of selling and making a profit. But that’s not me.”
The “pure collector” gathers a trove with an aim purely to preserve history—and culture, he states. And history is important. History is precious. “People like me have a passion to ensure the artifacts of our culture are preserved,” he exclaims. “These artifacts are as important as historical documents as they provide a visual record of our times.”
But even pure collectors reach a point when they must part with at least some of their collection. Jim’s selling point came with the news that his landlord was thinking of selling the building where he has lived for over 50 years. He’s had the privilege of displaying his treasures on a display area above a private inner staircase of his building. “But what would I do if I had to move?” he worried.
Enter Miller & Miller Auctions of New Hamburg, Ontario. Advised by a collecting buddy that the Miller establishment was top-notch, he contacted them to consider a sale. “Only the bigger pieces of the collection,” Jim advises. “Maybe 50 per cent of it.” A visit from Justin Miller confirmed his friend’s recommendation and he consigned to sell.
Miller & Miller’s December 4, 2021 sale featuring The Jim Burridge Collection set records in Canadian advertising. The top seller: Lot 380, a vertical Coca-Cola sign hammering in at $7375; followed by Lot 212, a Vertical Orange Crush sign at $6490 and Lot 211, another Orange Crush at $5900 (buyer’s premium included in each). In all, 10 of Jim Burridge’s soft drink signs were auctioned at $3500 and upwards. “I was flabbergasted,” he confesses. “I paid less than $100 for each of them.” In total, Jim Burridge’s consignment brought him almost $75,000.
Lot 380 sold for $7,375 at Miller & Miller
Lot 212 sold for $6,490 at Miller & Miller
Lot 211 sold for $5,900 at Miller & Miller
In explaining today’s bear market for quality collectibles Jim Burridge poses a theory.
“Society has changed so rapidly, especially recently, and people really want to look back to a time that was kinder and gentler. So, they begin collecting examples of those days. People are clinging to that time.”
Ethan Miller concurs. “Collectors jumped at the chance to own signs that Jim preserved for 50 years. Condition has always been the great divider and Jim’s signs were excellent”. The advertising market, he adds, is “on fire – and we haven’t seen the last of it.”
Grossing almost $570,000 for Miller & Miller’s Dec. 4 Petroliana & Collectibles sale, it’s difficult to dispute Ethan Miller’s sentiment. Miller & Miller’s next advertising auction is slated for April 23, 2022. The deadline to consign is March 26, 2022.
Long retired, Jim Burridge still keeps his eyes open for treasures. However, creative writing fills more of his days now. “I’ve always written essays and poetry, stories and some philosophy too.” But to Canadian collectors Jim Burridge will always be associated with quality. He will always be considered the ‘collector’s collector’.
By Nancy Silcox
Nancy Silcox, of New Hamburg, is a former teacher and university counsellor. She has written 14 books, most of them historical biographies.
Other highlights from the Burridge collection:
In Defense of Collecting - By James Burridge. December 24th, 2011
Not a single work of art or an historic artifact in any art gallery or museum would exist there for the public to behold if it wasn’t for collectors. Collectors see the value, the beauty, the historic significance in the ephemera of society, and by putting them aside and protecting them - preserve them, first for themselves and then for posterity!
Collectors are the true repositories of history. Museums come and go but only collectors have the passion needed to ensure the survival of the artifacts of our culture. Collectibles go from society at large, to collectors, to museums and then often back to collectors again. Someone has to sponsor art and history!
Before we ourselves are swept into history let’s do our part to preserve the symbolic objects of our age, which better than any other form of documents provide a visible record of our times, a microcosm of the dear, familiar world we knew!
“The biggest fun that comes out of them (collectible toys) frankly, is in the fellow collectors because collectors are a special breed, and when they come together social status and financial status, age - none of these things matter. The focus is a mutual focus on a given item or group of items and the knowledge that we’ve all accumulated gives us a way of conversing that’s foreign and even boring to outsiders. One thing you cannot do is make other people like the toys. Stay with fellow collectors and you will have a lot of fun.”
Dr. William Furnish (1917-1997) from “Toys of the Past”.
Auction Details:
Petroliana & Advertising
December 4, 2021
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