COLLECTION SPARKS INTEREST IN PLUGS

Wayne McPherson plugs along with a hobby that has sparked his interest for nearly a decade. He collects spark plugs.

An assistant professor of math at Southeast Missouri State University, McPherson estimates he has about 4,000 spark plugs. He's listed about 3,000 of them on his computer. "It's hard to keep up," he acknowledged.

Spark plugs fill up almost every nook and cranny in the two-story Cape Girardeau home of Wayne and Joan McPherson. The McPhersons built the house themselves, which is surrounded by acres of forest.

Besides spark plugs, the home is filled with a varied assortment of spark plug memorabilia, including spark plug-shaped items from a telephone to radios, key chains to a golf putter, and even a lamp. There are also old spark plug signs, "Spark Plug" tobacco, and metal containers designed to hold spark plugs.

He even has a salesman's sample kit from 1941. The briefcase includes a promotional catalog for Blue Crown spark plugs.

Joan McPherson has also added her touch to the spark plug collection. She has spark plug earrings, which she wears to swap meets.

McPherson started collecting spark plugs eight years ago while working to restore a 1934 Ford. He has eight antique cars, his oldest being a 1908 Buick.

Joan McPherson, who retired recently from Southeast where she was a member of the health and leisure faculty, recalled what ignited her husband's interest in spark plugs.

She said that in 1984 her husband was looking for a spark plug for his 1934 Ford. "We went to an auction near Randles. There was a five-gallon bucket of spark plugs."

Her husband ended up buying the whole bucket of spark plugs for a few dollars. Since then, "it has gone from bad to worse," Joan McPherson said with a laugh. "I want you to know every cabinet is full of spark plugs."

Many of the spark plugs are rusty when Wayne McPherson acquires them. His wife tackles the job of cleaning them up and restoring them to their original condition.

Some spark plugs command high prices these days in the collector market. "You can spend over $100 for a single spark plug," McPherson said.

Most of the spark plugs were obtained at automobile or gas engine swap meets across the nation. "I bought a couple major collections from guys up in the Kansas City area," he added.

There's even an international spark plug collectibles club, which has about 600 members.

In August, the McPhersons attended a national spark plug convention in Portland, Ind.

"Spark plugs date back to around the turn of the century," McPherson said. "There's hardly anything before 1900."

McPherson's oldest spark plugs date back to the 1903-1905 period. He has a double spark plug that was designed for 1903 Cadillacs.

Most of the spark plugs date from the 1920s and 1940s. He has not only American plugs, but many from foreign countries as well.

McPherson has spark plugs from Belgium, England, Germany, France, Australia, Czechoslovakia and Canada.

In addition to the spark plugs, McPherson collects the small boxes in which spark plugs were packaged. "Just the boxes are colorful," he said.

The designs of the spark plugs themselves interest McPherson.

"They tried everything in the world," he noted. "The reason that they tried so many different designs is that the cars weren't made with as much precision in the early days.

"The oil would leak into the cylinders and foul the plugs," he said. As a result, motorists would have to take spare plugs along or stop and clean them on trips.

A number of his spark plugs have ornate "intensifier" attachments that boost the spark. Today, spark plugs have built in intensifiers, he said.

"What survived really is the simplest spark plug," said McPherson.

He has a virtual smorgasbord of spark plugs in all shapes and sizes.

He has gold-plated plugs and brass plugs, among others. Some of the plugs use glass insulators instead of the more common porcelain. Besides white porcelain, there are spark plugs with colorful glazes on the porcelain, such as orange and green.

The spark plugs also have lively names: Golden Giant, Green Dragon, Mosler Vesuvius, Lightning Reflex and Barney Google.

McPherson has a Kopper Head spark plug that was manufactured in St. Louis and another one called King Bee. The porcelain part of the spark plug carries a design featuring a series of bees.

McPherson has a Lightning Reflex that is hand lettered with the name, patent date and the city where it was manufactured. The hand lettered words carry a patent date of Jan. 10, 1910. "This could be one of my oldest," he said.

One of the rarest plugs in his collection is a Barney Google. The spark plug is named after a comic strip character from the 1920s.

McPherson said he only knows of four such plugs in existence. At one time, he owned three of them. Now he's down to one, having traded the other two.

He also has memorabilia associated with the comic strip character. He has an April 13, 1924 comic strip page from the Chicago Daily Herald Examiner featuring "Barney Google and Spark Plug."

Spark Plug was the name of the horse in the comic strip, McPherson said. In those days, a "plug" was a common expression for an old horse.

McPherson has Barney Google soda bottles, a 16mm cartoon, and cast iron banks in the shape of the comic strip horse.

The Cape Girardeau collector also has a Wayne spark plug and another with the name of Howard. McPherson said those plugs interest him because his first name is Wayne and his middle name is Howard.

Companies used to put their names on spark plugs as an advertising gimmick.

One spark plug carries the name Central Lumber and Supply Co., and the business' telephone number. McPherson gets a kick out of that one. "Why would you go to a spark plug to look up a phone number?" he asked.

WNAX Radio in Yankton, S.D., the radio station of Lawrence Welk, advertised itself on spark plugs.

One of the spark plugs in his collection was used in a one-cylinder British car made around the turn of the century. It was sold in a wooden case.

McPherson has some reversible plugs as well. "You drive it this way for a while and then take the cap off and reverse it and use it," he said.

Then there's the "light house" plug, a spark plug manufactured by an Atlanta firm. It's name was derived from the fact that it had a glass insulator, which allowed one to actually see the spark.

The collection also includes "the ball and cage" spark plug, so named because its features included a metal ball rattling around in a cage. The rattling ball was designed to help keep the spark plug clean, explained McPherson.

His collection includes primer plugs, which featured a valve to add gasoline directly into the cylinder. "On a cold morning that would help get it started. You would often see primer cups in fire trucks in the 1920s," he said.

He also has spark plug whistles. The combination spark plug and car whistle were popular during the Model T days, McPherson said.

Eight years after he started collecting, spark plugs continue to ignite his interest, filling up both his free time and his house.