A collector since childhood, progressing from baseball cards, comic books, coins, and bottles to glassware, his buying and selling glassware "hobby" began to take precedence over his teaching; he'd written a book on Depression glassware which was extremely well liked by collectors in the field, so he left teaching to pursue the glass business full time! This freed him to travel to glass shows throughout the country so he could be well versed on prices and allowed him to devote more time to research for his various books on glass