Collection adds PEZ-azz to life

Keith Nicholson might estimate how much a city will pay for road striping by day, but by night and on the weekends he scours the Internet, yard sales and flee markets for PEZ dispensers.For Nicholson it's the thrill of the chase, he said. He doesn't even use a dispenser when eating the chalky little candies. Nicholson said it was his ex-wife who helped start his collecting frenzy, although she might not admit it. He received PEZ dispensers for Christmas and Easter and just started saving them. "I just started going nuts," Nicholson said. That was about seven years ago. Today, Nicholson said he has a couple thousand in total and around 900 unique dispensers on display. "It's the thrill of the hunt, the adventure of finding one you don't have," Nicholson said. "They're nicer to have around than a bed pan."Most of his candy distributors don't fetch more than a dollar or two, but he's not really in it for the money."For me, it's the thrill of getting them all," Nicholson said.He also likes collecting something his kids get excited about. Nicholson has an 11-year-old daughter, Lilly Nicholson, and a 5-year-old son, Max Nicholson.Keith Nicholson said his kids love helping him find new dispensers at flea markets, and they have a better mental catalog of his collection than he does. Lilly said she thinks her dad's collection is, "awesome.""I like helping find the PEZ," Lilly said. "It's fun for me to look at all his PEZ."Lilly said her favorites are the really old models. Max said he likes the Santa Claus PEZ dispensers.For example, Nicholson has a two Wonder Woman dispensers, which look identical except one has a raised star on her headband and the other's star is flush. Auburn antique storeowner Rich Kistle said he doesn't see a lot of PEZ collectors in his shop, Down Town Antiques. "I've been dealing 20 years and I've sold about two of them," Kistle said. "They're an older fad. Not a very hot collectable."Nicholson said he knows other collectors who frequent the antique shops and flea markets looking to round out their collections or even just resale the toys on the online auction site, eBay. Nicholson likes the history of the toys and the story the toys tell. He said he'd really like to acquire the Bicentennial Series from the 1970s, depicting historical figures from American History. The series is the first time PEZ portrayed real people. But even attaining that series won't satisfy Nicholson."It's not about one, it's about all," Nicholson said as he flipped through a PEZ collector's guidebook like a kid in a candy dispenser shop."There's a cow!" he said. "I'd love to have that." PEZ facts according to Keith Nicholson and the Official PEZ Web site· The founder of PEZ, Eduard Haas III, created the candies in Austria in 1927, they were just mints back then. · The word "PEZ" is taken from the German word for peppermint, Pfefferminz. · Oscar Uxa designed the first PEZ dispenser, in 1948. It looked like a lighter and the candies were marketed as smoking alternatives. · PEZ didn't start marketing the character heads until 1955 shortly after introducing the product to the American market. · There are more than 500 different characters with countless minuscule variations.· In the early 1950s PEZ introduced fruit flavored candies, targeting a younger market. The candies came in full-body robot, Santa Claus and space gun dispensers. · In 1987 PEZ added feet to the bottom of their dispenser for more stable standing. · The first PEZ collector's convention was held in Mentor, Ohio in 1991.· Nicholson said eBay was started because the founder's wife collected PEZ and wanted a place to trade. This turned out to be a fallacy made up by eBay's public relations manager, who was frustrated with the media's lack of interest in the little online auction site, according to Adam Cohen's book, "The Perfect Store: Inside eBay."