Local collector has over 10,000 keychains

In Herb Gleditsch’s basement there are pigs, cows, turtles, frogs and bears, not to mention human spines, life preservers and a whole parking lot worth of cars. All of them, individually, can fit in your pocket.

All of the aforementioned, plus so much more, are keychains, and are just some of the shapes and types that Gleditsch has in his collection.

“I’m at 10,113 keychains right now,” Gleditsch, of White Township, said.

An impressive number that he has reached after collecting for nearly 30 years.

“I started collecting in 1994,” he said. “My daughter (Kathleen) suggested that she needed them for her backpack. She was 8 or 9 years old at the time. So, I was at work and I got some keychains from work and put them on her backpack. She suggested that we collect them. So I said OK.”

Eventually, Kathleen, who now lives in Raleigh, N.C., stopped collecting the keychains, but Gleditsch kept going.

The keychain that started it all is kept separate and in its own special frame so that Gleditsch knows where it was that everything started. But, it was still just one keychain. Getting to over 10,000 took some time and some hunting.

“I haunt flea markets,” Gleditsch said. “A lady at Jonnet’s used to save them for me for awhile. I get a lot of them from there and from garage and yard sales, places like that. The most I’ll spend on a keychain is a dollar, but I hope to get them for free as promotional items or things like that. Because the nutty thing about keychains is when you go and buy one, you might spend 5 or 10 dollars for a nicer one and the minute you take it out of the store, it’s worth next to nothing, because people just don’t buy them second hand.”

Gleditsch does have numerous keychains that he’s received as free promotional items.

“When I went to Delaney’s and bought a car there years ago, I asked for keychains and they said ‘yeah, here’s a keychain’ and I said ‘but, I want all of them, all the different colors. I want a representative of your keychains,’ which they gave me.”

He’s also received a lot of them through work. Gleditsch moved here in 1970 after he came out of the army.

“I served in Vietnam for two years in an armored cavalry company,” he said. “After I got out I met my wife, Karen, who’s from here. Before I went to the Army I taught in McKeesport, when I came back and moved here, I worked for a coal company in Shelocta and my last employment was with the department of labor and industry. I worked at Career Link for 15 years and I was collecting keychains while I worked there.

“So, when I went around to different employers in Indiana County, I’d go in and ask, ‘you got any keychains?’”

When the word got out that he was collecting keychains, friends and coworkers would bring him any that they found or got.

“One time, when I was working for the coal company out in Shelocta, they were making something called Harley Davidson cigarettes,” Gleditsch said.

“When I went into a store in Elderton the guy said, ‘hey I know you collect keychains, Harley Davidson’s making cigarettes and if you buy two packs you get a keychain.’

“So I bought two packs. They tasted like heck and when I took them to the mine, I told the guys ‘hey, here’s two packs of cigarettes, I can’t smoke them, they’re horrible.’ They said the same thing, but they started to buy a couple packs and give me the keychains. I must have five of those, the only reason I kept them is because of the rarity. They don’t make those cigarettes any more.”

On the topic of duplicates, Gleditsch tends not to keep the same keychain unless it’s something rare or special.

“Generally, when someone gives me a keychain, I’ll know if I have it or not,” he said. “I don’t know how that works. I don’t remember what I did yesterday, but if you ask me if I’ve got a certain keychain, most likely I’m gonna say if I have it or if I don’t have it, most likely, not always.”

And that’s just off the top of his head. If ever Gleditsch needs to check for sure if he has a keychain, he can consult his binder of inventory.

Thick with pages, each sheet catalogs individual keychains by type, color, shape, composition and if they had an advertiser or not. For awhile, he cataloged if the keychains glowed in the dark or not, but that trend has slowly faded out over the years.

“I started keeping track of them from the get go,” Gleditsch said. “I’ll always know the first and last one that I’ve got and I always like to think that, if I need to find one, I’ll find it again. It might take me some time, but I can find it.”

Once in a while, Gleditsch will do just that, picking a keychain from his book at random and seeing if he can find it.

The keychains are displayed in several cabinets and shelves. Some are laid out, some are hung and others are stored in labeled containers for easy sorting.

Gleditsch still collects and recently got a bunch for his birthday. Lenore Hughes, a friend of Gleditsch, surprised him with 80 keychains for his 80th birthday.

“I actually got over 90 in total,” Gleditsch said. “And out of all of them I maybe had only five duplicates.”

When asked if there were any that he didn’t have or if there were any in particular he was searching for, Gleditsch said that there are millions.

“You can make a keychain out of anything,” he said.

“And there are just millions and millions out there. They’re made out of plastic, rubber, metal, acrylic, wood, I even have a few made out of coal. There are just so many out there. Some of them are even electric or ones that you can play games with. You name it and a keychain has been made of it.”

And they’re not just local or mass produced ones found in stores. Gleditsch has keychains from around the world.

“I have them from everywhere, I’ve got ones from Canada and China, I’ve got one from the Hungarian army.”

Many of the foreign ones have been gifts or accidental finds, many are souvenir items sold for tourists who travel. The ones from the farthest destinations in Gleditsch’s collection are “probably from China or Thailand. Lots of places I’ll never go, but it’s nice to have them.”

It’s not a new hobby either; some of the keychains in the collection are much older even than the first keychain he collected.

“One of the oldest ones I have is this,” Gleditsch said, pulling out a leather keychain printed with gold font.

“The road in front of this house (Gleditsch lives on East Pike) used to be Route 422 before they built the bypass. In 1930, they opened this road on Oct. 4. It was called the Ben Franklin Highway. People gathered at the courthouse and formally opened Ben Franklin Highway from Kittanning to Ebensburg and they passed out this keychain. It has the date on it and everything.”

Other antique keychains include old trucks and tubes that can be unscrewed to keep money hidden inside.

“It’s a purpose you wouldn’t expect,” Gleditsch said.

“They’re not all useless or there for show,” Gleditsch continued. “A lot of them have a use or a purpose. The idea was that your keys were always in your pocket so you could always have a knife, or a flashlight or a bottle opener with you, things or tools that you could use for different jobs you might need.”

Ones with functions also include carriers for dice, watches and others with batteries that are used for various reasons, though it can be difficult to keep them in working order.

“One of the things you have to think about, if they have batteries, is that they don’t last forever,” Gleditsch said. “And on some, you can’t change the batteries because they’re the small lithium batteries almost like a watch battery.”

Gleditsch also has a few that need to be seen to be believed.

“I have one that’s a complete Bible,” he said, pulling out a book about half the size of his thumb.

“I had to get a jeweler’s loupe to read the print. That’s how small it is. But each and every word is there and printed right in this little book.”

Still others showcase miniature Tupperware, or are viewfinders that show images of Gleditsch’s family on vacation, souvenirs from trips to Idlewild or Kennywood.

Some are unique only in that they’re rarely made any more.

“There’s a lot of advertising for various kinds of cigarettes,” Gleditsch said, more than just the limited Harley Davidson brand. “But they don’t really advertise cigarettes that way any more; they’ve put out some kind of rule against that.”

As with all things, trends come and go. Cigarette branding have fallen by the wayside, as has various shapes and materials used to make keychains.

“Glowing keychains aren’t as popular,” Gleditsch said. “And they don’t make the plastic keychain or hotel room key shapes as much any more.”

As for what is popular, Gleditsch said that metal keychains with special spinner sections are fairly en vogue. “I call them rotators. I’ve seen them come in in the last 10 years or so. A lot of them are travel souvenirs for places like Myrtle Beach. They’re typically made of metal and can be pretty expensive for the nicer ones.”

Gleditsch collects any and all keychains, but knows of others that are more selective in their collections.

“Some people collect only certain ones,” he said. “People who collect beer stuff will collect beer ones. People who collect car ones will only collect cars, or even a specific brand like Ford or Chevy.”

At one point, Gleditsch had contact with several other keychain collectors through various networks, but has since fallen out of touch.

“I used to belong to a club, but I don’t know what’s become of it,” said Gleditsch. “People that were in it dropped away over the years. You’re sort of on your own these days. I’ve looked for an online community, but it’s sort of died out. When I first started, there were people in the club all over the world, we would email back and forth.”

He may not be in a club, but he’s certainly not alone in collecting keychains.

“The biggest collection, right now, is over 60,000 in Spain,” Gleditsch said. “I looked it up in Guinness World Records and thought ‘maybe’ but that’s a big jump. I’m just going to just muddle along and not get too crazy.”

When it comes to favorites, Gleditsch said his is a small plastic toilet with a button that makes it sound like it’s actually flushing. He also has just one that he keeps on his keychain.

It’s one that says “Vietnam Veteran.”

“I’ve carried that since 1970, when I came home, and I haven’t changed it,” he said. “You might think, ‘maybe he oughta use one of these.’ Well, no he’s not gonna use one of these.”

The keychain collection is Gleditsch’s largest. Outside of keychains, he also has a collection of ruby stained glass as well as mining antiques. Though he has since downsized that collection.

Gleditsch, who sits on the board of directors at the Indiana County Historical Society, donated a bunch of his mining collection to them to keep and use for displays.

“I used to have this room full of mining antiques,” Gleditsch said of his basement. “The only things I still have are the things that I personally used when I was in the mine. That collection, overall, took up much more room and it was more expensive. One or two of those items can really rock your boat price-wise.”

In addition to sitting on the board for the historical society, Gleditsch volunteers his time at the hospital on Thursdays and he used to help with Meals on Wheels before the program stopped.

“I’ve been retired since Jan. 29, 2016,” he said. “But I’m still busy, I never stop.”

When it comes to collecting keychains, Gleditsch has no plans to stop either.

“I think it’s an underestimated hobby,” he said. “It’s not expensive. You’re not gonna spend a lot of money doing this, I never spend a lot of money.”

Since people know of his collection, he also continues to get gifts of keychains from others.

“You never know when you’re gonna get them from someone else. There’s a lady at church, our church organist, she travels the world and I get keychains from her. People in church know I do this, so there’s more than a few Sundays in the year when people give me keychains. The word got out.”

He also always keeps an eye out for ones that might be new to him. “I’ll ask people if they take their keys out, ‘where’d you get that keychain, I don’t have that one.’”

While there’s no specific “holy grail” keychain that Gleditsch is looking for and there’s no specific number he plans to reach, he still enjoys collecting.

“Folks say, ‘don’t you have enough?’ and I say, ‘enough is never enough,’ that’s my motto!”

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