‘88 Resolution: Get Cracking on Retiring the Collection

Hal Davis, 64, has been collecting nutcrackers for about 30 years. He has so many, he is having trouble finding a museum big enough to show them. Or for that matter, to take them.

“I’d like them to be in a museum,” he said of the collection that he considers the world’s largest. “I’ve been talking with some people, but we haven’t made that much progress.”

He said the Smithsonian Institution once showed some interest, but he hasn’t heard from it recently.

His smallish Santa Ana home is inundated with the wood, porcelain, brass and ivory nutcrackers, including two that are working six-foot-tall models that were made by craftsmen in Germany.

One is a clown and the other a soldier, which, of course, resembles a performer in the ballet, “Nutcracker.” A sign on the clown says: “Have a Cracking Good Christmas.”

Davis estimated that he has about 5,000 nutcrackers, many in his kitchen, dinette, living room, garage and a bedroom, which is covered wall to wall with them. The others are in storage.

“I guess it started about 1955,” said Davis, a retired property manager who bought most of his collection in Europe and through classified ads. “I got the first one in an antique shop. And after I bought the darn thing, I just kept buying them.” He still is.

He doesn’t know what his collection is worth. “There’s no one out there that has the knowledge to appraise it,” he said. “I remember going to three appraisers on the same item, and they all gave me really different figures.”

Davis, who shows a videotape of his collection in county libraries, is in the process of photographing his nutcrackers and cataloguing them on a computer.

“There’s not too many of us (nutcracker collectors),” he said. “I only know of two others, and they only have about 500 each.”

While the date of the earliest nutcrackers isn’t known, Davis said there is some evidence they existed in the 16th Century.

Although all of his nutcrackers work, “Most of them were made for their beauty,” he said, created by European carvers from a hard material called box wood.

“A lot of the newer ones would break if you tried to crack a nut in them,” he said. “Not many of them are real practical.”

It was a fund-raising “roast” of Richard C. Ackerman, the mayor of Fullerton, and the estimated 265 people who attended cashed in on some friendly jabs at the city’s leader.

For instance: “(Ackerman) is so successful he gets wake-up calls from Visa and Mastercard.” And “Dick is a legend in his own mind. He’s a self-made man. Shows what you can do with unskilled labor.”

One of the speakers thanked everyone for coming but added, “If I had a choice, I wouldn’t be here.”

Walter Pinney, the master of ceremonies, was also the subject of a barb at the event, which benefited Fullerton Elks Lodge charities.

A speaker called him, “A shining example of life after death.”

Chester (Chet) Clemens wasn’t what you would call a star when he played left field for the old Boston Braves in 1939 under manager Casey Stengel. In fact, he went to bat just 17 times.

“I was only with the team for a cup of coffee,” he said.

But lately, people have been writing, asking for his autograph.

“I hadn’t heard anything for 30 years, so getting letters feels good and puts the ol’ jazz back in you,” he said.

But Clemens, 70, of San Clemente, a retired restaurateur, knows the requests are not because of his playing abilities.

They’re coming from baseball memorabilia buffs who collect autographs of all old-time baseball players.

His name recently was included in the Baseball Encyclopedia, which lists all past and present major league players.

“They write and want me to write back and use their name in my letter,” he said.

Some even send pictures taken of him during his playing days and ask for his autograph.

Clemens said he was a pretty good hitter and had speed. “They wanted me to accept what I was getting in the minors ($300 a month),” he said, “so I sent back the contract, and they sent me back to the minors.”

He added, “Stengel told me I should have signed the contract.”

Acknowledgments--Julie Willson, 29, of Huntington Beach, a financial consultant specializing in investments and retirement planning, has been named Young Careerist for 1987 by the Business and Professional Women of West Orange County. She is a graduate of UC Irvine.