Whistle Collector Lured by Thrill of the Hunt

Rosemary Palmer just paid $400 for a silver whistle decorated with three diamonds.

“I justified it to myself,” she said. “I figured it was a piece of jewelry and an investment. Besides, it was on sale from $600.”

Palmer said she has found most of her collection of a couple of hundred whistles of all shapes and sizes during her travels across the United States and the world.

“It’s the hunt that really triggers me,” she said, pointing out that most of her collection was self-purchased. The rest of the whistles are gifts from friends and family members.

The former technical manual writer, who more recently wrote copy for record album covers, accidentally started the whistle collection 10 years ago during a visit to San Francisco.

“I saw a police whistle and intended to put it on a key chain,” said the Anaheim woman, “and on another trip I saw a whistle made from bamboo and silver and bought that.”

Those two whistles piqued her interest, and suddenly her collection grew to 10. Over the years, it has expanded to about 200 that are displayed throughout her house on walls and in a glass-covered table.

“I started haunting shops,” she said. “I love looking for them and recognized it was a fun thing to do that wasn’t very expensive,” she said, noting that she has spent only about $2,000 on her collection.

Some were bought for as little as $2, including an original plastic Oscar Meyer Wiener collectible whistle she found in Wisconsin.

“I get so excited when I talk about that one, I start to hyperventilate,” she said.

Palmer, who said she has no whistle duplicates, is unaware of other whistle collectors or an organization of whistle collectors. “That’s one of the reasons I don’t trade for whistles,” she said. And she has no idea about the actual worth of the collection, other than the amount she paid for it.

“I imagine some have gained in value but I don’t know to whom.”

She has also found that tracing the history of whistles is now one of her favorite pastimes.

“Somewhere along the way I became aware that reed instruments went back to times before biblical days when shepherds had little pipes and whistles,” she said. “Many were used as wind instruments for pleasure as well as for signaling each other.”

While she has a passing knowledge of the history of whistles, Palmer said some day she may do some serious research on what she has collected, considering many whistles come in different forms and shapes and have different sounds.

One of her whistles is 13 inches long with a receptacle on the end for a candle.

“There must be reasons why they were made in such shapes as owls, ladybugs, mermaids, birds and shamrock trees and why they were made from clay, wood and metal,” she said. “Whistles are a part of every culture and country.”

The grandmother of four from her five children is known as “The Whistle Lady” in the stores she often visits.

But while her whistle-collecting gives her an interesting outlet, she also finds time to gather Olympic pins.

“I would have to say that I have an equal interest in both, but lean more toward the pins,” she admits.

She and husband Howard Palmer have been attending the Olympics since the 1976 games in Montreal, where they started gathering the 2,000 pins in their collection.

And when they have time, “I also like to go hunting for seashells,” she said. “We only have a little collection of them.”