‘Toy Man’ gives sports memorabilia to charity
Jeffrey D. Olsen has always had a head for numbers.
So when the 53-year-old Vista resident was perusing a sports memorabilia website a few years ago, he saw at once there were bargains galore for a well-informed investor with a lot of patience. Over the past four years, Olsen has gradually amassed a 112-piece collection of autographed items that includes uniforms, balls and other sporting equipment signed by stars including Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali, Wayne Gretzky and Joe Theismann.
This week, Olsen boxed up the entire collection — which he values at $125,000 or more — and donated it to the Armed Forces YMCA at Camp Pendleton. Executive director Christopher Keane said he will have everything professionally authenticated and appraised for an auction next year that will raise money for military families at Camp Pendleton, as well as in San Diego and Twentynine Palms.
“We’re deeply impressed by his philanthropy and his willingness to help those who can’t help themselves,” Keane said.
The sports memorabilia donation is just the latest gift to the community from Olsen, whose record of charitable giving over the past 25 years has earned him several commendations as well as the nickname “the toy man of Vista.” Olsen has given tens of thousands of toys, food and clothing items to local children’s and church charities, but he reserved his sports collection for a military cause, because his father, Robert, is a disabled veteran of the Korean War.
Olsen inherited the collecting gene from his father, who has lived with his wife, Olga, in Vista since 1975. Jeffrey, the youngest of their four sons, was born in a hospital on Camp Pendleton. He still lives with them as his father’s full-time caregiver. Each room of their house is stocked with collections, including Italian statuary, German clocks, bald eagle statues, John Wayne collectibles, stuffed dogs and fine china.
When he was a baby, Olsen began suffering benign seizures. Doctors misdiagnosed him with epilepsy and mental retardation and prescribed a heavy regimen of medications that affected his health and brain function for many years. One thing that wasn’t affected was his uncanny grasp of numbers, dollars and dates. From an early age, he began collecting coins and currency and investing in the stock market. Today, he’s retired from his longtime job as a men’s suit salesman for JC Penney and lives comfortably on stock dividends.
His passion for giving back began in 1989, when he saw a TV newscast where a local weatherman said he was short on toys for his annual Christmas drive. Olsen wanted to donate some toys and had a unique way to get them. At a local arcade, he had mastered the “claw” machine, which a skilled user could manipulate to pick up and dispense stuffed animals through a chute. That first year, Olsen used the technique to collect more than 50 stuffed toys for the holiday drive.
“During the Depression, my grandmother saw people suffering and she made food for them. My father always felt the same way. I don’t like to see anyone suffer. I will always try to help people because there’s not many people out there who do,” he said.
As the years went on, he began working with local toy stores and toymakers to stock up on sale and close-out toys. As word of his philanthropy spread, he began receiving toy donations from the public. He kept a running tally and by 2006, he had given away 20,340 toys, an achievement acknowledged that year with a California Gold Employee Volunteer Award signed by Sen. Barbara Boxer.
In 2006, Olsen announced he was retiring his toy program due to fatigue, but when the recession hit he felt sorry for needy families and started it back up again. Meanwhile, he has also given away more than 21,000 nonperishable food items, which he collects year-round with the same technique: buy in bulk at deep discount. He has also bought winter clothes for the needy. His beneficiaries for toys, food and clothing have included North County Solutions For Change, New Haven Youth and Family Services, Casa de Amparo and the Oceanside Women’s Resource Center.
Olsen said he enjoys watching sports, but that’s not the reason he began collecting memorabilia four years ago. From an early and fortuitous purchase, he’d discovered how much these items can appreciate in value. Back in 1998 while working for JC Penney in Oceanside, he spotted a baseball signed by Mickey Mantle on the clearance table. The baseball legend had signed 5,000 balls for a catalog limited-edition sale at $499 apiece. One ball had been delivered to the store but never picked up by its owner, so it was put on clearance for $64.99. Olsen snapped it up and today it’s worth more than $1,500.
Olsen started buying items from memorabilia websites whenever they had half-price sales. Then he discovered that if he did an Internet search for a particular item, he could often find someone selling it for an even cheaper price.
“You have these young people who inherit their grandfather’s collection and they’re selling it for one-tenth of its value,” Olsen said.
The collection grew to the point that it filled an entire room. Among the many items are baseball cards, bats and balls autographed by Hank Aaron, Steve Garvey, Stan Musial, Yogi Berra, Ted Williams and Reggie Jackson; a boxing glove signed by Muhammad Ali; footballs, helmets and jerseys signed by NFL players Peyton Manning, Joe Montana, Joe Theismann and Dan Fouts; basketballs and jerseys signed by Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Bill Russell; a hockey stick signed by Wayne Gretzky and the L.A. Kings; and various championship items signed by entire teams.
Olsen decided to give the collection up for auction after he saw a story last year about a Ford car that sold for six times its value at a Wounded Warriors charity auction. He chose the Armed Services YMCA because he’d worked with them in the past on toy donations.
Keane, at the YMCA, said he’s honored to receive the donation, especially because it’s been given as a tribute to Olsen’s father, Robert.
“His dad is a Korean War Marine and I’m a Marien myself, so it’s an honor to be in his presence,” Keane said.
It will take some time to get all the items authenticated and appraised. Keane said it may not be until September 2018 that the auction takes place. The Olsens will be guests of honor at the event.
In the meantime, Olsen said he hasn’t decided if he’ll start a new collection.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “I can’t resist a bargain.”
