Collecting Antique Spark Plugs

Online auctions offer the biggest, most immediate supply of spark plugs. “It used to be you’d get them from an old auto parts store, or buy coffee cans full of them at estate sales or swap meets,” Lanning says. “But eBay has awakened people to the values, and dried up a lot of traditional venues.”

Prices run the gamut from a few dollars to a few thousand dollars. “I saw a prototype sell for $2,200,” Lanning notes. “Basically, eBay has driven the prices of the good ones up and the others down. There are a lot of collectors (perhaps 700 in the U.S.) competing for the same number of items. If you buy good stuff, it’s always going to hold its value.”

For new collectors, SPCOA offers immediate access to otherwise hard-to-obtain information. “Being able to identify what you have is so important,” Lanning says. “It was the people that got me in,” Bob says. “They’re so nice; it’s like instant friends.”

The group meets each August at the Tri-State Gas Engine & Tractor Assn. show in Portland, Ind., where SPCOA has a permanent display building; at the LeSueur County (Minn.) Pioneer Power April swap meet; at the Antique Automobile Club of America flea market in Hershey, Pa., in October; and at the Florida Flywheelers Show each February at Avon Park. FC 

For more information: 
Lanning Baron, 2969 Home St., Wantagh, NY 11793; e-mail: LBaronLI@verizon.net; (516) 783-9159; (516) 426-1098 (cell); Bob Barrett, 220 Dosen Rd., Middletown, NY 10940; (845) 386-3962; e-mail: starlight_woods@frontiernet.net.Spark Club Collectors of America, c/o Rich Niezabitowski, 9 Heritage Lane, Simsbury, CT 06070; (860) 651-9015; e-mail: RNiez@sbcglobal.net; online at www.SPCOA.net. Membership dues ($25, U.S. and Canada; $35, international) includes subscription to The Ignitor, the club’s award winning newsletter. 

View a couple of great museum collections: Visit the Nethercutt Museum, Sylmar, Calif., or the Antique Auto Museum, Hershey, Pa.