From the outside, Glen Paruk’s West Vancouver home seems typical. It’s an airy and modern building surrounded by Japanese maples.
But the lower level of the 75-year-old lawyer’s abode reveals a two-storey shrine to yesteryear.
The walls are lined with shelves adorned with thousands of tin containers in a multitude of shapes, sizes and colours. Complete with an antique cash register, glass display cases and an iron coffee mill, it feels like an old-fashioned general store.
Mr. Paruk cast the winning bid at an auction in New Hamburg, Ont., for a rare tobacco tin from the early 1900s for a price of $55,000.
Mr. Paruk’s collection started nearly 50 years ago with a 10-cent Scottish biscuit tin.
“It had some very brightly coloured tartan patterns, mostly orange and yellow and red, and just caught my eye.”
At the time he was a law student at the University of Victoria who enjoyed frequenting second-hand stores in the area.
“I said to myself, ‘Well, I don’t know why I need this, but it’s only 10 cents.’”
Since then, Mr. Paruk’s collection has grown exponentially – and so has its price.
He made headlines in May when he purchased a rare tobacco tin at an auction in New Hamburg, Ont. His winning bid was $55,000.
It’s the second 3 Strikes tin he’s owned. He bought the first one at an American auction 30 years ago, but sold it to help finance a house he was building.
Mr. Paruk was thrilled to find another despite the cost. His wife less so. She was wearing “her best frown – capable of turning men to stone,” he said.
The newest tin joins the company of more than 3,000 others in his collection, ranging in design from 19th-century Victorian to turn-of-the-century art nouveau and 50s retro. Mr. Paruk has also amassed a number of vintage advertisements, cigar boxes and other curios from a bygone era.
After graduating law school in 1978, Mr. Paruk and his future wife moved to Vancouver. “To my delight, Vancouver and the Fraser Valley had an ever larger selection of antique stores and tin can junk stores … so I started frequenting them, basically every weekend.”
Now fully immersed in the world of tin cans, Mr. Paruk learned about an antique show in Edmonton called the Wild Rose Collector Show. He attended his first in 1979, and continued going annually for at least 30 years. He estimates that roughly half of his collection has come from that one antique show.
Mr. Paruk admits that he ‘got a little carried away over the years,’ but made clear that he has no intention to part with his treasures.
Eager to learn more about the trade, Mr. Paruk visited the Vancouver Public Library to see if they had any material on tin cans. To his amazement, he found a pamphlet called “Tin Type” published by the Tin Container Collectors Association.
The group ran a biennial convention. Mr. Paruk attended his first in Detroit in 1981.
He arrived with a suitcase full of tins ready to trade and sell.
“I saw just absolutely the most mind-boggling, wonderful signs, tins, related material, filling this hotel,” he said. “Felt like I was walking on air.”
Mr. Paruk attended the “Canventions” annually for 25 years, eventually making his way to antique shows and auctions on the East Coast, including the Christie Antique Show in Dundas, Ont. He has also been a vendor at the Fraser Valley Antiques and Collectibles Show for the past 35 years.
Mr. Paruk admits that he “got a little carried away over the years,” but made clear that he has no intention to part with his treasures.
“I will never sell them. My collection will stay with me until the end,” he said, adding he hopes all the pieces stay together and will one day become the start of a collection for a Canadian museum.
Mr. Paruk concedes that the 3 Strikes tin is the most expensive item in his collection. When asked if he would purchase another rare tin at a similar or higher price, he stated simply: “Well, I find it hard to resist. Let’s put it that way.”