LOVELAND, Colo. (AP) - Lucas Snyder can’t believe his artifacts are on display at the Loveland Museum/Gallery.
“It’s pretty impressive; it’s my first time having this stuff anywhere big,” he said.
The 10-year-old, who lives with his parents and two brothers in Windsor, has been collecting American Indian pieces and other artifacts with history since he was about 4 years old.
Several of Lucas’ pieces are on display at the museum in a display case in a new program called, “Kids Caboodle Case.”
All the collecting started with his grandfather. Ed Garrett started collecting historical pieces when he was Lucas’ age and eventually turned it into a career where he’d buy and sell from dealers, according to Lucas’ mom, Tobi. He has even donated artifacts to the Loveland museum.
Ed Garrett’s father, also named Ed, was the mayor of Loveland in the early 1950s, Tobi Snyder said, and said that the family’s roots run deep in Loveland.
“One day I just kind of wanted to have some of my collection at a museum and so I decided to do this,” Lucas said. He and his mom approached Jennifer Cousino, curator of history at the museum, about displaying a few items from his collection.
Cousino liked the idea so much that she is hoping to invite other children to feature their collections as well, the Loveland Reporter-Herald reported (https://tinyurl.com/qylj7tv).
“There is such variety in his collection,” she said.
The display features a toy cannon from the early 1900s, an old gunpowder case from the late 1800s, a musket ball mold from the Civil War and an American Indian pot.
Several of his pieces were given to Lucas by his grandfather as birthday presents. As Lucas’s interest was piqued in historical items, he started looking out for pieces himself, which is how he found 10,000-year-old mammoth hair and an 1817 farmer’s note used as currency.
Tobi said Lucas saves birthday money and allowance money, about $3.50 a week, to buy new things for his collection.
His room is filled with around 100 different things he has collected.
“I just like collecting all the old items and remembering all the history, I just kind of wonder who had it and where did it come from,” Lucas said.
He has friends at school who also like to collect, and he said they like to share the new things they found with each other.
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