September was a great month for adventures – festivals and visits to historic sites. I squeezed out one last adventure on the final Saturday of the month – a Brick Swap. I have been a brick collector for nearly thirty years, but hadn’t attended a swap for two decades. This one was located in Brady’s Run Park, not far from Beaver Falls.
It was a glorious morning for the drive up there – bright sunshine, blue sky, and rivers of September fog in the valleys. This was my first trip to Monaca since the construction of the Shell cracker plant; the site of the massive distillation towers sticking up out of the fog was impressive. That weekend the “Old Master Painter” had just begun to use His paint brush to turn the maples into flame. I had no difficulty finding the park, nor Shelter #6 where the swap was to take place.
A brick swap is a unique concept that follows a strict schedule. Brickers arrive in their pickup trucks around 9:00 am and jockey for prize locations in the parking area. After registering, at about 9:15 they lower their tailgates and begin to lay out the array of bricks that they are willing to relinquish. By 9:30 they are wandering around the parking area trying to spot attractive bricks. At 9:58 they cluster near the ones that they covet.
At 10:00 am, on the dot, a horn sounds. Immediately the serious brickers grab a brick in each hand, dash to their trucks to deposit them, and hurry back into the fray. By 10:20, about half the bricks have disappeared and things have begun to settle down. The brickers’ code of ethics suggests that the number of bricks you acquire match the number of your bricks other brickers have taken. This requirement is relaxed by 10:45; after all, no one wants to take home his/her own bricks. By 11:00 the bricks are all back in the trucks and, hopefully, each collector has appreciably added to his/her collection.
There were thirty-eight vehicles and about sixty people at this swap, hosted by folks from nearby Bridgewater, Pa. The vast majority of them came from over five hundred miles away. I met brickers from Anniston, Alabama; West Monroe and Bermuda, Louisiana; and Bryan and Garrison, Texas. I think the folks who came the longest distance were Charlie and Sara Rock, from Fort Collins, Colorado; their drive was well over fourteen hundred miles. Most of the brickers brought thirty or forty bricks to trade; some had twice that amount.
At my stage of life I am not particularly interested in increasing my brick collection; it is widely scattered over my patio and back yard. I did feel an obligation to acquaint these foreigners with the C. P. Mayer Brick Company however. One would assume that people driving a thousand miles to swap bricks would be eager to acquire local ones. I cleaned up eight Mayer pavers and tossed them into the back of my van. When I set up my display I was embarrassed at its modesty. Fortunately I had printed up three-fold pamphlets telling the story of the Mayer Brick Company and piled them on top.
By 11:00 seven of my bricks and fifteen pamphlets had been taken. I was disappointed that more people didn’t take the pamphlets; apparently many collectors are more interested in the number of different ones they possess than in any historical knowledge of the facility where they were made. Despite my good intentions, I did pick up half a dozen bricks late in the session. Three were narrow (three inches thick) Mayer bricks I had not seen previously and three other pavers (mostly out of sympathy for the brickers who had been unable to trade them).
At 11:00 the horn blew again, advising us that it was time for lunch in the pavilion and for the auction. When I went to purchase my box lunch, I was advised they were available only for pre-orders. Thirty minutes later, when everyone else was done eating and there were still six boxes there, the rules were relaxed and they sold me one. The auction was a fund-raiser for IBCA (the International Brick Collectors Association), sponsors of the event. I suspect many of the collectors budgeted money as donations to the association and used the auction as an instrument to make them. The most expensive bricks were a pair of nondescript house brick embossed with a fish in a rectangle, for one hundred dollars. Two wooden brick molds were sold for thirty or forty dollars each – I regretted that I hadn’t tried to acquire one for the Bridgeville History Center.
The fog was gone when I drove home, providing me with a close look at the Shell complex. I am struck with the contrast between our efforts to convert old steel mill brown-field sites into modern high technology research centers and the construction of this massive, brand new industrial facility. It reminds me of the old bromide, “Change is not necessarily progress”. This suspicion was strengthened when my route took me past the Airport, where we are tearing down one terminal and building another.
All told it was a very enjoyable day for IBCA member *735. Many thanks to the folks who organized the event and to all the special people I met there. Brick collecting is a unique hobby that attracts unique people. You don’t need a pickup truck to transport a collection of stamps or baseball cards.