LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) – For Bob Westerman, the collecting bug started at 16, when he worked weekends at Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign headquarters in downtown Louisville and bought political buttons — including a gold-colored “AU H2O 1964” pin that played on the periodic-table symbols for gold and water.
Decades later, Westerman is a member of the American Political Items Collectors and the Political Americana Collectors of Kentucky and helps organize the annual Kentucky political memorabilia show in Louisville. This year’s show is Saturday, April 25, at the Zachary Taylor American Legion Post on Shelbyville Road, running from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Westerman said his early Goldwater items became the centerpiece of his collection after he got more involved in the hobby in the 1980s, when he attended an antique show at Bashford Manor Mall that included a political exhibit. Collectors there asked him to bring in campaign items he had saved from the early 1960s.
“At that time, I didn’t know it, but I had a rare Goldwater button,” Westerman said, describing a Kentucky Fund Goldwater button he said was distributed only at a dinner. He said he once traded one for 80 other buttons and later spent 20 years trying to find another.
Westerman eventually sold most of his Goldwater collection and shifted to older presidential candidates and items that appealed to him for their design or historical interest. He said his collection now spans more than 200 years and includes items ranging from a George Washington inaugural clothing button to memorabilia tied to presidential hopefuls, sports figures and major historic events.
Among his most expensive pieces, he said, is a rare button showing President Franklin D. Roosevelt sliding into third base with the slogan “Out Stealing Third,” a reference to Roosevelt’s bid for a third term.
Westerman said political memorabilia appealed to him because of its scarcity and unpredictability.
“I did baseball cards, I still do some of that, I did stamps for a while, coins for a while — I mean I think it’s just a collecting gene,” he said. “But I think it was just the fact that political items could be things that nobody knows are out there.”
He said items made for a specific event or day — and so-called “jugates,” which feature both the presidential and vice presidential candidates — can be among the most valuable, along with pieces that are older, rarer and in better condition.
Kentucky attorney and collector Julius Rather later encouraged Westerman to focus more on Kentucky-specific political items, including memorabilia connected to Alben Barkley and A.B. “Happy” Chandler. Westerman said he benefited when an auction of Barkley items was held at the Galt House in Louisville rather than in Barkley’s hometown of Paducah.
“They sold the collection down there instead of in Paducah where there would have been a lot more local interest than there was here,” Westerman said. He said he was frugal at the time because he did not have much money, adding that he wished he could go back and buy more.
Westerman and Rather later donated thousands of cataloged items to Western Kentucky University’s Special Collections Library, he said.
Westerman also helped curate a pictorial history of Kentucky political items for a 2012 book, “Politics in Kentucky 1883-1983, A Century of Campaign Memorabilia,” produced with Georgetown collector Jerome Redfearn and the Georgetown and Scott County Museum. Westerman said the period was chosen because it is considered a prime era for collecting, while modern campaign items are often produced by vendors and not necessarily used directly by campaigns.
A mass-production process for campaign buttons was developed in the 1890s, and the first presidential contest to make broad use of the buttons was the 1896 race between William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan, Westerman said. He said some of his favorite pieces are early buttons and ribbons, and he credited luck and fellow collectors with helping him find standout items.
Organizers say the Kentucky show offers longtime and new collectors the chance to buy political memorabilia and other Americana.
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