My name is Clark Phelps. I’ve been selling antiques all of my adult life. My father had a coin operated machine and punchboard business. From being around that great stuff and atmosphere, I developed a love for the old machines, and the graphics on the old punchboards. This developed into a broader appreciation of general antiques. And of course as I furnished my house, I kept buying the best antiques that I could find. Isn’t that the love of it? It’s the thrill of the find that keeps me going. I graduated from college with a degree in Philosophy. I explored the vast potential of employment…..and ended up hustling antiques. Dad had a shed of fantastic out of date punchboards. I asked my favorite antique dealer “what could I do with them?” He introduced me to the Antique Trader magazine. I have advertised there since 1972. Utah is a peculiar state (see this Salt Lake Tribune article from 1999 as to why punchboards were so widespread here). I went around to my father’s friendly competitors, and purchased their out of date (useless to them, collectible to me) stock, buying thousands and thousands at a time. Then I went to the manufacturers, and sure enough, they had old (collectible) stock. I bought tons from them. Since 1979, I have been a contributing writer for several articles in national and local magazines, including Antique Trader, Collectors Showcase, The New Century Collector, Collectors News, Antiques Today, Gameroom, Loose Change, Coin Slot, American Country Collectibles, and at least a dozen more. I have been on Warman’s Americana and Collectibles board of advisors since 1985. So…besides a general line of antiques, and my favorites coin operated and saloon items, I have made my living by selling collectible punchboards. I have met and expect to meet some of the greatest people on earth, and am anxious to make your acquaintance. I do, however, live by rule 62: which says, “don’t take yourself too seriously”…… I Don’t.
At the cash register and backbar

This is part of the showcase section

A row of slot machines & stacks of old punchboards, buckets of hickory shafted golf clubs, shelves of vendors.



My brother Kendall and his wife Jan making wine

My talented sister and click here to see her art

My brother Freddie & his son Ben in Italy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Mom “87” on an Indian

My dad, Gene Phelps sporting in his white Borsilino [left] in front of his 159 E Broadway Salt Lake, Coin-op machine biz  1936.

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