Man displays hundreds of oddball collections

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LAKEWOOD - Meeting Andrew Novick is like meeting an overgrown kid ecstatic at owning every toy he had ever seen.

Novick, who admits he saves "everything," has hundreds of collections, none of them ordinary.

"I just save things that I find interesting," Novick said.

Judging by his 10,000-item collection, the 39-year-old electrical engineer finds a lot of things interesting.

Novick is the subject of "The Astounding Problem of Andrew Novick" on display now through Saturday at the Lab at Belmar.

Floor-to-ceiling shelves hold all of Novick's fascinations: fawns, clowns, anything to do with teeth, interesting food wrappers, board games and a stuffed pig from Mexico.

"His name is El Presidente," Novick said.

He admits he is a pop culture fanatic with a disposition toward saving things that catch his eye.

"I think it's probably in a lot of people," Novick said, pausing perhaps in acknowledgement of the thousand of items around him. "But probably, I'm the extreme case."

Curator Michelle Baldwin is a friend of Novick's who convinced him, without much trying, to display his items.

"It's overwhelming," Baldwin said. "We all have our little collections, but this is a collection of collections."

"Every single thing is really fascinating to him for some reason," Baldwin said.

Even after decades of collecting, pick any item off the shelf and Novick has a story at the ready.

"He always has an answer for everything, like where he got it, why he had it," Baldwin said.

Much of Novick's collections are pop culture-related, or are oddball products, those "who really bought one of those" type of things.

Novick, who is married, displays a few of his items at home, but most are kept in storage, unseen for years.

Take a walk through the exhibit at the Lab at Belmar with Novick and you can't help but enjoy his enthusiasm, even if you can't begin to comprehend it.

"This was a dumpster find," Novick said proudly, pointing at a sofa-sized oil painting of a cat.

"It's so amazing," he said. "I think it's a self-portrait."

He points out an unopened can of quail eggs then struggles to find a hot dog toaster he swears is on a shelf somewhere.

"I have my original retainer," Novick said.

He picks up another.

"This is a friend of mine's retainer," he said. "Because once someone knows you collect retainers..."

He has saved 20 years worth of movie tickets, scribbling on each one the name of anyone who came with him to see it.

Novick hasn't saved anything hoping it would add value. In fact, when lunchboxes became collectible, he stopped collecting them.

He even takes photos of his ideas to save those.

Novick holds up a weathered photo of a piece of toast with orange jam on it and a tube of toothpaste nearby.

Wait, that's not jam.

"Orange Sparkle Crest on toast," he said proudly. "I took a few bites. I can't say I ate the whole thing."

"Anything I find interesting. I don't want to forget about it," Novick said. "So I keep it. I file it or I pile it up. I don't lose the fact that something cool existed like that."

The Astounding Problem of Andrew Novick is on display at the Lab at Belmar until Sunday. A closing party will be held Saturday night.

For more information, visit www.isaveeverything.com.