My junk: Beaufort collector Bruce Rogers has spent his life collecting, swapping and selling. Picture: Kate Healy
BRUCE Rogers calls it junk, but in reality it is far from that.
An avid collector, Mr Rogers has accumulated thousands of items in a life devoted to collecting goods from all over Australia.
Antique shops, second-hand stores and op shops have become a second home for the Beaufort man.
Now he will get the opportunity to tell his remarkable story to the rest of Australia when he appears on the ABC Television program Auction Room next week.
The 57-year-old has spent his life buying and swapping goods, and then selling goods in order to buy more “junk”.
It all started off as a six-year-old when he sold bags of manure.
As an 11-year-old, he attended his first auction.
In the Melbourne suburb of Greensborough in 1966, he purchased a camping water heater for 25 cents – an item he still owns.
“It was a different time back then,” said Mr Rogers.
“As a kid you could go to an auction by yourself in those days and nobody would think twice about it.”
Since that day Mr Rogers has gone about sourcing items from all over Australia.
Tractors, glass, books, records, movie posters, he has it all.
About five years ago he purchased a Moorcroft vase in a Melbourne op shop for $3, only to sell it at an auction in Ballarat for $2350 a few weeks later.
In the Auction Room episode to be aired on Sunday, June 3, Mr Rogers takes two items to an auction house in the eastern suburb of Murrumbeena.
One of those is a tantalus, which was used to store liquor and is believed to have been made in about 1875.
It took Mr Rogers seven years to find a tantalus he could buy.
He says collecting has almost become an addiction — one he will never be able to (or never wants to) shake.
Tune in to ABC1 on Sunday, June 3 at 6pm to watch the episode.