COLLECTOR HAS 325 SPOONS

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30543, 11 September 1964, Page 2

COLLECTOR HAS 325 SPOONS

Collecting spoons is the hobby of Mrs K. Symister, of Diamond Harbour. She has 325 from all parts of the world.

Mrs Symister corresponds with 105 people exchanging spoons or sending New Zealand tea towels, salt and pepper sets, or whatever the other collector wants in return. Each day Mrs Symister gets up to 17 letters and parcels in the mail. “1 reply each day after the mail arrives so I don’t get behind with my correspondence,” she said yesterday. Mrs Symister also collects charms for her daughter’s charm bracelet. “The Spooners’ Club in America, to which I belong, has 250 members all over the world and we write to each other and exchange spoons,”

she said. “There are only about three other members of the club in New Zealand.” “Don’t think 325 is a large collection of spoons,” said Mrs Symister. “I write to a woman in Saudi Arabia who has 1700. I think I would

probably have the largest collection in New Zealand though.” Mrs Symister’s hobby began 18 months ago when she wrote to a woman in Canada, whose address she got from a magazine. “I sent her a New Zealand tea towel for Christmas and she sent me a spoon in return. Soon after, I went to the North Island for a holiday and thought it would be fun to get spoons from all the places I visited. Then the collection just started to snowball.” Mrs Symister has sent away spoons from all parts of New Zealand, and finds the kiwi and tiki spoons are the most popular. At present she is trying to collect spoons from each state in the United States. Among her collection Mrs Symister has a President Kennedy spoon and a Jacqueline Kennedy spoon, a flying doctor spoon from Australia, several spoons from the Holy Land, copper spoons from Rhodesia, and beautifully worked spoons from Alaska.