If you love something, set it free. Or, put it on a shelf or wall, or in a display case. If you love it a lot, keep your eyes peeled for its familiars. Then, preserve them, too. Voila! You’ve become a collector. In its extreme, this pastime leads to countless loved objects to enjoy — enough to fill a museum. Here are a few notable local examples.
Jessica Oreck
Collector of miniatures
Jessica Oreck’s museum houses imperfect things. Unplayable dice, lonely dominoes, lost buttons, and missing doll arms have all found renewed purpose in her collection, housed until recently in her quirky storefront, The Office of Collecting and Design. She says these forgotten objects are “essentially purposeless, obsolete,” but with her, they get a second chance. Oreck finds joy in sharing them with others, who have come from as far away as Russia and Australia. When people see a button, she says, it reminds them of how they used to run their fingers through their grandmother’s buttons. “Memories tie us together as humans,” she says.
As a kid, Oreck yearned to be a long-haul trucker or a librarian. In the spring and fall of 2025, she’ll combine these dreams and take her museum on the road in a trailer. Like the items in her collection, Oreck says, her museum is taking on a “whole different life.”
Brett Fox
Collector of spy gadgets
When private investigator Brett Fox was 12 years old, his friend gave him a suction-cup microphone he could use to tap phone calls between his brother and his girlfriend. “I just thought I was the coolest person in the world,” Fox says. “I knew stuff he didn’t know I knew.” That impetus led Fox to open what would eventually become CoolCat Spy Gadgets in 1996. Inside the store is a spy museum showcasing such paraphernalia as celebrity-signed spy movie posters, a night vision binocular headset from the Vietnam War, and other objects from Fox’s decades of collecting. He also stocks countersurveillance items, self-defense tools, lie detectors, and even fart sprays. He says when you hang around guys like undercover cops, practical jokes are imminent. In all seriousness, though, Fox says all his stuff has “fun aspects” but are not toys. They can do “some very serious things.”
Darien Fernandez
Collector of Ron English vinyl sculptures and just about everything else
Pop surrealism artist Darien Fernandez may only be 27 years old, but he has already established himself in the Las Vegas art scene. His art is heavily influenced by his extensive collection of comic books, Funko Pops, Pokémon trading cards, sneakers, and KAWS clothing. “My work documents our contemporary era through a whimsical lens,” Fernandez says. Since moving to Las Vegas from New York in 2020, he has exhibited at the now-closed Priscilla Fowler Fine Art Gallery, where he sold his first gallery artwork. He’s currently represented by MAD Gallery LV. Recently, Fernandez designed a Superplastic sculpture for an art toy exhibit, and he was one of eight artists chosen to display and sell those pieces at the Dopeameme Institute in Area15. But his collection impulse began with his two prized Ron English mini vinyl sculptures, including one signed by English, and he plans to acquire more. Fernandez says the sculptures are among the first art toys he bought, and they’re currently in storage in New York to keep them safe.
Warren Miller
Collector of Garbage Pail Kids ephemera
Warren Miller began collecting Garbage Pail Kids cards in the ’80s, and now he’s a big-time Vegas collector. Although he describes his collection as “big but manageable,” Miller owns the entire original series (that’s 1,240 cards), plus thousands of additional cards, including variants, error cards, blank backs, signed cards, sketches, and random memorabilia, such as posters, stickers, and Funko vinyl figures. As a child, he’d spend a quarter on a pack of Garbage Pail Kids trading cards and marvel at the “wildly disgusting, funny” images, but his mother threw them away. Fast-forward to a 2007 yard sale, when his wife opened a wallet that reminded her of one she had as a child and found three Garbage Pail Kids cards. That took Miller back, and he began collecting to relive his youth. Sometimes when he picks up a card, he remembers exactly where he was when he saw it for the first time. Last year, Miller bought a box of original, fourth-series sealed packs on eBay. Each day for roughly three weeks, he opened at least one. “I had to be very strict, because I needed this feeling to last for as long as humanly possible,” he says. “It’s a nostalgia bump.”
More of the Collections
