Our Collection

Several years ago after one of our friends and basset hound breeders visited our home she called it, "The Basset Hound Museum" because of our collection of basset hound items. Over the years our repartition of collecting anything with a basset hound or is related to a basset hound has spread. We've had people want to come to our home just to see the basset hound collection.

It all started back when we got our first basset hound, Maggie, from the pound. At that time we bought few basset hound figurines. I'm not sure today which they were or even if we still have them.

As we got more interested in bassets we started collecting more things. Our collection "officially started" when we visited our first basset hound show put on by the Basset Hound Club of Southern California. We were both amazed at the beautiful bassets we saw. A young couple, Ron and Mary Lukins, were selling items that they made with basset hounds on them. I remember specifically that we bought a wreath with silhouettes of basset hounds. Unfortunately that wreath didn't make the move from Simi Valley but it started our quest for basset hound related items.

A few years later one of our friends and breeders, Sue Shoemaker, sold us some extra figurines that she had. They were part of the Boswell series based on the book, Bosswell's Life of Boswell. Sue told us there there were more figurines in the series and that they came in different sizes. She went on to tell us that there was even a Boswell salt an pepper set. We asked where we might find them and she replied, antique stores. That was long before Ebay.

Our quest to collect the Boswell series of figurines was on. We also were on the lookout for a copy of the book. I think today we have every Boswell figuring that was made and some others that were inspired by them. We have a copy of the book too. Along the way to finding all the Boswell pieces we discovered hundreds of other figurines too. Our current basset hound figurine collection alone is well over 1,000 pieces.

During our search of basset hound figurines we discovered that the variety of items with basset hounds on them or that looked like basset hounds was astounding. Those discoveries lead to expanding our collection to anything and everything that was related to the breed. Our collection now features a variety of items that is far to numerous to list or photograph.

No, we don't have everything. We are constantly amazed at the number of items that we see at the homes of friends that we haven't found yet. We still find new items in stores as well. In recent years our quest for basset hound items has waned some. Today any additions to the collection must be either exceptional representatives of the breed, very whimsical pieces or something totally unusual. Even using those limits we still find items often that we just have to add to the collection.