Monroe man is proud to be a PEZ-head

MONROE - There are run-of-the-mill collectors, and then there people who amass vast collections so unusual that you wonder about their sanity. Mike Gorse of Monroe is one of those people. Gorse is a self-proclaimed PEZhead, a proud and unabashed collector of PEZ dispensers and related memorabilia. You might see him driving around the area with the IWANTPEZ New York license plate on his car (PEZHEAD was already taken), or picking up a pizza wearing his “PEZhead Athletics” T-shirt and baseball cap. It’s a sure bet that Gorse is the most avid, if not fanatical, PEZ collector in the area. After spending time with Gorse, you’ll soon realize he’s no different from any other serious collector of dolls, stamps, coins or baseball cards. It just so happens he’s hooked on PEZ dispensers. Gorse currently owns 1,866 PEZ dispensers, and over 475 official PEZ-related items, most of which are on display in a room solely dedicated to PEZ. And he’s his collection is growing every week. Yet, he owns only a small fraction of what’s out there in the PEZ collector’s world. You name it, and there seems to be a PEZ dispenser for it: Disney, cartoon and other movie characters; trucks; Hello Kitty; superheroes, holiday dispensers and even a PEZ dispenser with a pink ribbon to acknowledge breast cancer awareness. “PEZ collectors have saying: ‘You’re not famous until your head’s on top of a dispenser,” Gorse said. It all started about 13 years ago when Gorse was looking to build a collection with his son Sean, now 18. “I wanted to get him interested in something,” said Gorse, 50, who is an estimator in Orange & Rockland Utilities’ Line Technical Services Department. “I wanted it to be a father-son type of thing. We were in a deli in Highland Mills and saw some Flintstones PEZ dispensers. And I knew enough to know there were different types of dispensers. And that was it. Slowly, I got addicted to it.” PEZ is the brand name of an Austrian candy, and the abbreviation of PEZ Candy Inc. The word PEZ also stands for the decorative mechanical dispensers in which the candy is sold. The candy is pressed into dry, straight-edged blocks, and each PEZ dispenser holds a dozen pieces. The PEZ name was derived from the German word pfefferminz, meaning peppermint, the first PEZ flavor. Although originating in Austria, PEZ candy and dispensers are sold worldwide. Initially, PEZ was marketed in pocket-sized tins, and touted as an alternative to smoking. Later, the candy was sold in a rectangular box with a hinged lid, designed to mimic a cigarette lighter. In the mid-1950s, PEZ was converted to a candy for children, and instead of the adult-appealing, flavors of peppermint, coffee and eucalyptus, the company changed to child-appealing fruity flavors such as orange and cherry. At the same time, PEZ introduced toy-like dispensers, and in 1957, changed the dispenser design to feature a head-only character on top of the hinged-lidded, rectangular box. Popeye, the sailor cartoon character, the first licensed PEZ dispenser, made its debut in 1958, and began a dynasty of PEZ heads. And, it’s those hinged heads perched on top of those rectangular boxes that draw collectors. Like others who have unique collectibles, Gorse owns some valuable pieces. Three dispensers he owns - a cowboy, a doctor and a sheik - are worth over $200 each. Dispensers can be valuable for many reasons, including rarity and the presence of production errors. Gorse wouldn’t disclose the overall value of his collection. “I really knew I was a full-fledged collector when I looked at the room downstairs, which used to be a large playroom,” he said. “The collection had taken over two walls.” Those two walls expanded into the entire room, with its five walls painted in classic PEZ colors. Gorse took dispensers with him to Home Depot and asked the paint specialists to match them. During a recent tour of the room, which features PEZ switch plates, outlet covers, a clock and posters). The collection is limited to the downstairs room. The upstairs to the Gorse home is PEZ-free, and Gorse admits his wife Trish tolerates the collection, but doesn’t share his enthusiasm. “She puts up with it,” he said. “I know my limits. I’ve pushed them already. Will any of the PEZ dispensers come up here? There’s no way it’s not happening.” Collectors gather at regional and national conventions, just as collectors of other types of memorabilia do. Gatherings can take up two or more floors of large hotels, Gorse said. People often bring duplicate dispensers to sell or swap, and many times they find those “hard to find” older dispensers to add to their collections. To help PEZ collectors, books and newsletters are available to educate them about such information. Within the PEZ world, there are also experts. PEZ dispenser awareness and collecting was dormant in the 1970s and 1980s, but resurged in the 1990s when PEZ was rediscovered as a nostalgia item after being featured in movies and television shows. The PEZ revival grew more after a 1992 episode of “Seinfeld,” where a subplot was devoted to a Tweety Bird PEZ dispenser. There have even been rumors among PEZ collectors that the girlfriend of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, a PEZ collector herself, had the idea of an online source for trading PEZ dispensers, and that’s how eBay was launched. For those who want to see PEZ dispensers, there are PEZ museums in Burlingame, Calif., and Easton, Penn. There’s even a new DVD that offers collectors a chance to see how the candy is made at its Orange, Conn. plant. The dispensers are produced in Austria, in the former Yugoslavia, in Portugal and in Hong Kong. Now, Gorse’s main interest is collecting the new dispensers as PEZ releases them. But, if he could pick any older dispenser to add to his collection, it would be Bullwinkle, of the “Bullwinkle and Rocky” cartoon fame. It’s a rare and expensive piece. “I think what I like now is to see what kinds of heads they come out with: bigger heads and different styles,” said Gorse, who is waiting for the “The Bee Movie” dispensers to be released. “Some of them are really cool looking heads. As PEZ has gotten better, so have the heads and what they look like.” Gorse said building his collection takes a lot of time, and he does monitor eBay to see what’s available. A recent eBay search revealed almost 1,000 PEZ individual dispensers or lots of dispensers for sale. “It’s really time consuming,” he said. “You can go crazy with PEZ. You want to pick something and focus on that. You can go crazy buying all that stuff. Where does it end?” Gorse attended the recent regional PEZ convention in Cleveland, and was planning to attend the national convention in St. Louis. But during the summer, he was hospitalized for four weeks with a nocardia infection and fungal pneumonia. He said his doctors told him he’d probably fallen ill because the arthritis medication he’d been taking for several years affected his immune system. His colleagues at work didn’t forget him while he was in the hospital. They sent him a get-well basket of PEZ dispensers, many of which had dispensers with variations he didn’t yet own. Gorse says that the art of PEZ collecting may never end for him. “I keep up with what’s coming out,” he said. “If you can keep up with the different variations that come out, you’re getting your collection as big as it can get at the cheapest price. It’s gotten to where I’m wondering where the next display will go. There’s no more wall space.”