Elvis’ biggest collector?

 

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40,000 items and 80,000 photos in a Two-Bedroom Apartment

 

Robin Rosaaen found herself sitting in the waiting room of a Palm Springs dentist, feeling a little like a detective. An Elvis Presley detective. Rosaaen had flown from her home in San Jose to check out in person an eBay listing for the King of Rock 'n' Roll's dental records. Minimum bid: $6,000, and so far no takers.

 

"I was so excited," she remembers. "It was this unassuming office in a strip mall, and I thought, Elvis sat here with a clipboard like we all do and filled out the forms." She experienced a bigger thrill when the dentist let her recline in his patient chair. "I lay back and thought how the hygienist must have felt when she put her fingers in Elvis's mouth. How many fans can say they've been where their favorite celebrity had his bridgework done?"

 

Rosaaen left the dentist's office that day in 1999 as the proud owner of three X-rays of Presley's teeth, his dental chart from 1967 to 1969, and the patient information sheet he'd completed and signed on a fall day 32 years earlier. Final price: $4,000.

 

"A steal," says the 60-year-old professional scavenger.

 

Rosaaen had just added to one of the world's largest caches of Elvis memorabilia, a collection she began in 1968. And what a collection it is—40,000 items and 80,000 photos crammed into the two-bedroom apartment she's lived in for 25 years. Think of it as Graceland's overflow storage. Floor-to-ceiling bins, plastic tubs and metal file cabinets hold Elvis dolls, slippers with his head at each toe, the property settlement from his divorce signed by the King and Priscilla, even dirt from lawns where he lived.

 

The collection allows Rosaaen only a narrow path to maneuver from room to room. Yet there's always enough space for visitors—Elvis biographers and filmmakers—who arrive from around the world to pore over her many unpublished photos. Fans and collectors alike seek her out to touch or buy something that belonged to the rock icon. Case in point: the King's cream-and-yellow costume from 1966's Frankie and Johnny. Says Rosaaen, "One of my friends put the trousers on over her clothes and said, 'Now I can tell people I got in Elvis's pants!'"

 

For years, Rosaaen has fought with her San Jose landlord, who deems her collection a hazard and has threatened to evict her. "He gave me 30 days to move a lot to a storage unit," she says. "He was afraid that if we had an earthquake, I would be found crushed under all this Elvisness!"

 

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The Start of Her Elvis Obsession

 

Rosaaen's big hunk o' love started off slowly in 1956. She was just nine then, saw Elvis thrusting his pelvis on The Ed Sullivan Show and began buying his records with her babysitting money. She claims she wasn't hooked until a dozen years later, when the King appeared in a sleek black leather suit (alas, Graceland counts it among its favorite display pieces) on a 1968 NBC special called Elvis. After that, there was no turning back.

 

Never married, though she's dated a handful of Elvis impersonators, Rosaaen insists today that she has more sisterly feelings than sexual fantasies for Elvis. But ask her about the first kiss—ultimately there were eight, all garnered at shows where she appeared as a devoted fan. Recalling how she wrangled that buss in 1971 at the Internationale Hotel in Las Vegas, when she held up an "I Want Your Body" bumper sticker, she swoons.

 

"He said, 'You got it, baby,' and I pulled the scarf off from around his neck. It was hot and sweaty, and he smelled wonderful. I had my ring hand up through his hair. Looking in my eyes, he kissed me with those lips that were big, warm, puffy pillows. I thought, Oh, God, I wonder what this would be like for more than a split second? After, I realized a couple of his hairs were stuck in my ring. I wrapped them in tissue and tucked them in my bra. When I got home, I put them in a Gerber baby food jar, where they've been ever since."

 

Some folks, including Rosaaen's mother, have politely suggested her good sense might be as fried as the King's favorite peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich. Though she's made some money over the years as an Elvis expert (including for eBay), Rosaaen doesn't currently hold a job or health insurance yet continues to spend money on her collection.

 

"I'm not a nut," she insists. "It's a passion as well as an investment." She views herself as a caretaker of her Elvis items, and in the end, the King may be as good to her as she has been to him. "If I were to sell the whole," she says, surveying her sizable portion of Elvis Presley's fiefdom, "I wouldn't take less than $6 million." On the auction block, she just might get it.

 

Original link http://www.rd.com/stories/weird-and-wac ... ticle.html

 

Wowee!! What a collection :yahoo:

 

Wooooooooooooooooo, thats bloody fantastic, i can't believe it. Nearly as much as i have got. :cheer: :yahoo: :wub: