Hatboro shop offers vintage treasures
By Matt Schickling
Wire Staff Writer
There is a place where the past is constantly changing.
The shelves and racks of Allen’s Attic and HHH Records in Hatboro are revolving doors for the cool, weird, novelty, sentimental and kitsch. Co-owner Dave Allen dubs it a “pulp culture explosion,” and it’s definitely apt nomenclature.
From one vantage point, you can see a first-edition copy of Buddy Holly’s That’ll Be The Day, an original porcelain Ford advertisement and hundreds of console video games all within the same plane of vision.
“If you look around, this is all stuff that was pop culture,” Allen said. “I think we are one of the most unique stores because of what we have.”
Since opening almost three years ago, Allen and co-owner George Hagerty have stocked the North York Road storefront with video games, old toys, comic books, records, vintage collectible items and antique furniture. They’ve seen things like a 1935 first-edition Monopoly set and The Beatles’ Yesterday and Today album with the “butcher cover.” The rare first edition features an image of the band posing with cuts of beef and stray parts from plastic baby dolls.
But the store grew from more than just two guys clearing out their storage lockers — they’ve been at this for a while. Allen alluded to his grandfather’s Atlantic City-based moving and storage business as his roots in collecting.
“I had a feel for it, but I kind of stayed away from it at first,” he said. “I became a chef and did that for 30-something years.”
Allen had been buying, collecting and selling online since the mid ’90s and had a booth at the 263 Market in Warminster. That’s where he originally met Hagerty, who had a booth of his own where he sold records. All the while, Allen was still working in kitchens and restaurants to pay the bills at home, even up until May of last year.
It eventually boiled down to a simple question: “Do I want to work for somebody else for the rest of my life or do I really want to take a chance and build my business and make it work?”
He rolled the dice, and the payoff was some hard-earned autonomy.
“The first three to four months were a little scary. I have bills, I have a mortgage to pay, plus we have to pay the bills here,” he said. “But from that time until now, it’s been very successful.”
The space gave them room to spread out and they took full advantage. The front of the store is packed with an array of antiques and art. Down the aisle to the right there’s stacks of plastic-wrapped records from classical to new releases that lead to another ample and well-organized selection of vinyl.
There’s a room dedicated to vintage and contemporary video games that could appropriately be called “the evolution of gaming” with shelves stacked with Atari, Super Nintendo, PlayStation and others. Down the back hallway to the left is the comic room with full-size movie posters and comic books decorating the walls.
“I get to play video games, go through comic books and play with antiques,” Allen said. “I get to listen to records that most people never hear. It’s the advantages like that keep me doing what I do.”
And, Allen is always doing more of it. He still gets out to the flea markets, yard sales and auctions and meets other collectors looking to lighten their load and add to his. He’s even considering starting another business focused on furniture and larger items in Egg Harbor Township, NJ.
But until that pans out, the Hatboro business will be more than enough for him.
“We get kids in here that are as young as seven or eight and we get people that are in their eighties and nineties, and when they go in some of these rooms their jaws drop. It brings back good memories,” Allen said. “We sell memories.”
Allen’s Attic and HHH Records is located at 21 North York Road in Hatboro. For information, visit www.facebook.com/AllensAtticTreasures.
