Nestled in the Village area of Holland Patent stands a quaint, two story building for the Adirondack Motorbooks & Collectibles. We had an opportunity to meet with the owner, Mark Theobald, who is an incredibly knowledgeable individual when it comes to all things automobile.
Entering the store brings about the feeling of stepping into the pristine wood interior of a magazine quality camp many of us would enjoy spending time in during weekends. The entire location is alphabetized and organized in an almost too good to be true manner. Looking to the far right corner of the front section we see numerous 1/18 scale diecast models near the ceiling and it continues around and behind our heads at the front entrance. With a glance to our left, we see the wrap around and continuance to the back of the store. The floor level shows us rows of documents, classic magazines, article blurbs, and brochures. All in like new quality. I quickly pulled a random magazine from 50+ years ago and it looked like it had never been opened. Something like that is both exciting and heartwarming to see how well kept everything is in the store. Mark certainly takes great pride in finding quality pieces for automobile enthusiasts to come check out in person or decide to take home and add to a personal collection.
Continuing on inward through the store brings about factory vehicle literature and enough hard cover books of all shapes and sizes to embarrass any chain bookstore automotive section. The 1/18 scale diecast models are still at ceiling height, but we are now also greeted with Matchbox sized vehicles neatly placed on pegs at eye to floor level. The room furthest away from the front entrance is filled to the brim with additional models all still in their retail boxes, each lovingly placed on the shelf to prevent box damage. At this point in time we had already been at the store for over an hour, only seen 50% of it, and moved about 30 feet from the entrance.
Tracing our path back towards the front of the store we can choose yet another path which leads to even more diecast vehicles and Matchbox cars of various, but alphabetized, makes and models. The outside of the store is certainly deceiving in regards to the amount of items able to be stored within. DVDs…and I think I saw some VHS tapes, are also available. This store is just another example of “I can’t believe this place is right here in Central New York”.
In addition to being the owner of the Adirondack Motorbooks & Collectibles website, www.motorlibrary.com, Mark is also the curator of www.coachbuilt.com. This website is an incredible resource and glimpses into the world of custom, coach built vehicles from yesteryear. It’s difficult to put into words the amount of work completed here by Mark to compile and post this amount of information. All we have to do as viewers is simply locate and click on any of the 1,200+ represented builders. Please, after reading this article take a little bit of time to check out either of these web pages and complete a browse. There is an absurd amount of information here and will take less time than a Google search on the same subject matter.
We here at Apex Automotive Magazine would like to thank Adirondack Motorbooks & Collectibles for taking the time to meet and show us around the store after hours. This article simply cannot fully describe the experience. Be sure to head up and check it all out for yourself. Perhaps indulge in a sweet diecast vehicle purchase to remember the initial visit like I did. We look forward to future visits because the store is in constant flux of what may now be available and what may have been sold since the last visit. However, make sure you set aside a couple of hours to do so because this store is certainly a time vortex. What feels like a half hour visit will suddenly be discovered as three hours passing. Have fun!
Story By Brian Coupe
Photos By Jordan Polizzi
I just discovered this lovely store and very knowledgeable and friendly owner. He answered all my questions regarding my hearse effortlessly, gave me quite a bit of information that even the manufacturer could not give me and even helped me when I could not start my vehicle when I was leaving! I had left my lights on and my battery was dead. I look forward to going back with a friend and checking out the extensive stock of die cast vehicles and rare books.