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Ball collection for sale photo by Jim Craven Family must liquidate deceased collector�s prized orbs By Mark Freeman ROGUE RIVER � In life, Eddie Tozer treated his 7,000 used golf balls like precious stones, forever washing and polishing and categorizing the cache of dimpled orbs he kept housed in egg cartons inside a metal garage. "He�d spend six, eight hours at a time up here, going through his balls," friend Fred Butcher recalls. "And if you ever reached over and took one out, you better put it back right where it belonged." After Tozer�s death from cancer last month at age 80, the golf balls have no one to belong to. So a search is on to find someone with enough cash, enough room and a soft spot for golf to claim title to these Titleists and Prostaffs. Family members, none of whom want to take on Tozer�s collection, plan to sell off the logoed golf balls via an Internet Web site that one of Tozer�s three sons is building. "We�re not trying to make a killing on them, but we don�t want to give them away, either," says son Ira Tozer, a Brookings resident and family Web master. "My dad spent a lot of time collecting these balls." They�re asking 20 cents apiece, or $1,500 for 7,000 balls, provided the buyer takes the whole lot from a trailer-park garage where they are stored with the rest of Tozer�s belongings. That bugs Dotti Claus, Eddie Tozer�s former girlfriend, who says she doesn�t want the balls � except for two Frank Sinatra Invitational balls, which she kept for sentimental reasons � but she doesn�t think they should be sold for a song. "I think their idea is just to get rid of them," Claus says. "I�ve seen used balls at flea markets for 50 cents apiece. But it�s none of my business. I just lived with him for five years." Eddie Tozer lived with this golf-ball fancy for about 20 years. A former trucker, he picked up golf at age 60 and instantly began to amass his used ball collection. Somewhere along the line �no one�s sure exactly when or why � Tozer began to pick through the balls and separate them by manufacturer and by the corporate logos often stamped onto them. "Why do people collect anything?" Ira Tozer says. "It wouldn�t be something I�d collect. But he liked them." Tozer would pick through the bottoms of course ponds and finger through garage-sale bins in search of logoed balls he didn�t have. Duplicates were culled out and stored in boxes, with the rest eventually adorning the garage�s display wall. Tozer kept records of all the golf balls and logos he had and would spend hours bleaching and cleaning the balls, recalls Butcher, 69. "He told me more stories than I could remember," Butcher says, "about these balls." Stories aside, there�s a market for quality used golf balls among wholesalers like Mike Harper, who owns Golf Ball Supply, an Internet business in Syracuse, New York. Harper typically buys used balls for 17 to 25 cents apiece, he says. The occasional collector will pay much more, Harper says. "It will just depend upon whether they get hooked up with the right person," Harper says. Ira Tozer says he�s getting the used-ball Web site going soon, and he expects his father�s fancy to go somewhere fast. "You go buy a used golf ball and it�s, like, a buck," Ira Tozer says. "But these are collector�s items. They gotta be worth something." Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.