Big banana collection needs home!
source: http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/news/ci_14818598
Big banana collection needs home!LOL
Top banana Ken Bannister, who split for Hesperia a decade ago having failed to sell his Altadena-based Banana Museum and International Banana Club for $900,000, is back in the headlines. And his collection is back on eBay.
Both the Wall Street Journal and National Public Radio found the story, well, appealing.
The WSJ story said Bannister got a letter from the Hesperia Recreation & Parks District in January informing him his 38-year banana collection must move out of the rent-free city space to be "replaced by artifacts collected by the late John Swisher, a local historian."
A December 1999 story in the Star-News reported that Bannister had put up for sale his 17,000-item collection of "banana lights, clocks, golf-putters, banana soap, shampoo and soda, banana pipes, tobacco, lip gloss, toothbrushes, popcorn, eight-foot banana sofa, gold-sequinned Michael Jackson banana and the infamous petrified banana, which Bannister says he will be sorriest to part with," plus the BananaClub.com name.
He hoped to attract "someone like Bill Gates."
Bill didn't bite.
Since February, Bannister's asking price has gone from $45,000 to $35,000, and now $7,500 for the collection alone.
Even at that price, it's not likely the Altadena community will rally to bring it back.
In 1999, former town Councilman Steve Lamb made the point that bananas don't grow in Altadena. "They're not part of our culture," he said. "It's not like it's an avocado museum."
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