$4 Million Vintage Tackle Collection Needs New Home

From the story in the Oklahoman:
A Luther man has removed his multimillion-dollar antique fishing tackle collection from the Oklahoma Aquarium. Karl White, 70, said the last items were removed Wednesday from the Jenks aquarium. The Karl and Beverly White National Fishing Tackle Museum opened in 2003 at the aquarium. White had loaned a portion of his collection to the museum on a yearly basis. But now he wants the collection in its own museum or somewhere where all of it can be displayed.

"I am just ready for the second step,” White said. "I am ready for it to stand on its own two feet. It’s time that it does.”  White has more than 20,000 items in his collection valued at $4 million, but only about half were on display at the Oklahoma Aquarium. The collection needs three times the space the aquarium could give it, White said. The collection includes more than a dozen wooden and fiberglass boats, 110 outboard motors and thousands of antique fishing lures, rods and reels. "I’ve got the first of everything,” White said. White hopes to keep the collection in Oklahoma but doesn’t guarantee he will. His dream is to see a fishing museum in Oklahoma similar to the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.

"I don’t know where it’s going to go,” White said. "I want to preserve this for posterity.  "It’s the best collection in the world,” he said. "It really is. I want to find the best place for it. I just want to get something done because I am old.”