Harold Coker said he nearly stepped over the line years ago in pursuing his antique car collection.
“I began to spend money on cars,” the retired businessman and former Hamilton County commissioner said of the incident early in his marriage in the mid-1950s, “and it almost caused me a divorce. We were eating a lot of beans. I had to slow it down.”
Gradually, but with the eye of a gemologist, Mr. Coker purchased nearly a car a year for the next 50 years and now has a barn full of glittering antique automobiles.
About half of them, he said, have been honored with first prizes in Antique Automobile Club of America competitions. Several are the last few of their kind.
“After a while,” said Mr. Coker, “they get to be part of the family.”