The Holy Grail

Every human has some seething passion that others don't understand. Sometimes it becomes an obsession. Join some of the planet's most maniacal collectors in their hunt for...

Mobile Killing Machines

Collection Like every other kid growing up in America, William Gasser had amassed an impressive collection of, uh, Nazi uniforms by the time he was 17. In 1978 Gasser saw a classified ad for a British Daimler Dingo assault vehicle. Four thousand bucks later he was cruising his hometown of Danville, Virginia in the thing. "I was naive and obsessive-compulsive," the 52-year-old says, "which is dangerous when you have some money in your pocket." Gasser now owns 101 military vehicles, including an Iraqi tank, not to mention a stockpile of vintage artillery. "We collectors are all the same," he explains. "We try to excel at what we do. Your boss, Hugh Hefner, collects blondes and brunettes. I collect tanks."

Holy Grial While his World War II German Panzer Mk IV tank (above) is considered the real crowd-pleaser, the homely World War I American Six-Ten Special (inser)--worth roughlyS3 million--is Gasser's true baby. "It's like women. I like'em really pretty or really ugly. I mean really ugly."

Yes! Yes! Yes! The owner of a lonely heart--and 10,000 other yes items

Collection Most men can remember when they first experienced the thrill of rock and roll. Glenn Gottlieb borrowed the Yes album Fragile from his older brother when he was in fifth grade, and he was hooked. Today Gottlieb is at the forefront of an underworld of Yes memorabilia collectors, dedicated fans of the geriatric prog hand who fuel an entire microcosmic Yes economy. (Type "Yes" into eBay and you'll get the picture.) Gottlieb owns more than 10,000 items--ticket stubs, posters, Slurpee cups, photos, LPs. He also publishes Yes Magazine and contributes to YesWorld.com. "I'm kind of an addict," says Gottlieb, a 37-year-old graphic designer in Huntington, New York. "It can be a bit much at times. I try to keep it on the healthy side. If there's something out there that would fit into my collection and I know it's out there, that's when the addiction kicks in. I feel like I have to find it."

Holy grail Gottlieb's ultimate finds are his 1971 concert poster for an Aberdeen, Scotland show, a 1973 Australian concert program (both below) and a 1971 Netherlands concert program (in Gottlieb's hand, left). Each is worth roughly $1,000.

The art of murder collecting serial-killer masterpieces

Collection Rick Staton, 49, a Baton Rouge, Louisiana mortician, remembers seeing The Texas Chainsaw Massacre while on his honeymoon. The movie, inspired by the life of serial killer Ed Gein, moved him so much that he made a pilgrimage to Gein's Wisconsin home; soon after, he began collecting art created by serial killers. At one point he was the de facto art dealer for John Wayne Gacy, who tortured, raped and killed at least 33 young men in the 1970s. "It's a dark, obsessive thing," the mortician says. "When you think that the same hand that painted the picture is the same hand that strangled some kid.... It's curiosity. Morbid curiosity." Staton has since whittled down his collection to 70 favorites created by some of the sickest men ever to walk the earth--Gacy, Charles Manson, Elmer Wayne Henley (a murderer and torturer of little boys) and Richard Speck (who killed eight student nurses one night in 1966).

Holy grail Staton owns the first painting in the famed Gacy Clown Skull series, as well as Pogo the Clown (which he's holding, far right), worth $2,000 or so. But he considers his favorites priceless. In 1991 Staton sent Gacy a photo of his two-year-old son. Months later Gacy began sending portraits of the child (right and far right).

Start me up spark plugs make a guy's motor run

Collection "With stamps, you can buy a book and you know every goddamn stamp ever made," says Bill Bond, 58, who lives near Detroit. "With spark plugs, no one knows what's out there." Bond began assembling his 2,000 vintage plugs because he needed them to keep his vintage farm equipment running. Then he became obsessed. In 1975 the engineer founded the Spark Plug Collectors of America. "We've cataloged 6,000 brands that have been made since 1895. In most cases the brand name was fired into the enamel, just like fine china."

Holy grail Bond owns a plug from the space shuttle Columbia. But the apple of his eye is a four-times-scale Champion 7 (right). Originally used as a display at the 1932 New York Auto Show to promote Ford's new V8 engine, it's now worth $2,000.

Brew ha-ha He drinks a sixer a month, but he's addicted to the cans

Collection Jeff Lebo is a lucky man. The 42-year-old contractor from York Haven, Pennsylvania keeps two homes, one for each of his great loves: a cozy 2,000-square-foot house for his family and a cavernous 6,000-square-foot retreat next door, where he chills with his collection of 50,000 beer cans. His dream: to collect one of every can ever made. "My father was a production mechanic for the American Can Company," Lebo explains. "I've been collecting since I was 14. Sometimes people walk into my house and say, 'Oh my god, this guy's insane.'" While he drinks only about a six-pack a month, every wall in his two-story joint is lined with empties--one room for German suds, another for Scandinavian....

Holy grail Lebo collects more for volume than for any single item, though some of his beauties, such as a 1950s Scottish lager called Jeffrey's and a 1930s Clipper Pale from California, are worth $2,500 each. He also has a soft spot for beers that feature pinups. Hey, nice cans!

Barf bags "are they art? I think so"

CollectionAs a kid Steve Silberberg knew he wanted to collect something. He just didn't know what. Then one day, one a flight from Boston to San Francisco, he recalls, "I looked into the seat compartment in front of me, and it hit me." Eureka! Now 42, the Hull, Massachusetts money manager owns 1,300 barf bags from airlines all over the planet. "Maybe there's a collecting gene," he notes. "My girlfriend says, 'You like those bags more than you like me!' " Silberberg runs Airsicknessbags.com, a virtual museum. Donate a bag and he'll list you on the site as a patron of Puke. "Are they art? I think so," he says. Has he ever actually been airsick? "Once. When you need a bag and there's one there, that's a good feeling,"

Holy grail Silberberg wrote numerous letters to NASA seeking a yak sack (official name: emesis bag) from a space shuttle but received only a form letter explaining that "crew equipment" is not distributed to civilians. He eventually landed one of the reinforced bags (right) from a friend who worked for the space agency. "It has a little wet wipe in it," he says, "which is very useful in zero gravity."

Make mine Rare the world's most coveted collectibles

Comic BookAction Comics, No.1 (June 1938). About 100 copies of the issue, which introduced Superman, survive, In 2002 a copy owned by Nicolas Cage sold at auction for $86,250.

Baseball Card T206 1909 Honus Wagner When the American Tobacco company released a set of cards, Wagner insisted that his he pulled (one theory is that he didn't want kids to associate him with cigarettes), Today about 50 exist. In 2000 one sold at auction for $ 1.26 million.

Stamp Inverted Jenny C3a. In 1918 a clerk on his lunch break in Washington, D.C. bought a sheet of 24-cent airmail stamps on which the plane shad been printed upside down. Today about 90 to the 100 stamps still exist, In 2002 one sold at auction for $120,000.

Record Album The Beatles' Yesterday and Today (a.k.a the Butcher album). Advance copies of this 1966 LP created immediate controversy because at the chopped-up dolls in the cover photo. Capitol reissued it with a new cover. Fewer than 35 sealed originals survive. In 1999 a sealed LP sold at auction for $38,500.

Wine 1787 Chateau Lafitte. In 1985 the Forbes family bought the only existing bottle of this at this French claret for $157,500. (It had been bottled for Thomas Jefferson and was found in a Paris cellar.) Months later, the cork slipped into the bottle and ruined the wine.

The bunny chaser playboy steaks, golf clubs, rugs, cake pans...

Collection It's said that this magazine doesn't just have readers, it has collectors. In2001 Mike Travis and his wife had to move into a bigger house in western Kentucky. Travis's collection of Playboy items had filled the garage, the basement and two of the four bedrooms. "I was okay with it," his wife, Gale, says, "until he moved a pinball machine into the dining room." Why the obsession? "I'm just crazy," says Travis. "I've always loved Playboy--the magazine, the lifestyle, all of it." The 51-year-old high school teacher owns 12,000 items, including puzzles, books, playing cards, casino chips, a Rabbit Head cake pan, posters, calendars, Femlins, club keys, pipes, mugs and golf clubs, plus every issue ever published.

Holy grail Besides a Hef-autographed first issue (worth $3,000), the most sought-after items are some branded trinkets from the 1950s and 1960s: a set of gold-plated Rabbit Head blazer buttons that originally sold for $100 (below), a valet with a bronzed Rabbit Head, and the boxes that held Playboy-branded frozen steaks. (Who knows how much this stuff is all worth?) Sadly, the steaks themselves haven't survived--as far as we know.