How the Collection Began

Wed, 6 Feb 2008 14:46:42 -0700

The Mark Miller Collection began with my Grandfather, Gordon "Moose" Miller. Moose spoke of skiing before the invention of chairlifts at Mt. Moosilauke in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. As a child, he would ski to a one-room school house four miles away in Hudson Valley, New York and snowshoe to collect sap from maple trees for syrup.

His stories were inspiring and they instilled in me a fascination with the history of skiing.

When my Grandfather passed away, his cherished wooden skis were passed on to me, as well as his excitement of the early days of skiing. I have traveled thoughout New England and Canada visiting farmers and woodsmen in search of turn-of-the-century skis and snowshoes and have compiled the largest collection in the country. This collection represents over one hundred years of skiing history.

It is my hope, that by owning part of the Mark Miller collection, my Grandfather's enthusiasm will live on with you.

Enjoy!

Mark Miller

Bob Dole

Tue, 5 Feb 2008 10:58:46 -0700

Senator Bob Dole was in the 85th 10th Mountain Division.
Mark met with Senator Dole at the WWII Monument in Washington DC.

Fortune Small Business

Mon, 4 Feb 2008 14:38:15 -0700

The Older Side of the Mountain
Antique skis look great in your lodge. Just don't try going downhill on them.
By Julie Sloane

Voelkl's P60 GC racing skis are new for this season, and like almost all skis made in the past five years, they're shaped—they flare out at the front and back. Shaping is a big trend in skis these days, but Mark Miller has a secret: The technology isn't new. He has wooden pairs from the early 1900s with a similar design. Miller owns the largest collection of antique winter sports equipment in the U.S.: two warehouses holding 3,000 pairs of skis, 2,000 pairs of snowshoes, 500 vintage sleds, and 400 pairs of wooden skates, all of which he sells through a website (antiqueskis.com) and 20 furnishings and home-decor shops in Utah, Colorado, Oregon, and California.

Skiing is ancient enough to be mentioned in the Aeneid, and the earliest existing skis date from 2500 B.C. in Sweden. Miller's oldest are from the early 19th century. Growing up in New Hampshire, he became interested in the subject through his grandfather Gordon "Moose" Miller. For Moose, skiing was less a sport than a mode of transportation. In the 1930s he would strap on his homemade ash skis and collect maple sap for syrup. There were no chair lifts then, so if he wanted to ski down a mountain, he had to first hike up it. When Moose passed away in 1989, Mark inherited his grandfather's skis and with them a passion for their history.

After word got out about Miller's interest, old-timers in his tiny hometown of Orford, N.H., began to drop by with their old skis. By 1994, Miller had begun buying at auctions as well, amassing some 100 pairs. That year he decided to turn his hobby into a business in Park City, Utah, where he had become a ski instructor.

Once he finds the skis (increasingly in Europe), Miller does all the refinishing work himself. "I'll take the dirt off and expose a ski from R.H. Macy's or a ski that has the Olympic rings," he says. "Or one that was made for the Harvard or Dartmouth co-ops. It's almost archaeological." American ski manufacturers have been around since the early 1900s, but prices back then—$3 a pair for ash or maple or $5 to $6 for hickory or oak—were considered expensive. In 1935, Abercrombie & Fitch sold hickory skis for what was then an outrageous $16.50 a pair. "Thrifty New Englanders were more inclined just to make their own with whatever they had," says Miller, including wooden fence slats or whiskey barrel staves, and using pieces of a saddle as a binding. Today most pairs sell for between $80 and $350, and defunct brands like Northland and Strand are most prized. "They had better wood, better craftsmanship, and fine etching," says Miller. "It would be like buying a Burton snowboard or Salomon ski today."

His greatest find came last year in a barn in Turkey, where he turned up 500 pairs of American snowshoes used by the Army's 10th Mountain Division in World War II. Miller can't say for sure whether they ever saw combat, but all of them have been used. At $400, they're his priciest item, yet he's sold 200 pairs already, several to family members of 10th Mountain Division veterans. NBC even used them as a backdrop for coverage of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

While he may sell more than 1,000 pairs of skis and snowshoes each year, Miller is still more interested in the history behind them than the commerce. He's donated skis to a local museum and helped insurance appraisers value the museum's collection. Ask him about his most valuable skis, and he won't say the $350 Northlands or Strands. "My grandfather's," he says. "They're priceless."

NBC Los Angeles

Sun, 3 Feb 2008 14:16:44 -0700

NBC Los Angeles does a special edition on Mark and his collection during the 2002 Winter Olympics.
Prime Time with Bob Costas set decorated exclusively with Mark's antiques.

Smithsonian Washington DC

Wed, 30 Nov 2005 14:45:26 -0700

The Smithsonian in Washington DC contacted Mark Miller for his expertise in creating a very rare antique ski display. Mark obliged, flew to Washington and personally delivered the 1850's 10 foot pair to the museum!

Greenwich

Mon, 1 Mar 2004 14:43:48 -0700

Greenwich March 2004 article by Divya Symmers

The Park Record

Sun, 30 Nov 2003 14:41:09 -0700

Parkite shares American history through skis

For Mark Miller, collection is more than a business, it's a passion for winter

By MONIKA GUENDNER, Of the Record staff

Whatever prompted someone to build a pair of wooden skis almost 20 feet long may be lost to history forever. The skis were used in a parade, pulled behind a horse, and likely manned by two cowboys in full leather chaps.

Those cowboys were probably new to skiing, especially the horse-powered variety, which probably gave the parade comic relief, guessed Mark Miller, Parkite, ski aficionado and current owner of the skis.

The long skis are only one of thousands of skis in the Mark Miller Collection, and the history is only one of hundreds that Miller, not of car dealership renown, can retell.

There's the story about one of the world's few metal skis, made by the TEY Manufacturing Corp. in 1948. Three engineers created 1,000 metal skis, smoothing the bottom surface of the ski with electrical tape, said Miller. The winter of 1947-1948 had notoriously little snow, however, and nobody was skiing. Those first thousand skis became the company's last thousand and they turned their focus to snowmaking.

Miller owns one of only two pairs known to still exist. One ski is on display at the Alf Engen Ski Museum at the Utah Olympic Park; the other finds its home at Southwest Indian Traders on Main Street.

Chances are, if you're looking at an antique ski in Park City, it went throughMiller.

Miller grew up skiing, strapping on his first pair at four years old. Unlike his siblings, however, Miller began to develop an interest in the history and evolution of the sport, encouraged by his grandfather Gordon "Moose" Miller. When Moose died in 1989, Miller's grandmother gave him Moose's 1915 handcrafted skis.

The inheritance turned an interest into a passion.

"After he died, I really went hard core," he said.

It wasn't difficult in his hometown of Orford, N.H. to come across other antique skis.

"I thought [my grandfather's skis] were the coolest, and then before you know it, I had amassed this collection of hundreds," said Miller.

His neighbors helped him collect those first hundred. Once they saw his antique skis hanging on his wall, they began bringing him their old skis and their stories.

"Everybody had a story behind their antique," he said.

Today, Miller is the one who is usually telling the story, whether it's the explanation of the squared-off tip on a pair of Norwegian-made skis or the reason why bamboo was a popular choice for ski poles. The stories behind the equipment mean as much to Miller as the antiques themselves.

Today, Miller has more than 3,000 pairs of skis, as well as a collection of ice skates, snowshoes and sleds. Most of that collection is for sale, but those early skis, from his neighbors and grandfather, are still at home or on display around the country, but not for sale.

People gravitate to the rows of antique skis, snowshoes and sleds in Southwest Indian Traders, where Miller has the largest display of his collection. Individual pairs on display in restaurants, stores, hotels and homes can get just as much attention.

Miller has prepared several displays in stores, summarizing the history of skiing. Everything from a 1910 shaped ski to an old fence post fashioned into a ski recounts the history of a mode of transportation that turned into a sport.

People early in the century understood that a wider shovel could keep them afloat better on the snow, explained Miller, but it was unlikely there were doing any of the carving that parabolic skis are designed for today.

Miller has been collecting and selling skis and other winter sports equipment since 1990, and one thing is obvious his collection is a labor of love.

His dedication causes him to shy away from collections that have been over-worked with modern-day repairs or refinishing, and he refuses to consider buying or selling reproductions.

Dirt, however, doesn't scare him. Many of the antiques were dug out of barns, haylofts and shacks, covered in grime, dirt and bird droppings.

The skis are refinished as close to their original condition as possible, which sometimes requires research and a hunt for early photographs.

After a light sanding, Miller rubs the skis down with an oil specific to the wood used. Miller prefers to leave a ski with its cracks showing than to take a trowel full of wood putty to it.

"I take pride in making sure an antique is complete without making them less pure," he said.

If he does add something to the ski, he might replace a leather binding, which often disappeared or disintegrated over time. He finds a horse bridal or leather from the same time period to do it. Unlike the bindings of today, leather bindings of early wooden skis were usually one loop that bound the toes to the plank and a second loop that looped around the back of the heel.

"It's fantastic how simple they are," he said.

Many of Miller's collection already grace the walls of area businesses where they hang, on loan. Part of his collection also is on exhibit at the Ritz Carlton in Colorado, others are on display atbuildings at all three area resorts, Stein Eriksen Lodge and Grand America in Salt Lake City.

Miller recently turned down an order for 800 pairs of skis and 800 pairs of snowshoes from Banana Republic, however, because they would have depleted his collection too fast, for too little money. Besides, he added, he would rather work with individual collectors who have a deeper sense of appreciation.

Exposure, time and trends are keeping Miller busy eight-and-a-half months out of the year.

"The lodge look is very popular right now and it's a look that's not going to go away," said Miller. It's very comfortable, relaxed, warm feeling when you see a pair of skis on the wall."

Antiques in general grow more popular the older they get, he added.

The end of his run as a antique ski dealer will likely come as the supply of skis dwindles. Already Miller is finding it more and more difficult to find new collections of skis, just at a point when he can support himself full-time with the business eight months out of the year.

"I'll never reproduce skis. If I can't find anymore, then yes, the collection will dissipate," he said.

For now, he is busy enough that he quit his winter "day job" as a ski instructor at Park City Mountain Resort. He still spends his summers at his family's camp for children in New Hampshire, where he and his sister are learning to be the third-generation operators of the camp.

Miller recently bought a collection of 150 skis in upstate New York. It's not unusual for finds like that to come to him. As one of the country's most well-known winter sports equipment collectors, his name is often mentioned when someone wants information, history or prices on equipment. A family member may call, asking him for information on the collection, said Miller. He has bought as many as 400 pairs of skis this way.

The largest addition to his collection, however, was 600 pairs of snowshoes that were used by the 10th Mountain Division during World War II. The showshoes were manufactured by five different companies, but to specifications that made them interchangeable.

Miller had to work with the Turkish to retrieve the gear they were found in a government storage unit with rawhide webbing largely intact.

Miller's website, www.antiqueskis.com, is another resource for antique lovers and ski owners. Through the site, Miller offers information on manufacturers, origins, materials and craftsmanship.

The Alf Engen Ski Museum picked Miller's brain when their insurance company had no idea how to value their collection of skis.

The museum got a bonus with their phone call to Miller. Not only did he assess every pair of skis they had in their collection, he noted the historical gaps and lent them some of his collection to make a smooth timeline. Through his connections, he was also able to convince friend Will Dator to donate his pair of Alf Engen-labeled Lund skis that Dator had inherited.

Not everything in Miller's collection is museum quality, however. While Miller will admire a 1920s repair on a ski from the late 1800s, a mismatched set does not hold any significant value. For these instances, Miller has begun to form mirrors, shelf units, "shot skis" ( a ski with a row of shot glasses attached to the surface) and other functional items.

With access to so many skis, does Miller ever take any of his antiques out on the slopes?

He answers with an emphatic, "No."

"For the same reason you wouldn't take a Model A Ford out on the highway," he adds.

The Greenwich Time

Sat, 30 Nov 2002 14:35:19 -0700

2002:
The Greenwich Time Sunday newspaper Neighbors section feature on Mark Miller.

The E.A.R.

Sat, 30 Nov 2002 14:22:11 -0700

The E.A.R. collection articles in 1999 and 2002.

New Hampshire Sunday News

Tue, 1 Oct 2002 14:13:16 -0600

2002:
New Hampshire Sunday News cover story on Mark and his collection.

Keene State Today

Sun, 1 Sep 2002 13:59:36 -0600

Miller's Historic Boards by Lindsay Pollock
Amid all the Winter Olympic hope and hype last February, Mark Miller '90 received some serious airtime. A front page profile in the Salt Lake Tribune led to interviews with two national television crews, a European news wire, and a cover story in The Union-Leader. Yet Miller was no medal contender. Instead, he received coverage for his expertise and business savvy selling antique skis. In fact, when NBC's Bob Costas interviewed President George W. Bush before the opening ceremonies, Miller's World War II snowshoes were inches from the Presidential shoulder.
Miller, 34, who lives in Park City, Utah, eight months a year and Orford, N.H., four months, has been buying and selling winter antiques for 12 years. He started collecting old skis, snowshoes, poles and sleds in 1989 during summer months in New Hampshire, working at his family's summer camp, Camp Merriwood. Miller haunted auctions, flea markets and yard sales across New England. "I'd sit at an auction all night," says Miller, "and buy junk. I bought a box of used nails - that cost a buck." Besides bent nails, Miller also bought antique wooden skis. With minimal competition, Miller was able to acquire high quality goods at low prices.
Over time, he learned about the history of ski production by talking to White Mountain locals and studying old Miller's Historic Boards by Lindsay Pollock outdoor catalogs. He learned to distinguish various woods like hickory, pine, and maple and binding design from the heel strap to the bear-trap. He also learned about re-finishing. Sometimes skis found in old New England barns came encrusted with hay, bird droppings, and dirt. Miller learned how to restore the skis to their original condition through a combination of sanding and staining.

After a year of collecting, the family garage was piled high with over 100 pairs. Miller's mother urged her son to start selling. Instead, he moved to Park City and worked as a part-time ski instructor and burger joint manager. Miller soon discovered his new hometown was a winter antiques heaven ¨C with hundreds of ski condos in need of rustic d¨¦cor. He approached the owner of a tourist outpost on Main Street, who agreed to stock a few pairs. Sales during the first year were modest, and Miller continued flipping burgers and leading ski-wee classes. By 1995, though, business was booming and Miller bid farewell to burgers. Today he counts clients in Europe, Australia, Alaska and even sunny Florida and Hawaii. And, of course, he has a web site (www.antiqueskis.com).
With the arrival of the Winter Games, Park City readied for 45,000 visitors to the 26 medal events hosted there. Main Street was closed to cars. Miller took an NBC crew to film his exhibit of antique skis at a bustling tourist outpost, Southwest Indian Traders. As Miller described an early model aluminum ski for the camera, a man breezed in and spent $300 for a pair of 1934 wooden skis made by R.H. Macy's & Co.
Most of Miller's skis date to the 1920s and 30s and retail at $80 to $350 a pair. Earlier handmade skis from the 1880s and 1890s can go higher. "Every pair is different," Miller says, "and every pair has a story." Primitive bindings range from a leather strap to hay-baling twine. "New England is known for recycling," he says, "I've got skis from the turn of the century with 1940s bindings."
Miller's latest coup is a cache of 10th Mountain Division snowshoes, shipped from the United States to troops during the Second World War. The equipment, used by America's elite winter-trained soldiers, sat in a barn in Turkey for the last 60 years. Miller brought about 600 pairs home and used his salesmanship to wrangle a national television placement on the NBC set behind President Bush.
Miller's unusual expertise recently came to the attention of Dee Edmonds, a personal property appraiser in Salt Lake City. Edmonds had been hired by a ski foundation to appraise a collection of 250 objects including skis, poles, boots, and snowshoes dating from the late 19th century to present. This collection will be exhibited at Utah's first ski museum, which opened this year. "It was extremely hard to find someone knowledgeable of the history of skiing as well as the market," said Edmonds.
Miller got the job. "Mark was invaluable," Edmonds said. "He knows the history of skiing from the Alpine days in Europe to the handmade jumpers. Also, he has had sales of this equipment so he had comparable prices."
Mike Conti, owner of Park City's Mountain Timber Furniture, has sold Miller's skis for three years. He sells a pair a day and says, "Mark's quality is unmatched, and the variety is incredible."
In spite of all his commercial success, Miller is exceedingly modest, insisting that he still teaches skiing to supplement his income. But he has not blazed any trails wearing his historic boards. "I don't think my insurance would cover it," he laughed as the games began, heading out to explore Olympic festivities.
Lindsay Pollock is a freelance writer living in New York City.

The Salt Lake Tribune

Mon, 4 Feb 2002 14:22:58 -0700

Park City resident built a trade selling antique skis after inheriting a set from his grandfather.

PARK CITY -- As tourists walk into Southwest Indian Traders, a popular stop on Main Street, they are bombarded by jewelry display cases dripping with silver and turquoise, scenic Western photographs and rustic mountain furniture.
Discerning a single item is no easy task. Yet visitors clad in the newest winter clothing and carrying shopping bags full of the latest high-tech gear immediately gravitate to the oldest merchandise in the shop -- Park City resident Mark Miller's antique ski collection.
Miller, whose collection began as a hobby 12 years ago in the White Mountains of New Hampshire with a pair of his grandfather's skis, now owns one of the largest collections in the country. He has amassed more than 1,000 pieces, including skis, snowshoes, sleds and Dutch wooden skates. The 35-year-old Park City ski instructor sells items to customers as far away as Australia and Germany.
"I never thought about making a living off of this, just because it was a hobby and a passion," Miller says. "But then I found out that people were not just decorating their second homes and condos with them, they were decorating their primary homes."
Growing up, Miller's favorite activity, aside from skiing, snowshoeing in the mountains and ice skating across frozen lakes, was listening to his grandfather talk about the old days of skiing.
"I remember he would tell stories around the dining room table about collecting maple syrup and skiing and snowshoeing, or about village races where they only had one pair of skis for everyone to use," Miller recalls. "I was just fascinated by all the stories."
So when Gordon "Moose" Miller passed away in 1989, and Mark inherited his grandfather's wooden skis and his snowshoes (used by the 10th Mountain Division in World War II), he proudly hung them in his home.
"My neighbors saw that I had them displayed," Miller says, "and they ended up bringing me their antiques that were sitting in their closet collecting dust."
Often better than the antiques themselves were the tales that accompanied them. Miller, then 23, set out to find more stories, and hopefully, through collecting them, keep the history of skiing alive.
He scoured the New England countryside, going to flea markets, yard sales and auctions collecting equipment and simultaneously becoming a ski history buff.
Although he moved to Park City in 1990, he still spent summers in New Hampshire helping at the family summer camp and adding to his ever-growing collection. In 1994, Miller reluctantly sold his first pair of skis, not because he needed the money, but because with 50 pairs in his collection, his garage was overflowing.
Soon, he couldn't keep up with the orders.
Being a part-time ski instructor, full-time manager of a burger joint and part-time antique dealer only worked for so long.
"Something had to give," Miller says. "I'm glad it was [the burger joint]." Eight years later, with his skis selling in five different stores in Park City plus a few in Colorado and California, the trend is still hot.
Mike Conti, owner of Mountain Timber Furnishings, has been selling Miller's collection for the past three years.
"They've been popular since the day we got them," Conti says. "We sell almost a piece a day. There's a lot of junk out there on the market, but Mark's quality is incredible."
Having exhausted much of the supply in New England, most of Miller's antiques now come from Europe. His latest find? Two hundred and fifty pairs of 10th Mountain Division snowshoes that had been sitting in a barn in Turkey since World War II.
One part businessman and two parts collector, Miller is just as interested in passing on the stories he has heard from "old-timers" that have accompanied most of the skis he has found in New England as he is in selling them. When he can, he attaches a plaque to the ski with the original owner's name and writes the owner's story on a card.
He is thrilled to tell customers about past technological experiments such as the square tips on some of the skis, fashioned to keep the Maple wood from splitting, or the ski tips made from a wooden cheese wheel cut in half, bear-trap bindings used in the 1930s and whatever other makeshift equipment he has come across.
"New Englanders recycled everything," he chuckles as he holds up a pair of bindings made out of a horse bridle, and another pair held together with bailing twine.
Just like any collector, though, "There are skis that I will never part with," Miller says, such as the pair of skis that are essentially fence slats made in the 1800s, or the metal skis made by TEY manufacturing in 1948, one of the first 1,000 ever made.
Pieces that are for sale, range in price from $80 to $350. Miller also has a Web site, www.antiqueskis.com.
His collection has evolved into a sizeable commodity.
"It gets harder and harder every year [to find antiques]," he says. "and eventually it's going to dry up."
In that sense, this may be a dead-end job, but Miller's goal will carry him far into the future.
"I just want to have people appreciate the history of skiing and to keep that history alive."

NBC Chicago

Tue, 1 Jan 2002 13:55:52 -0700

2002:
Mark appears on NBC Chicago with Darrian Chapman featuring his collection.

Park City Magazine

Sun, 30 Dec 2001 14:29:12 -0700

Winter 2001:
Park City magazine. Feature on decorating with Mark's collection.

President Bush Backdrop

Fri, 30 Nov 2001 14:47:38 -0700

Mark Miller Collection skis are used exclusively for the back drop used as President George W. Bush gives the opening address officially opening the Olympic games of 2002.

Log Home Living Magazine

Wed, 1 Dec 1999 14:37:03 -0700

December 1999:
Log Home Living magazine focuses on Mark Miller and decor from his collection.

Antique Review Horizons.

Fri, 1 Jan 1999 13:29:14 -0700

1999:
Antique Review Horizons. Mark explains collecting and decorating with winter antiques.

Mountain Times

Mon, 30 Nov 1998 14:26:09 -0700

1998:
Mountain Times. Mark Miller's Passion for Skis of the Past. Cover photo.