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By Cynthia Marone
Lone Ranger fans have never been alone. Generations upon generations have been drawn to the masked man who metes out justice in the Wild West since the show premiered on the radio in 1933 right on through to his origin stories on the big screen to today’s interpretations via streaming. With every version, kids and adults alike discover — or rediscover — those thrilling days of yesteryear.
Lee Felbinger, who first heard “The Lone Ranger” on the radio as a boy, has spent more than 50 years meticulously crafting a way to keep those thrilling days alive and well and close at hand. Lee, who has lived right outside of Telford for 50 years, has amassed a stunning collection of Lone Ranger toys, memorabilia and collectibles. The 86-year-old said his fondest memories are of hunting for his treasures in Bucks County. “Everybody has something they really enjoy that you can’t put a price tag on. Mine was the early, early Saturday mornings with my white shepherd, going around all the Bucks County flea markets, the one on [U.S. Route] 202, the shops in New Hope. I would hop over to New Jersey to Lambertville, but a lot of my finds were in Bucks County,” Lee, who has been married to wife Sue for 62 years and has two daughters and a son, as well as a white shepherd dog named Sadie Rose, said, “Peddler's Village has a flea market. I would go there. Sometimes I would get something, sometimes I wouldn't, but I enjoyed just looking and talking to the people.”
Bucks County has served as a building block for Lee’s vast collection, which, in turn, has served as the inspiration for three books as well as public showcases. Yet for Lee, it’s always been about each piece’s presentation and artistry, something he noticed even as a child. “I was always interested in the actual boxes the toys came in. They were so well done. The printing was so great. As a kid, I used to always wonder who comes up with all these ideas. That must be a great way to make a living,” Lee, who had a 45-year career as a graphic artist, manager and in sales promotion in advertising as well as a teacher in and architect of the commercial arts program at North Montco Technical Career Center, said. “I think it was because of my art. I used to sit and listen to the radio and draw what I heard. I always said that was my art school.”
When radio actor Brace Beemer’s Lone Ranger—Lee’s personal favorite—was rolling over the airwaves, Lee could be found pen in hand, sketching the action. It was only natural to want any show premiums, especially if they figured into future episodes. These marketing items, which required cereal box tops and the like to get, were tied to the amazingly popular show that drew 20 million listeners, per a 1939 Saturday Evening Post article, before it galloped off to serials at the movie theaters, a successful television show that ran for eight years and a steady stream of reboots, remakes and rethinks over the ensuing decades.
While visiting his aunts in his native Pittsburgh in the late 1960s, Lee stumbled across a box full of his past, and it turned out to be a life-changing discovery. “I went up in the attic, and I found all these radio premium rings I had sent away for. They glowed in the dark. There was a pedometer, and you'd wear it, and it would tell you how far you walked. That was the thing that started me. I thought, ‘I have these in a shoebox. I'm going to start collecting Lone Ranger stuff to see what I can find.’ Then I started adding the toys, the gun and holster — whatever I could find,” Lee, who served in the U.S. Navy for four years aboard the USS Kittiwake and the USS Orion until his discharge in 1961, said. “I guess I was interested in how the character was marketed over the years and I thought, ‘I'll just start it as a hobby.’ And it started as a hobby and grew.”
Lee’s collection has everything from the expected to the personal to the downright odd. It includes dolls, cap guns, a rapid-fire revolver, a penknife, a penny bubble gum box, carved soap, games, books, comic books, a pistol toothbrush and holster, suspenders, advertisements, two different radios, a drawing Lee created at age 7 of the Lone Ranger his aunts had saved that he found decades later and a cowboy suit made by Herman Iskin & Co. of Telford. He considers among his prized possessions to be items that belonged to Brace Beemer himself, such as his boots, a necktie, a horse bridle and lots of silver bullets. “I have about 30 cereal boxes going back to 1943. Who kept cereal boxes? Some people did. Whenever you find one, it’s great because the paper stuff didn't survive. Same way with the movie posters,” Lee, who has been creative onstage as an actor and backstage as a director for numerous plays at DCP Theatre in Telford, said. “The movie posters are twenty-nine inches by forty-one inches, and they’re beautiful. And the paintings. Some of the paintings are very large. They’re the original paintings. There’s a lot of strange: You’ve got Lone Ranger shoes; the shoebox I have with the Lone Ranger shoes; bib overalls. There was a Lone Ranger first aid kit. Some of the unique things were like the soap. They were painted. Each one was in a little box. You used it as bath soap. Whatever you needed, they made.”
Lee does not limit his collecting to just the Lone Ranger. Though always his primary aim when out for a search and rescue, he occasionally would come across tin windup toys on those sales tables. Well-crafted and still working, he decided to indulge himself and a plethora of classic characters, including Buck Rogers, Superman, Popeye, Mr. Magoo and Mickey Mouse, have joined Lee’s stable. “I remembered them as a kid, and I wasn’t always able to buy one. I always thought they were pretty neat, so I would see one, I would buy it. After a while, you buy one or two a year, they start to add up,” Lee, who has had four white shepherd dogs throughout his life, including the first he named Silver who was born, fittingly, in Silverdale Borough, said, “When World War II came, everybody had to contribute to the war effort. All these tin toys, anything that was tin or metal, were donated to the war effort, so they didn't survive. The ones that do survive are considered valuable. That’s the rationale behind it.”
In addition to writing the books “Collector’s Reference & Value Guide to The Lone Ranger,” which features more than 500 items such as lunchboxes, ashtrays, dolls and comic books, and two editions of “Hi Yo Silver Away!! Lone Ranger Pictorial Scrapbook,” Lee has occasionally taken some of his items out to play, including for the “Who Was That Masked Man?” exhibit at the Sellersville Museum in 2017. For now, he is creating his own artwork for fun, including a series of line drawings, and consistently delighting in and connecting with his life’s work. “I could just sell it, but why? I enjoy it. I still enjoy it. If I have a bad day, I come in here and I sit for a while and it changes my whole mental outlook. It relaxes me,” Lee Felbinger said. “I sit there, and I look, and I’m just amazed, number one, that I did this. I don’t look at the value. I look at what I've accomplished.” Lee Felbinger’s books can be found on various websites, including Amazon.
Cynthia Marone is a freelance writer who lives in Philadelphia.