Rimtrim In The News

Surprising enterprises

By John Tuthill
The Swarthmore College Phoenix, Nov. 20 2003

I found some people this week that have real skills -- not merely a knack for writing essays or completing problem sets, but trades that are not taught on this campus. And that is unique at Swarthmore, where we all study and study but never learn about anything that my dad would consider a realistic way of making a living.

Got a '92 Acura?

Andrew Lacey '05 is Swarthmore's own thrifty hubcap entrepreneur.

Since the age of 3, Lacey has been smitten with automobiles, and especially with those useless parts strapped on for decoration. Cavorting around Morristown, N.J., Lacey picked up his first hubcap in 1987. Since that fateful day, he has been wheeling and dealing and working the open market of hubcap sales.

When Lacey was nearing the ripe age of 7, he began to deal to a friend's mother whose Plymouth Voyager had a knack for liberating its hubcaps. "At first, my parents limited me to one hubcap at a time," Lacey said. "But by my senior year in high school, I had nearly 4,000 of them stored in the basement."

By the time Green Day had released their masterpiece album "Nimrod," Lacey had a simple Web site that advertised his growing collection of hubcaps. Folks who had been pounding over frost heaves through the long winter months would e-mail Lacey and request their unique missing hubcaps. And Lacey would mail them all over the country, requesting $20 to $30 dollars per cap.

"My senior year in high school, I was getting between six and eight e-mails a week requesting various hubcaps," he said. For several years, Lacey could be found browsing the shoulders of the Garden State's barren highways. And the collection in the basement grew steadily from hours of driving with headlights on the high beams. Lacey discovered areas of dense hubcap-tossing activity, especially alongside large frost heaves and bridge joints. On a good day, he could pick up anywhere from 50 to 100 hubcaps to stack and order in neat rows in the basement.

Lacey's knowledge of hubcaps is extremely precise and nearly boundless. Driving along the highway, he claims that he can glance at any neighboring hubcap and identify the make, model and year. His collection is organized completely in his mind and is always transforming and growing.

Now, Lacey said, he doesn't have the time to keep up with the demand -- the Web site is not in operation, though he does "cater to some repeat customers." And he has done some business here at Swat. "If people ask me for them, I'll get them, as long as they can wait for me to go home," he said.

But business or not, Lacey claims he will always collect hubcaps. If he fails to find a niche in the field of computer science, he said, he will certainly revive his enterprise.


This article is copyright 2003 by The Swarthmore College Phoenix. I am using it without permission. Please don't sue me.