Bob Bosley

Owner, Diamondhead Sprinkler

Bob Bosley, owner of Diamondhead Sprinkler, began his obsession with collecting early, picking up the hobby from his parents. He saved his first train set, pedal cars and toys, holding onto anything that caught his eye, until recently, when he ran out of space for his treasures.

Bosley's collections filled his house, condo, office and even the dance studio above his sprinkler supply shop. An accomplished ballroom dancer, Bosley and his wife won the waltz and two-step world championship in 1998 in Nashville, Tenn. Although his dancing has taken him to competitions in the Netherlands and Blackpool England, he started because, "The guy who knew how to dance got all the girls."

Photo Credit: Olivier Koning

Photos of the couple in full dance costume join the collectables on the shelves. Although he has pieces worth thousands of dollars, the military uniform framed beside his desk, circled by model B-29 bombers hanging from fishing lines, is his most treasured. The jacket was worn by Bosley's father, who worked on the bombers when he served in World War II.

"Even I'm getting to be 'antique,'" Bosley says, pointing out the collectables in his museumlike, Ward-area office. Bosley says his is the oldest in the sprinkler business, just two years shy of its 50th anniversary in Hawaii.

Time can be traced through Bosley's Hawaii license plate collection, just four plates short of completion, dating back to 1915. A working jukebox stands in the corner, "the iPod of 1946," he calls it. Antique toy trains and cars from the '30s, '40s and '50s fill the lit glass cabinets that tastefully line the walls of his office. Old movie theater seats sit three in a row facing his - you guessed it - antique roll-top desk.

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