Dating from pre-electricity days, the cane offered a pop-up candle when a light was needed. “And here’s my baby,” he said, plucking another and lifting a cap atop its handle, where matches were stored. “Every profession had its cane,” Greenberg said, selecting a photographer’s walking stick that neatly converted into a tripod. It was part of his job.” How else, he asked, could a body be accurately measured for a coffin? “It’s an undertaker’s cane,” Greenberg said. A measuring stick smoothly slid from the handle.
“Here’s one of my favorites,” he said, lifting a cane from a cluster standing outside his second-floor den. “Everything represents what a person was interested in,” Greenberg said, demonstrating an Italian walking stick that converted to a 15-foot fishing pole, and another cane that opened into a violin, complete with bow. flag with 36 stars, possibly dating back to 1864 women’s canes, one holding perfume, another with a manicure set in the handle and a doctor’s cane containing a thermometer. “It would be comparable to any in the country,” he said.Ĭanes of every persuasion are on display throughout Greenberg’s home, including:Ī fruit poacher’s cane with a claw to neatly pilfer a delicacy from a tree canes with binoculars and telescopes mounted on their brass handles a blowgun cane a Civil War cane with silver buttons from a Confederate uniform a cane containing a fragile U.S. The quality of his collection is imposing, according to Mark Fontaine, owner of the Boserup House of Canes in Westwood, an establishment with an international cane clientele. Great Britain is often on his itinerary, he added, because it’s a cane collector’s paradise. “I’m a cane searcher, wherever I go,” Greenberg said.
Since then, he’s amassed about 250 distinctive walking sticks. Greenberg has been collecting canes since he was 12 years old, when his grandfather presented him with a Malaccan stick crowned with the carved head of a greyhound.
That might explain why Greenberg, 65, retired owner of a chain of women’s apparel stores, and Bernstein, 49, a television producer and entertainment industry agent, don’t know each other, although they live only a few miles apart-Greenberg in Hancock Park, Bernstein on the edge of Beverly Hills. And no organizations exist to bring them together. Their precious staffs are worth a small fortune, so they keep them well-guarded. In their separate collections, Greenberg and Bernstein have more than 600 canes-two of the most elaborate assemblages of walking sticks in the country.Ĭane collectors tend to be a private lot.
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