Meet Tom Frampton.

He's a tough man to keep up with.

We're going to go around the other side There's a lot in here.

Where are we?

Where are we?

Not only is he the president of the Antique Fan Collectors Museum.

He's also the founder and chairman of Fanimation, the Zionsville Company that houses it.

He's got a story for almost every fan in this collection.

these fans up here that are upside down are belt driven.

Trust me.

The man is a walking wealth of knowledge.

Fans presumably started on factory room floors Fans presumably started on factory room floors because you did have the shafts and mechanical apparatus driving your equipment down below.

So it's just real easy to run a belt off to a fan.

There are more than 2000 antique ceiling and desk fans in this museum, all of them owned by over 50 different collectors, including Tom.

Every say fifth sewing machine would have a fan on it cooling the people down the line.

You wouldn't be alone if you never knew that this many different types of fans were ever made.

prior to World War two, there were 600 different manufacturers of fans of one sort or another.

one of the easiest, consumer products you can make as a motor manufacturer is a fan.

You just slap a blade on it It was the first or the second household appliance after the lightbulb.

When it comes to distinctive decor, you can see why he's a bit more fond of some fan blades compared to others.

fans used to be a piece of art.

you looked at the early 1900s.

Beautiful castings, brass blades, nice cages.

Then you come up to the 50s and 60s and it's sheet metal and plastic.

All the character went away.

Character like the kind you see in this incredibly rare 100 year old Italian fan.

Its motor literally mounted on Atlas himself.

Tom wasn't just interested in trying to own this particular piece.

He wanted to know why something looked very odd about it.

The one I had seen I noticed the motor fit kind of funny in the grip of Atlas, He suspected that the Little Titan wasn't originally designed for this, That the company had repurposed some older statue to make a new mold, And a new base for this fan.

It made me wonder if it actually was originally a lamp.

So not only did Tom want to find this fan, he wanted to know where that burly base originally came from.

finally, after many years and many miles traveling the globe, He heard a tip in Vietnam about one specific little oil lamp.

when I got back to my hotel, I googled Atlas oil lamp, something like that, and I found one in London.

And this sat in the arms of Atlas.

Tom found out that the company that made the fan, Marelli got a hold of a lamp just like this, which was made by a second company.

Marelli then used this base to make their fan.

Proving his hunch correct, Tom went ahead and combined all the parts that he had.

The Marelli fan and the base of the lamp.

Just to make a truly one of a kind piece.

And this is what Marelli must have done, is we had to bring the arms in.

Yeah, that's a six inch diameter, and this is about a four inch diameter.

So we had to bend the arms and to grip the motor.

Now, this museum doesn't just house random fans from around the globe.

Many of them started spinning right here in our own state.

Tom had this display made to show how older fans didn't need fuel or even electricity to run.

these are examples of pedestal fans.

They're actually water powered.

Once moving water simulated here with the hand crank was piped over to the small brown motor.

fans and other machinery could be powered off of its pulleys.

The beauty of this fan was lost because you come in and you'd see the fans running.

You have no idea, what was powering it.

Made nearby in Indianapolis.

The specialty manufacturing company also made smaller fans.

You could run right at your desk after you called the local plumber.

It was short lived because it was terrible use of water.

And electric motors finally took over.

And what a takeover it was.

There were fan manufacturers all over Indiana.

Logansport had their own factory.

Kokomo had another.

There was even a company in Fort Wayne that added their own fiery little touch.

Fort Wayne Electric Works made, fans for telephone booths, just on the two examples we have here, The guy was obviously into dragons.

When Tom started adding more and more fans to this collection, he needed someone to show these particular pieces a little TLC.

So he brought in this man, retired firefighter Kim Frank.

he lived down the street here, and he drove by and saw something about a fan company and came in and introduced himself.

And then he asked me if I restored fans for other people and I told him me yeah.

I've been doing his work ever since.

he knows the mechanics of the vans.

He knows the electronics, but he's a fabulous finisher.

Kim did contract worked for ten years before officially taking a role here at Fanimation.

He's been restoring fans in the shop and working in the warehouse since 2016.

The best thing about working here is nobody knew what I was doing.

So, It just wasn't one brand or one style of fan.

You can find Kim's handiwork on around a quarter in the fans in this museum's collection.

No joke.

He thinks it's around 500 fans.

some of the fans Kim worked on literally needed to be paid before they would even work.

about 1914, the National Prepayment Fan Company was started in Vincennes, Indiana.

this was a company set up to sell fans for use in hotel rooms.

So you operated it sort of like a vending machine route.

So if you put a nickel in that, you can put up to eight nickels in it so you can get a whole evening of comfort A collector himself, Kim takes pride in a very particular type of fan.

One that's noticeably skinnier.

What we've got here is a 1901 General Electric.

It's more collectively is referred to as a pancake fan.

And the pancakes ran from 1894 through 1908.

Calling himself the GE pancake Guy.

He's collected over 90 General Electric fans.

Kim even remembers how he felt when he saw that very first fan.

just struck a chord with me all brass, cast iron weighs about 22 pounds.

Just a nice, heavy fan.

And like I said, they're easy to work on, that makes it easy for me.

its the little tidbits like that that really helped make this museum unique.

I mean, if somebody told me 26 years ago I'd be doing this, I'd laughed them right out into the street.

It's like, are you out of your mind?

Collect fans?

Nah.

If you have any interest in antiques and collectibles, You're going to find visiting museum very satisfying.

It's a great pick up line for a women.

Hey, I collect fans.

Yeah.

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