Volvo P 1800 Keys Discovered

It was the last Saturday of March , I had taken a quick day trip to the 06037 region of Southern New England , in other words Berlin , Connecticut. A quick visit to my Aunt & Uncle. While there near Webster Ridge area I discovered a Garage Sale. I stopped by because as a teenager I knew the couple who lived there. The husband now gone a couple of yrs and his widow thinning out her life as she prepares for her early 80's and probably selling her home. Her older daughter Susan was helping & after a few moments she remembered me. I have not seen her in over 35 yrs so I felt slightly honored. Anyway I looked around just to be polite. Suddenly in a bowl of odds & ends I spotted them. I walked over & picked them up. Of course , Paul once owned a Volvo P1800 sports car. It all came back to me , it was red , black interior. The car of Roger Moore when he played The Saint on television. Simon Templar's car. I held the keys in my hand , looked at them and his daughter commented "oh the Volvo , Dad's mid-life crisis car." Atleast that is what she and her Mom called it. He bought new in 1968 , sold it in 1984 after many good yrs of service , later sold in the late 80's to a College Student who racked it up on the Berlin Turnpike late at night just south of Hartford. Mores the pity. I consider these cars a work of art. So of course I had found my artifact for the day , purchased them for a nominal cost and was soon after a quick good by to Aunt & Uncle off for home in the late afternoon........On the way back home I once took them out of my pocket , felt their presence in my hand looked them over again. One of the definitions of man is that he can make and use tools. We don't often think of keys as tools often but they are. They are a gateway tool for doing other things. When it comes to car keys , a defining number of things. Memories came back of my friend Ron's brothers 1800. It was Safari Yellow. He would leave it at his parents house over many summer weekends. We would work on it , keep it going , of course use it. That is where I fell in love with this model. So did Kunicki. There was just something about it , it's rareness , it's handling , it looks. It also had odd little touches , a switch on the dash activated an electronic 5th gear as an example. One memory I have is a dark and stormy late summer night in 1970. We were returning from a club called The Barrel in Rensselaer , NY. He were heading over the old grooved iron bridge towards the suburb of East Greenbush. The bridge was slick , we went into a skid on the uneven grooves. For a moment Ron took his hands off the wheel and that is all it took , the car pulled itself from the skid. Both of us somewhat intoxicated broke into a dark laughter. Saved by engineering......anyways other car related memories came flooding back back but another time. After a couple of days I traveled over to one of my research sources , Chardonas the Locksmith in Island Park. Given enough time and sometimes a fee arrangement some research is done. He went into the computer and one of his blank key books. The ignition key serial # 214315 was madein the 60's era and was smaller than most American car keys. The smallest key was a glove compartment key. Stamped made in England and Union. I was not sure about this key but glove compartment keys were apparently much more common than today. The last key a trunk key similar but different from the ignition key. The Volvo key fob was of the older variety Volvo logo. My research payment was to have a key made , costing me a hefty $8.70. The 1800 hundred blank alone took 10 minutes to find. Anyway , was now sure they were genuine. So , I had a memory but not the car. As it so happened , I did not add this to as my wife calls it my pile of junk. What I call artifacts. In the Indiana Jones , movie the Last Crusade , Jones states of an artifact that he is trying to obtain "it belongs in a museum". Kunicki's birthday is in March and so a couple of days later he received an unusual gift. By the way he is used to getting unusual things from me in the mail from around the world. I suspect this was one of his favorites , as he has the ignition & glove compartment key on his current key chain. So they found a good home that has a certain appreciation for them. Automotive memories can be some of the best.