Pieces of the past fill the lives of Michael Kulik, Trent Litten, John O’Connell and Paul Wilson.

Three of the men are in the music business. They sell new guitars and accessories, such as amplifiers; they collect and sell old. Wilson is so finicky about his vintage guitars that they don’t come out of storage in the winter – dry heat can damage the wood. These guys are players, too, who can enjoy their investments as they appreciate in value.

Kulik is a train man – Milwaukee Road trains, to be specific. The now defunct line played a key role in his youth and those memories can be triggered by a glance around his office at Davis Brown Law Firm. His hobby is a passion, one that carries over to his advocacy for a return of passenger rail service to Central Iowa.

The train’s left the station, but the memories linger

Michael Kulik spent the first years of his life in the Milwaukee Road depot in Grafton, between Mason City and the Minnesota border.

His father was a depot agent, and the family of five lived on the second floor of the depot. For three summers, Kulik was a relief agent, something of a vacation fill-in across the Milwaukee Road line, including Chicago’s Union Station.

“I would drive to a depot with a cot and stay for the week,” he said.

These days, Kulik is a senior partner at the Davis Brown law firm. Trains are still on his mind.

Replicas fill one wall of his 13th-floor office. A telegraph device reminds him of the days he spent practicing telegraphy – telephones were not allowed in the depot.

“I never did master it,” he said.

It is safe to say that memories of the Milwaukee Road have mastered Kulik.

A train board from the Ruthven, Iowa, depot suggests that the trains were running on time at some point prior to 1929 – the exact date isn’t certain.

He has photos of the restored depot where he grew up. He has pictures of the famous Milwaukee Road Hiawatha, a streamliner that could reach speeds of more than 90 mph on the run between Chicago and Milwaukee.

For office guests, he has a depot bench. He has a scaled replica of the Grafton depot that was made by a friend.

At home, he has a railroad motor car (also called a speeder or put-put) that he hauls across the country and operates on old tracks.

And there are the boxes of china, place settings, silver water pitchers and napkin holders, all created for the Milwaukee Road. He has lap boards and decks of cards that were given to children to play with on the boards as they passed the time on a railroad journey. He has porcelain signs and depot clocks and brass humidors.

Kulik estimates that he has every calendar from every month and every year that the Milwaukee Road existed. He has the company’s annual reports, some from the 19th century with onion skin maps tracing the routes of the Milwaukee Road and its predecessors.

The railroad operated under a variety of names until 1928, when it was formally renamed the Milwaukee Road. In 1986, its name disappeared into a merger with the Soo Line Corp.

At least some of his enthusiasm has infected his sons, who are beginning to adorn their homes with Milwaukee Road artifacts.

His passion for collecting all things Milwaukee Road “just naturally occurred,” Kulik said.

In addition to enjoying fond memories, Kulik firmly believes that the development of passenger rail would be good for the state economy and the environment.

He is a member of the Greater Des Moines Partnership’s 2030 Transit Task Force.

“Passenger rail service across Central Iowa is important and essential to the citizens of Iowa,” Kulik said.

Good wood

Paul Wilson has an ear for good wood, the kind found on acoustic guitars of all price ranges.

“I can find a $300 classical guitar that is 80 percent as good as a $10,000 classical guitar,” Wilson said recently in a showroom at his Ye Olde Guitar Shoppe in Urbandale, where he sells classical guitars in both price ranges.

The pricey ones are kept in their cases. As for the priciest one of all, a classical guitar made of cypress and cedar by master builder Iganacio Fleta, doesn’t come out of storage in the winter, when the humidity is low.

That guitar has a value in the six-figure range. It is a one-of-a-kind instrument built by a renowned luthier who died in 1977. An online clearinghouse for classical guitars urges anyone interested in buying a Fleta to inquire about cost, while it lists prices up to $20,000 for guitars from other builders.

It is part of Wilson’s personal collection that he began to assemble in the 1970s, during the days when he was wrapping up a decade-long stint that began when he was part of the “great folk music scare” of the 1960s, evolved to rock and roll – he was inducted into the Iowa Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2009 – and led him to classical music, which “never goes out of style.”

He opened Ye Olde Guitar Shoppe in 1977, and gained a reputation for bringing highly sought acoustic guitars into the Greater Des Moines market. The shop sells a range of acoustic and electric guitars these days, with much of the focus on imported models in the $300 price range that are a guitar retailer’s bread and butter.

However, it is not unusual to find him tapering the bridge on an $8,000 nylon string classical guitar made of exotic woods at the hands of a master craftsman. He said that Ye Olde Guitar Shoppe is one of a dozen or so outlets in the country for high-end classical guitars.

Wilson is a master of the classical guitar. He studied under the late Andres Segovia and selected the instruments the world-renowned guitarist played during his annual tours of the United States.

“We discovered that I had a real knack for picking out the best guitars,” Wilson said.

He has managed to pick out classic examples of acoustic and electric guitars for his collection.Among his guitars is a 1953 Les Paul Standard manufactured by Gibson Guitar Corp. The guitar also is called the “gold top,” because, as the moniker suggests, the maple top is finished in gold.

He said its value has declined during a downturn in the vintage market, but remains in the “mid-five-figure” range.

Gibson is part of a trinity of electric guitar manufacturers that have defined the instrument. It joins company with Fender Musical Instruments Corp. and Fred Gretsch Enterprises Inc. Others have factored into the history of the instrument, but collectors search primarily for examples from the top three.

An online service that tracks prices of historic Gibson guitars said that gold tops manufactured between 1952 and 1955 have seen their value increase 39 percent a year since 2000. According to the service, those models aren’t the most desirable examples of the style. Les Paul gold tops built between 1957 and 1958 had an estimated value of $130,000 to $175,000 in 2007.

Trent Litten, who owns Professional Music Center in Clive, estimates that the value of collectible guitars has declined up to 30 percent, depending on the model, since the Great Recession struck in 2008.

Like Wilson, Litten began collecting guitars because of his involvement with the music business, first as a bass player in a jazz band. He bought his first vintage guitar when he was 18. It was a 1957 Fender Stratocaster and came from a shop in Columbus, Ohio.

“They weren’t considered vintage when I first started buying them,” Litten said.

Since that time, Litten’s collection has grown to “hundreds” of guitars, mostly electric guitars and most of those manufactured by Fender or Gibson.

Litten takes a strategic view to collecting, one that focuses on price points and profit margins, much the same as his approach to running his business.

Both Litten and Wilson said that with the market down, now is a good time to buy.

One day last week, Litten was in the process of paying $18,000 for a 1960 Fender Stratocaster that would have sold upwards of $25,000 just a few years ago.

“Now’s the time to be optimistic,” he said. “You should buy when the market is down, because it is certain to rebound.”

Litten has been following the vintage guitar market as both a collector and retailer since 1991, when he opened Last Chance Guitars in Des Moines with John O’Connell.

That partnership ended when Litten decided that if he wanted to continue selling guitars, he needed to enlarge his business model to include new instruments.

“As a collector, I stayed in it, but as a businessman I wanted out of it,” he said. “I’m still an enthusiast and collector outside the shop. My level of interest in collecting far exceeds most people. Some people invest in real estate, some people invest in art; I invest in guitars because it’s in my comfort zone.”

Litten’s former business partner, O’Connell, wanted a simpler business plan.

O’Connell operates Crazyhorse Guitars in the Drake University neighborhood, occupying the same building that was home to Last Chance Guitars.

His focus is on acoustic instruments, including high-end guitars by C.F. Martin and Co. Inc., which traces its roots to the 19th century and small-body parlor guitars. The company also produced the guitars of choice for country and bluegrass musicians and competed with Gibson in the acoustic market.

It is not unusual to see Martin guitars built prior to World War II priced at a “discount” of $50,000, A Gibson mandolin built the same day and in the same style as the mandolin played by bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe is listed at $250,000 by a Michigan dealer in vintage instruments.

At the moment, O’Connell’s collection might be a little more modest. He keeps a 1954 Martin D-18 around the shop. It has a value of between $7,500 and $8,000, but it isn’t for sale.

“I’ll never sell it,” O’Connell said.

He recently acquired a 1953 Gibson SJ 200 for $5,400 and will price it at $12,000 after some needed restoration work. The guitar was first introduced in the 1930s as the company’s premier flattop.

O’Connell, Litten and Wilson are convinced that vintage guitars will escalate in value after the economy recovers.

“They aren’t making any more old guitars,” Wilson said.