Calm down. We aren’t talking about that kind of junk!
While on a stoop sale hunt down Kent St during the 165th Anniversary Block Party of Ascension, I met Mike, a Greenpointer who goes by the name Junk Toucher when he isn’t working his day job at MTV.
Mike had the best finds on the block. It wasn’t ordinary household junk. Mike searches long and hard and really knows what is good. He said he’s been collecting for over 20 years. He learned from the best of them. His parents, also Junk Touchers from Indiana, drop him off junk by the carload and he resells the wares on weekends at the Brooklyn Flea. He also trolls for goodies on trash night, but when I asked if he could take me on a tour he gave me the same look the mushrooms hunters give me when I asked them to show me where their secret mushrooms are, that, you can come but then I will have to kill you – look.
After being a good sport and posing with this antique dresser drawer pull moustache, he invited me upstairs to his Junk Toucher headquarters. Everywhere I looked there was something I wanted to touch.
“Its all for sale,” he said.
“What about that?” I asked pointing to a huge Audubon print I spotted in  the corner (I’m obsessed with birds.)
“If you think that is cool, check these out,” Mike said and pulled out a stack of vintage prints illustrating bovine diseases. They were mildly disturbing, brightly colored and super obscure so I naturally wanted them all!
Visit the Junk Toucher at the Brooklyn Flea on Sundays, follow him on twitter or email him: mikekuharic (at) gmail.com