Retiree merges passion for collecting cigar boxes with helping Walter Reed

Bob Schapiro explained how he arrived at his latest obsession two years ago.

"It was a day like today: hot," said the 92-year-old. "I was walking down the street and I passed a cigar store."

Bob doesn't smoke -- "Why take a poisonous plant and rub it on your lungs?" he said -- but the store was nicely air-conditioned, a respite from the heat. Inside, Bob fell in love.

"They were so handsomely made," he said, not of the cigars -- the Cohibas and Montecristos -- but of the boxes the cigars came in.

Some were glossily varnished, with dovetail joints and beautiful brass hinges. Others were slightly rough to the touch, their wood aromatic and infused with the spicy smell of tobacco. Some had the name of their contents stamped in gold, others had the name burned into the wood. They were like tiny reliquaries.

The boxes said hello to Bob.

"There are three rules of collecting," said Bob, who owned a Long Island antique shop for decades and is thus qualified to list them. "Number one: Don't buy it unless it says hello to you. Number two: Good stuff gets better. Garbage remains garbage forever. And number three: Buy it when you see it."

Bob bought a few boxes. Then a few more. It was a process he'd first undergone as a child in Manhattan. "You start out as a kid living in New York, you collect marbles," he said. "Marbles are one of the few games you can play in the street. Then you collect stamps and coins."

When he got older, Bob graduated to books. "Limited-edition Bibles," he said. "When that collection started to take over the house like the boxes here, I sold it. Did quite well."

The cigar boxes -- as many as 400 at one point, Bob estimates -- haven't quite taken over his one-bedroom apartment, but they have become a dominant part of its decor, stacked atop one another on shelves, leaning against the wall in his bedroom, crowding his nightstand. But they don't look out of place.

"There's no such thing as too much stuff," Bob said. His walls are covered with paintings, the horizontal surfaces are adorned with clocks, plates, statues, bronzes. In his living room, the gaze from a Japanese Kabuki mask intersects that of a severe-looking bust, a reddish figure with a scowling face.

"That's Tecumseh," Bob said. "That I bought from a house in Sag Harbor. They bought it from a cigar store. People try to buy it, but I won't sell it. He's my friend."