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The house is available for $1.15M. The helmets? Well…

Updated August 23, 2023 - 2:52 pm

Pug Winkler has stories, and a lot of them.

“I’ve been to every state except Montana and Alaska,” said the 77-year-old Las Vegas resident. “And I’ve been to 84 countries, 85 if you count the Vatican.”

Winkler also has another story — his house at 2590 E. Viking Road in the Paradise neighborhood, east of the Strip in the University District. Winkler has his home on the market for $1.15 million, but there’s a small catch: The house is filled with college football helmets and memorabilia, literally stuffed to the brim.

“I don’t really watch the NFL,” he said. “I like watching the kids play, and I started collecting this stuff 50 years ago.”

The house, which was originally built in 1978, is 3,770 square feet with four bedrooms and three bathrooms and is lined floor to ceiling with mostly college football memorabilia. Winkler said he’s not exactly sure how much his collection is worth; however, he was able to retire from working in the television industry years ago by selling a previous collection of sports memorabilia.

Winkler originally bought the property in 2000 and is looking to relocate to a larger place.

He said he has so many memories from collecting all the memorabilia, it’s tough to pick a favorite, or favorite team, out of all of it.

“I really love them all, let’s just say that,” said Winkler, who moved from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, and is originally from New York. Winkler said there could be as many as 6,000 helmets, and an unidentifiable number of total memorabilia.

Realtor Anna Kitras, who is listing the property with Taylor Cozik, said Winkler is definitely a one-of-a-kind seller and very attached to his collection.

“We’ve had lots of interest in the house,” she said. “Investors looking to trade up, multiple families living together, multi-gen families, people looking for an investment property, people looking to do Airbnb because of the party house setting and proximity to the Las Vegas Strip, and a local swingers club looking to possibly add another location in Las Vegas.”

Kitras said they’ve also had a football memorabilia collector drive all the way from Southern California just to check out the house.

“There was another interested party that wanted the house with the collection to make it an attraction, but Pug was not open to parting with his collection. I think collectors have very emotional relationships with their collections.”

Winkler said he’s definitely an old-school guy, who likes old-school music, movies and television, and isn’t one to keep up with technology much.

“I like to talk to people in person, I’m not into playing with my thumbs if you know what I mean. I’ve never texted anybody, I’ve never emailed anybody, if I need to send an email to someone I have my son do it.”

Winkler estimates he’s been to about 75 universities, and collected a lot of the memorabilia the old-fashioned way, by meeting people, making contacts, and then developing relationships over the years.

“Now everything is online or eBay, but nothing beats going somewhere and meeting someone and hearing them tell their stories.”

Contact Patrick Blennerhassett at pblennerhassett@reviewjournal.com.

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