CINCINNATI, Ohio – Gerry Motl graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1968.

• Navy Man collected Lucky Bag yearbooks from 1894 to 1995
• Found first book at an antique store and paid $5
• Turned collection over to the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County

He served in the U.S. Navy until 1973, making stops in Nevada, Idaho, California, Hawaii, and other places. He became certified to serve on a nuclear submarine and eventually spent time on the U.S.S. James Monroe.

After he left the U.S. Navy in 1973, Motl and his wife relocated to Gaithersburg, Maryland, near the Naval Academy in Annapolis.

“It was in Annapolis in an antique store on Maryland Avenue that I found a 1905 Lucky Bag,” said Motl in an interview with Spectrum News 1 in the Cincinnati Room of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County.

Lucky Bag is the name of the yearbook published by the Naval Academy. Soon, after finding that first book for $5, the sailor began a decades-long hunt for other Lucky Bags.

“[I] collected very actively for 20 years. Searching for them, auctions, donations, all sorts of sources to collect them.”

Motl estimates he spent $2,000 to $3,000 finding various yearbooks. Several of the books, however, were donated to him.

“Periodically, in Shipmate Magazine, which was the Naval Academy Alumni Magazine, you'd see little notices: Lucky Bag available. Normally, it was a widow who's husband had died and didn't know what to do with it. So I collected them that way. When eBay opened up many years later you could purchase them on eBay.”

Motl's collection ended up featuring Lucky Bags from 1894, the first year it was published, to 1995. He stopped collecting the books after he and his wife downsized and, frankly, ran out of room.

“I'd never planned on parting with them. It only became as we got older, had too much stuff, and the kids aren't as interested in the Lucky Bags as I was, that I was interested in finding a home. And that didn't mean selling them, that meant taking care of the collection. And that's where Chris came in and I'm very happy we got together.”

Chris Smith is a Reference Librarian with the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. Smith struck up a relationship with Motl and soon the collection was turned over to the library for preservation.

And it's a big collection – not just in volume, but weight. Each Lucky Bag book can weigh up to eight pounds. They're also tall and contain hundreds of pages. Smith said Motl's collection features about 115 books covering 101 years. Some Naval classes were big enough that the Lucky Bags are two volumes.

Motl said he hopes his collection, now being preserved by the library, will be useful for generations of people curious about the Naval Academy.

“People who are interested in Naval history, it's a source of information there. Sports. Perhaps relatives or people they are aware of they want to see their graduation biography. People who are interested in going to the Naval Academy. So a lot of people have the potential to be interested in these Lucky Bags.”

Smith believes it's the largest single donation of books to the library. He also thinks it's the largest collection of Lucky Bags outside of the Naval Academy.

The Public Library of Hamilton and Cincinnati will host its 65^th Annual Veterans Day Commemoration on Monday. The event starts at 10:45 a.m. at the downtown branch and will feature keynote speaker Bob Hamilton, a veteran of both the Vietnam War and Desert Storm. It will also feature patriotic music, local veterans groups, and refreshments. Attending veterans will get a commemorative keepsake.

Motl will also be in attendance and the library staff will have his collection available for easy viewing.

The Lucky Bags are always available to the public. The 1894 to 1910 books are kept in the Cincinnati Room and the 1911 to 2006 books are kept on the second floor. Smith is working to find books from 2007 to 2019 to make the collection complete.

Prior to Motl, the library only have seven Lucky Bags.

Smith is also working to add a lot of Motl's notes and letters over the years to the collection. And some books contain notes and documents that were placed in the books by the original owner when given to Motl.