Ray Knox still owns and occasionally rides the custom-made French bicycle that he pedaled from Paris to Athens in 1984, solo, when he was 25.

A floor-standing 1940 Philco radio given to him by his grandfather, an electrical engineer with patents for work on televisions, fluorescent lights and rocket guidance systems, still works and is displayed in his home’s hallway. Behind his desk, Mr. Knox, 54, keeps the tool and die maker’s chest that belonged to his father, Horace F. Knox, who was also a World War II Navy pilot and later went into real estate.

Parked on Mr. Knox’s semicircular driveway on a sunny March day was another personal treasure in his life for many years, a 1966 Cadillac Fleetwood Sixty Special.

The 19-foot-long luxury sedan originally belonged to the Curries, an older couple who lived next door when he was growing up in Glen Ridge, N.J., a small suburb south of Montclair and one of the few American towns that still use gas street lamps.