Every morning I make a pot of coffee, pour a cup and take it into my office, where it gets carefully placed on my Trini Triggs “Straight Tequila” leather coaster, a promo item provided (in a handy set of four) by the label MCG Curb in 1998. Yes, artists like Triggs who had brief careers may be only a distant memory, but many of the promo items labels created to hype them live on, sometimes even long after the labels themselves.

It was with considerable regret that I tossed my Dixie Chicks “Fly” paper airplane, my Arista Nashville juggle balls, and dozens of similar promo items when I left Billboard in 2006, after 17 years of accumulating such items there from record labels, radio networks and other music companies. But seeing Triggs’ name on my well-worn coaster every day inspired some outreach to the industry to see what other promo items people have actually held onto, displayed, and perhaps even treasured through the years.

Among the items most often mentioned for their continuing usefulness are household tools and various pieces of luggage provided by labels. (This might be useful information for record labels to have if any of them actually had budgets for such items anymore.) My DreamWorks Records garment bag is still in use, despite showing the effects of many hostile airport luggage carousels through the years, and my Capitol Nashville flashlight is occasionally called into service when the power goes out.

Music Row icon Charlie Monk of Monk Family Music Group and Sirius XM Radio has perhaps the oldest and best ongoing collection of promo items. Among his favorites are a Toby Keith hammer, a John Anderson jukebox, a Tammy Wynette and George Jones compact mirror and an Elvis Presley Christmas ornament. “I had Brad Paisley Hershey chocolate bars,” he reports, “but I ate them and kept the wrappers.”

Who can blame him for that?

That Toby Keith claw hammer, sent to promote “How Do You Like Me Now?!” in 1999, was actually cited by several people, including KZKX Lincoln, Neb., PD Hoss Michaels and WCYK Charlottesville, Va., PD Lisa Allen, as being the most useful promo item in their collections. Allen also still uses a red Jo Dee Messina suitcase on wheels from Curb Records.

Premiere Radio Networks’ Robin Rhodes says her best-loved promo item is “the cosmetic case/travel bag I got from Lyric Street years ago. I still use it on every trip! My favorite. It will continue to remind me of them for years to come!”

WCOL Columbus, Ohio, PD John Crenshaw still has a shovel he was once given by Atlantic Records rep Kevin Young so Crenshaw could “dig a hole on the WKDD playlist for ‘Black Velvet’ by Alannah Myles” in 1989.

Mercury Records Midwest regional Charlie Dean still has the stuffed dog used to promote Giant Records artist Daron Norwood in 1995. Reports Dean, “When you smacked his bottom he sang ‘Bad Dog, No Biscuit’.” That song peaked at No. 50, but the stuffed dog plays on.

Radio and record industry veteran Jay Thomas remembers another very unusual gift. “I’m not sure where it is, but the item that sticks out most in my mind was the actual drive-in movie theater speaker sent to me for the Turner Nichols single ‘Moonlight Drive-In.’ I still think that’s the coolest. Thanks to the BNA crew of the early ’90s for that.” Sure, the song peaked at No. 51, but like the stuffed dog, the speakers live on.

Another industry vet, Robin Lightner, also once had the drive-in speaker in her collection, along with an Arista helicopter and several other things that didn’t make the cut in a move. But she’s held onto the Mercury mini turntable, which is displayed in her CD rack, and the DreamWorks travel bag.

For radio programming veteran Todd Stuart (now with the Otoe Missouria Gaming Commission), it’s a much more recent item—a Magic 8 Ball from Warner Music Group, where one of the “magic” selections instructs, “Add Blake Shelton.”

For Ryan Dobry, who spent 25 years on the air in Traverse City, Mich., it’s “the old fashioned radio with the CBS [Records] logo on the front of it. Still working great after all these years.”

For KSNI Santa Maria, Calif., PD/morning man Jay Turner, it’s the Harman Kardon Sound Sticks computer speakers, although he now can’t remember what radio network they came from. For his morning show co-host, Niki Kozak, a favorite promo item came from FOX-TV, not from a music company. It’s a skull in an evidence bag. “So cool,” she says.

Publicist Kim Fowler still uses her Mercury Nashville stadium chair as well as the follow-up gift from the same label the next year: binoculars.

Journalist Phil Sweeland can’t bear to part with his canvas bag from Country Radio Seminar-38 promoting Bob Kingsley’s syndicated show. “It literally never leaves my side, home or road,” he says.

Finally, some of my former Billboard colleagues reported in about items from their own collections, which—while not country music related—are nonetheless cool. One says her David Bowie Tin Machine statuettes are still standing tall on her bookcase after almost 20 years.

Another former colleague, Canadian journalist Larry LeBlanc, remembers getting underpants from A&M Records in the early ’70s to promote the band Chilliwack. The underwear was emblazoned with the logo “Chilliwack Has Balls,” which LeBlanc says, “raised eyebrows at my health club.”

LeBlanc also recalls MCA Records Canada sending out powdered sugar made to look like cocaine to promote the “Miami Vice” soundtrack. But he says the promo rep responsible for that was “quickly canned.”

Ah, those wacky Canadians.

Finally, two former colleagues have treasured Spinal Tap promo items including the Spinal Tap colander. “Not calendar,” one reports, tongue in cheek. “There was a mix-up with the order. [But it’s] great for draining pasta.”