LIVERMORE FALLS – When Mary Moulton moved from her house into a small apartment, she got rid of more than a thousand Halloween decorations and the decades-long display that had earned her the nickname “Ghost Lady.”

She got rid of hundreds of her bells, most of that collection.

She couldn’t part with the teapots, though.

“I love every one of them,” said Moulton, 84.

They settled into the new place too, on white shelves built by a friend’s husband. Her 175 teapots range from a humble bean pot-style to ornate china trimmed in gold with flowers and vines. She started the collection in the 1950s. One of her firsts is still her favorite: a dark pot with an Oriental dragon’s head and flames.

“Practically every one of them has been given to me,” Moulton said. “They bring back a lot of memories, they really do.”

A delicate blue and white doughnut-shaped teapot came from friends in Canada. Her sister gave her a large teapot shaped like an old-fashioned washing machine with a mother and child doing laundry on the side. A white pot with a large raised pink flower came from a 98-year-old friend.

“These I prize because she’s such a nice lady,” she said.

A red teapot painted up like a barn was rescued by Moulton at her daughter’s house. When Moulton spied it, she asked, “‘What in the world have you got a teapot for in a yard sale?’ ‘Oh my gosh, Mom, I wasn’t thinking.'”

Some of the pots are really jewelry or ring boxes, and some play music. They line the hallway and kitchen, sit on top of the TV and in the bathroom shelves. She changes them around whenever she dusts, which in the summer, is every few weeks.

All these years, she’s only gotten two look-alikes, not that she’s complaining.

“I couldn’t ever refuse a teapot,” Moulton said.