There's a full page article in the Dallas Morning News on Jim Halperin with many interesting facts n
ANACONDA
Posts: 4,692 ✭
A photo of him appears on the first page (isn't that cool!). I would reproduce it here but i'm tied up until Sunday night - if someone reminds me with a PM, i'll reproduce the article or if someone from Dallas wants to do it, go for it.
Or if one of you computer savy persons wants to look for a copy of it on the internet, cool. Anyways.....
adrian
Or if one of you computer savy persons wants to look for a copy of it on the internet, cool. Anyways.....
adrian
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High profile: James Halperin
04:31 PM CST on Friday, March 19, 2004
By HECTOR CANTU / The Dallas Morning News
How does a 15-year-old end up with a secretary, 30 part-time employees and $100,000 in the bank?
For the answer, go to James Halperin, co-chairman of the board of Dallas-based Heritage Galleries & Auctioneers.Thirty-six years ago, as a teenager growing up in Massachusetts, Mr. Halperin had his own mail- order business. A very successful mail-order business.
JAMES LEWIS HALPERIN
Date and place of birth:
Oct. 31, 1952, Boston
Family: Wife, Gayle; sons David, 12, and Michael, 8
My heroes are: My parents, my wife, George Washington, Warren Buffett, Stan Lee
My trademark expression: The best way to predict which children will be most successful in life is to offer them one cookie today or two cookies tomorrow. The ones who choose two cookies tomorrow usually flourish.
My worst habit is: E-mail
My best asset is: A willingness to take the long-term view
Behind my back, people say: "He's way too intense."
Guests at my fantasy dinner party would be: My great-great-great-grandchildren, as adults
I'm happiest when I'm: Working toward a goal
If I could change one thing about myself: I'd be more witty. If I could change two things, I'd also be thinner.
I regret: Mostly the things I never said
Very few know that: Not much. I'm an open book.
"I had ads in magazines like Popular Mechanics and Popular Science," Mr. Halperin says. "They weren't original ideas. I just targeted people trying to make money at home. Eventually, I hit on an idea that worked."
Told they could join a sales network for a small fee – between $4 and $10 – people began sending in money.
"Jim was the post office's largest customer in our town," says his father, Edward Halperin, 78, now of Atlantis, Fla. "They would have sacks and sacks of mail for him."
Jim needed help with the workload, so he hired neighborhood kids to open envelopes and fill orders. A secretary kept things organized and drove Jim around town. He was, after all, still too young for a driver's license. At one point, Jim's bank account contained more than $100,000.
Then a postal inspector knocked on the family's door.
Jim's ad was misleading. His "sales partners" weren't making any money. But Jim still had all of theirs. A deal was struck. If Jim refunded his customers' money, charges would not be pursued.
"My dad sat me down and explained how I had to refund all the money and shut down the business, but I saw the wisdom in that," Mr. Halperin says.
He jumps immediately to his next thought.
"I got early acceptance to Harvard. I guess they thought I was their kind of guy."
Still in sales
Now 51, James Halperin sells stuff. Incredibly collectible stuff. Rare coins, currency, movie posters, comic books, comic book art, illustrations, and entertainment, music and political memorabilia.
Heritage Galleries & Auctioneers is the world's largest auctioneer of coins and collectibles. Annual sales at the company are past the $200 million mark. Mr. Halperin deals with some of the world's most famous artists and most serious collectors – such as actor Nicolas Cage, whose comics the company auctioned in 2002.
Last month, the firm settled into a new high-rise office on Maple Avenue, overlooking Oak Lawn.
"We'll be adding sports cards and memorabilia this year, and antiques and fine art," says Mr. Halperin. The company he co-founded with partner Steve Ivy is becoming a full-blown auction house.
Sure, he says, London-based Christie's International and Sotheby's of New York are the major players in the auction business. "But," he adds with a grin, "nothing lasts forever."
Jim, says dad Edward, has been thinking big for most of his life. And he's been very good at it – even if he learned some lessons the hard way.
"As a boy, he started all kinds of businesses," says his father. "He put together a circus for the neighborhood kids, he put on science shows, he sold comic books."
Entrepreneurship ran in the family. The elder Halperin, in the early 1950s, owned a promotional products company in Boston. His factory made items – pens, calendars, key chains, ice scrapers – that companies gave to customers and clients.
"I wanted to be like my dad," James Halperin says. "People trusted him."
Eventually, the elder Halperin sold the business. He still remembers breaking the news to his family at mealtime. James was 11.
"Jim was looking at me," says Edward Halperin, "and he put his fork down and he said, 'What do you mean you sold my business? I was planning to become president of that company. Now I have to start my own business to be president of that company.' "
After the mail-order catastrophe, James opened a coin and stamp shop in Cochituate, Mass.
"He was so smart and had really good values dealing with people," says his father.
During a coin show in 1968, Mr. Halperin met Mr. Ivy, a Fort Worth native with his own coin company, Steve Ivy Rare Coin Co., in downtown Dallas.
"At that point he was 15 or 16 years old," recalls Mr. Ivy. "He was clearly very bright. We just hit it off."
When the coin business nose-dived in the early 1980s, both men were in similar situations, trying to survive in a business they both loved. Their friendship turned into a business proposition, and their companies merged.
"I told Jim that Dallas was an attractive city for a business," says Mr. Ivy, "and the weather was a lot better than back East. He agreed."
The auction man
At Heritage Galleries & Auctioneers, the staff speeds through items up for sale at a virtual auction. Bids are being taken online and by phone.
A painting of John F. Kennedy by presidential portrait artist Louis Lupas will sell for $9,000. A copy of Mad magazine No. 1 goes for $32,200.
"I'm horrible at auctions," Mr. Halperin says during a break. "I'm definitely the guy you want at a charity auction. I always get caught up in the moment."
At charity auctions, Mr. Halperin doesn't buy collectibles. He's looking for experiences. He has made winning bids for lunches with celebrities such as Warren Buffett, Oprah Winfrey and Spider-Man creator Stan Lee. "It's cost me probably a quarter-million dollars in the last five years," he says.
But there have been returns.
After meeting Mr. Lee – who also created classic Marvel Comics heroes such as the Hulk, Fantastic Four and X-Men – Mr. Halperin organized an auction of comics from Mr. Lee's private collection. The men are now friends.
"Jim is a very competent, intelligent, interesting guy and a very honorable and honest guy," says Mr. Lee. "He's one of my favorite people, and you don't make many new friends past middle age."
Back at the auction, a preliminary sketch by Alberto Vargas for a 1960s Playboy magazine cover is up for sale.
Just as the sketch goes up for bid, the connection with a collector who's been waiting on the phone is lost. The staff frantically redials the man's number, but the call is not getting through.
"Why do we only have one phone number for this guy?" Mr. Halperin asks out loud. "Call the operator and say you have an emergency."
The staff will try everything they can to get the collector back on the phone. "We don't want people to get frustrated and maybe stop collecting," Mr. Halperin says. "We can't have that."
After 15 minutes, the collector does not call back. The staff looks at Mr. Halperin. He makes a decision. The auction continues without the caller. The sketch is sold.
Mr. Halperin is not happy.
Home museum
"Are you really selling the Frazetta painting?" David Halperin asks shortly after his dad enters the family game room. The 12-year-old continues playing a video game on a big-screen TV, waiting for his dad's answer.
To David's right, hanging on the wall, is an oil painting by the legendary fantasy and adventure illustrator Frank Frazetta.
"Can we keep it?" David asks.
"No," Mr. Halperin says.
"Why not?" David says calmly, still punching buttons on his game controller.
"Because it's going to sell for maybe $150,000," his dad says.
Mr. Halperin's University Park home is practically a pop art museum. Walls are covered with original art from some of the world's most famous cartoonists and illustrators.
There's work by legendary Mad magazine artists Bill Elder, Don Martin and Jack Davis. There's original art by comic-book masters Robert Crumb and Al Williamson. And original comic-book covers from Spider-Man, Mad, American Splendor and the classic 1950s EC comic Weird Fantasy.
It's a comic fan's dream playroom – appropriate for a man who published his own comics and fanzines on a duplicator machine as a youth. "I read comics and Mad magazines for several years from age 8 to 12," he says. "In fact, I practically learned how to read by reading comics. I spent all my spare funds on comics."
Downstairs, Harriet Frishmuth sculptures stand over the fireplace. Nearby are paintings by Thomas Moran and Maxfield Parrish. Hanging over the kitchen sink is a mobile made by Mr. Crumb, considered by many the father of underground comics.
Mr. Halperin doesn't mind being surrounded by his work. A job, he says, is something you should enjoy. It's a lesson he hopes to impart on his children.
"It's important to find a vocation where you don't trudge to work every day," he says. "I wake up and go, 'Oh, boy! I can't wait,' and that's how I want them to feel."
His own books
About 10 years ago, Mr. Halperin found another vocation: writing.
Between his company and family life, Mr. Halperin has written two novels, The First Immortal and The Truth Machine, futuristic thrillers, published by Del Rey, that explore truth and lies.
"I was never much of a writer, I was always a math guy," Mr. Halperin says, "and so writing a novel seemed like an interesting challenge."
"Creative people don't think as businessmen, and vice versa," says Mr. Lee.
"But Jim is arguably one of the best businessmen around and a really fine writer. So I'm jealous as hell."
Already, son Michael, 8, shows signs of being artistic. And David wants to be a businessman. "He's thinking of all kinds of schemes for when he's older," Mr. Halperin says. "He wants to build flying cars, futuristic cities. He has all kinds of ambitions.
"They each have some of my characteristics, of course, but mostly they are entirely different people," he says.
"And I wouldn't want it any other way."
E-mail hcantu@dallasnews.com
NOTE: No trees were killed in the sending of this message. However, a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
Type collector since 1981
Current focus 1855 date type set
Joe
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Come on Beth Deisher, we need an illuminating full report on one of the most recognised numismatists of our time.
I never met the man, but he seems to be a controlling force in the hobby !!!!!!!!!!!