The E-Sylum:  Volume 7, Number 13, March 28, 2004, Article 17

PROFILE: JIM HALPERIN

  On Friday, March 19, 2004, The Dallas Morning News
  published a profile of E-Sylum subscriber Jim Halperin
  of Heritage.

  "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.

  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."

  "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."

  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."

  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."

  "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."
Full Story

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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