JIM HALPERIN ON POLITICAL COLLECTIBLES

Heritage is in the process of auctioning the legendary Merrill C. Berman political collection. This seems to be a good time to ask why you collect in this category.

I guess I first became aware of the political item hobby in 1981, when I ran New England Rare Coin Auctions, before it merged with Steve Ivy’s coin company to become Heritage. NERCA handled the auction sale of what was at that time probably the best political collection that had ever come to market, the Don Warner collection. As a longtime devotee of American history, I was captivated by these campaign collectibles. I’d never seen anything like them! As objects, they were colorful and fun. Each one seemed like a portal to the electoral battles of generations past. The timing wasn’t right for me to embark on a new hobby, but over the years I often thought wistfully of the fascinating pieces in the Warner collection.

What, in your view, has most recently brought attention to this category?

In the early 1990s, the esteemed historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. was editing a two-volume series of essays by various authors dealing with each American presidential election. His co-editor, University of Pennsylvania professor of history Fred Israel, was himself a leading collector of 19th century political campaign flags, and encouraged him to visit a friend in New Jersey who had amassed one of the most comprehensive collections of campaign items from buttons to banners dating back to George Washington. Schlesinger was reportedly “blown away” by what he saw, and couldn’t stop enthusing about how important these artifacts are in illustrating and understanding our political traditions. When their book, Running for President, was published by Simon & Schuster in 1994, it was lavishly illustrated with items from the collection of that New Jersey hobbyist, David J. Frent. Those are wonderful volumes, and although long out of print can still be found for sale on the Internet, and they provide a great introduction to political items in their historical context.

So what’s attractive about this category?

The political item market exhibits some intriguing qualities for a collector/ investor like me. The historical importance of these pieces assures that there will always be demand for them. This is no passing fad like Beanie Babies! There is already a well-established collector base, anchored by the American Political Items Collectors association, founded in 1945. This organized hobby has created an orderly and stable marketplace for political collectibles. On the whole, prices have risen slowly and relatively steadily. A Cox-Roosevelt jugate button worth $2,000 in the 1970s will fetch around $25,000 today. But it has been estimated that the total annual auction sales for political items in a range of venues still total less than $10 million – such a tiny market given its obvious appeal.

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