Barry Halper: Mr. Baseball Memorabilia

Hey all. Haven't posted here in a while. Just thought I would share this....

Barry Halper was the owner of the most extensive collection of baseball memorabilia. Not only that, but he owned about 1 percent of the New York Yankees, and stood as a limited partner since the 1970’s.

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He began collecting autographs as an 8-year-old hanging around the Yankees’ minor league ballpark in Newark. He went on to assemble the nation’s most acclaimed private collection of baseball memorabilia. His collection was thought of as the finest, and it amassed some 80,000 items.

His collection was displayed in the basement of his former home in Livingston. When you would ring the front doorbell of his home, you would hear a rendition of ”Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” His basement was like a small museum, including a hidden switch to a swing open panel, behind which were some of his game-worn jerseys of famous players. Many items from his collection have since turned out to have been stolen and the FBI has launched an investigation.

Some of the notable items in Halper’s collection included:

• -Ty Cobb’s 1928 autographed Philadelphia Athletics Jersey (Sold for $332,500)
  -Lou Gehrig’s last baseball glove (Sold for $387,500)
  -Cap Anson’s Chicago White Sox jersey
  -A glove from Mickey Mantle (Purchased by Billy Crystal for $239,000)
  -Mickey Mantle’s 1956 New York Yankees World Series Ring
  -1920 signed agreement selling Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox to the NY Yankees (Sold for $189,500)
  -A 1903 ticket to the first World Series
  -Lou Gehrig’s 1930’s Yankees hat
  -He once owned the uniform that Lou Gehrig wore in his 1939 farewell speech at Yankee Stadium.
  -The bat that Babe Ruth leaned on, as a cane, in the famed photograph at the stadium’s Babe Ruth Day in 1948.
  -An autograph adorning the otherwise unclad photo of DiMaggio’s former wife Marilyn Monroe in the first issue of Playboy, from 1953. One day, when DiMaggio was visiting his home, Mr. Halper showed him an original copy of the magazine. As Mr. Halper told Ira Berkow of The New York Times in 1998: “Joe said – he didn’t look too thrilled – ‘What do you want me to do with this, sign Best Wishes?’ I said, ‘No, but I’d love to have you sign it.’ He said, ‘O.K., but I don’t want anyone to see it in my lifetime.’ I promised I wouldn’t, and I haven’t.”
  -Ty Cobb’s dentures (Sold for $7475)
  -Had some 30,000 baseball cards, more than 3,000 signed baseballs, hundreds of autographed bats and more than 1,000 uniforms dating to the 1870’s.
  -Game used jerseys of: Pud Galvin, Christy Mathewson (first minor league jersey-Taunton), Cap Anson, King Kelly, Dan Brouthers, and the famed trio of Tinker/Evers/Chance. The infamous Joe Jackson was represented with jerseys from his minor league team as well as his Cleveland Indians jersey.
  -Questionnaire filled out by Jackie Robinson when he signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers’ Montreal farm team for the 1946 season, breaking the color barrier. In that document, Robinson listed his ambition in baseball: “To open doors for Negroes in Organized Ball.”
  -An uncut strip of T-206 cards with a Honus Wagner

In November 1998, the Major League Baseball commissioner’s office purchased about 20 percent of his collection, then donated the items to the Baseball Hall of Fame. In September 1999, Mr. Halper sold the bulk of his collection at a widely publicized Sotheby’s auction (“The greatest private collection of baseball memorabilia ever assembled-the Barry Halper Collection” or the “World Series of Sports Auctions”) in New York for a record-breaking $21.8 million.

Following the Sotheby’s auction, Halper remarked:

“It makes me feel so proud that my collection will be carried on by everyone who participated in the past week’s sale. I am also glad that the Hall of Fame has part of my collection where it will reside in perpetuity.”

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Sotheby’s released a three-volume book, The Barry Halper Collection of Baseball Memorabilia, that included over 1,500 color photographs of the collection, giving history for many of the items, details about Halper’s collection through the years, and a history of baseball.

“This is a collection of holy icons and sacred documents, amassed by one of the game’s high priests. This is no mere ‘baseball memorabilia.’ It is baseball’s heritage.” -Peter Golenbock

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Faced with declining health, Mr. Halper sold off his baseball collection to make an orderly payment of estate taxes. Barry Halper died at the age of 66, in 2005 due to complications from long-standing health issues. The cause was complications of diabetes, said his son Jason. He left us much too soon.



http://zellspinstripeblog.com/2010/01/0 ... morabilia/

Very cool article. Thanks for posting it.

Cool story and he definitely had some amazing stuff. The Sotheby catalogs are very cool to peruse.

Unfortunately I heard that a good chunk of the stuff the HOF bought turned out not to be legit. Obviously not knowingly sold by Halper, but further proof that even knowledgeable collectors can get duped.

Wasn't it the Halper auction that sold Billy Crystal a fake game-used Mantle glove for close to 90 grand.

George K said:

Wasn't it the Halper auction that sold Billy Crystal a fake game-used Mantle glove for close to 90 grand.

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I don't know. Have a source? All I know is that Crystal paid $239,000 for Mickey's glove.

This was talked about in the book "The Card".

Found this online: "And the problem’s not just with cards. It exists in all areas of the sports memorabilia market. The book goes into the purchase by Billy Crystal of a glove supposedly worn by Mickey Mantle, only it’s later proven that the glove was from 1960, but from 1966."

So maybe it wasn't fake, but mis-credited. There were a lot of questions about some of Halpers items. Still, he had a lot of fantastic items. He was also good friends with Mantle and DiMaggio. It looked liked those guys signed anything he had of theirs.

Yeah, you're right.You probably noticed in my post that I said many items from his collection have since turned out to have been stolen and the FBI has launched an investigation.

A lot of items are in question, but there is no doubt that he had an amazing collection.

I know he has one of these joe d chairs...pretty cool item. They go for thousands upon thousands of dollars.

Halper's collection was made into a DVD.
It also has interviews with Yankees greats who visited Halper's home, like Mickey Mantle, Billy Martin and Don Mattingly.
The DVD also has a documentary about the baseball card industry and card shows, from around 1991, which is very interesting.
You can find this DVD on eBay for about $5 which is an awesome deal.

His collection was also featured in a 1987 issue of Smithsonian magazine.

Thanks for the info. I just search ebay and I found a few of those dvd's in the $5 range. Definitely going to buy it.