Items from the Halper Collection

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Posted By: paulstratton

Every time I look through this catalog I am truely amazed at the scope of his collection. It leaves me thinking "Where the hell did all this stuff end up?" and "I wish I could get one of these pieces."

The last time I looked through the books I realized I had acquired one of the items without even knowing it! So I thought it might be cool to see where some of the other items ended up.

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Posted By: Paul

My Honey Boy Heilmann and some W553s are from Halper's collection.

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Posted By: Griffins

My run of Remar sets came from the Halper collection.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Much of the Halper material has already changed hands a couple of times, so it is hard to track. Also, cards were not the collection's focus. His memorabilia was truly exceptional. I think he sold a good portion of his cards prior to the auction.

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

the E102 set from the auction and a lot of like 13-15 Old Judges including (3) Tommy McCarthy's. One other lot I can't remember.

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Posted By: fkw

I have 2 custom framed W573 uncut strips (20 cards) with the Halper Auction tags still on the back.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

I bought a few items after the auction. There was a second auction of other stuff, so some stuff from the Halper collection isn't in the main catalogs. My favorite Halper item I bought was a circa 1909 family imperial cabinet card of Smokey Joe Wood with (if I recall correctly) his mom's period handwriting on back. I bought this after the auction, but it came with the Sotheby's/Halper LOA.

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Posted By: fkw

Since I dont have a Halper catalog,

As far as cards/pins/programs

Was the Halper collection anywhere near the quality of collection Copeland auctioned in 1991???

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Posted By: paulstratton

Like Barry said the focus didn't seem to be on the cards. With all of the extraordinary pieces I think the cards flew under the radar.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

For vintage baseball memroabilia and cards, the Halper was about 5x better and larger than the Copeland in my opinion. Additionally, the Halper catalog is in color (Copeland b/w). Beyond cards, of which he had many rare ones, Halper collected lots of rare memorabilia, including game used jerseys and bats, Fatty Arbuckle's PCL contract, Ty Cobb's breakfast robe and false teeth, Joe Jackson signed ball of photo, signs, posters, photos, etc. He had game used jerseys of Cobb, Ruth, Gehrig, Foxx, DiMaggio, Mantle, etc.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Copeland had mostly high grade cards. Halper was strong in uniforms, bats, autographed pieces, photography, etc. There were some rare cards and cabinets but they represented a small part of the sale and their condition was mixed.

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Posted By: Mike

Since I collect Foxx items, I picked up an original photo of Jimmie playing ball in the Philipine Islands. He's shown striking out by the way. Oh well...maybe had been out late the night before.

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Posted By: Trae R.

Mike, I tried to help link your image for you but it says hotlinking from the net54 domain has been disabled

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Posted By: DJ

A couple of key prices realized from that famous auction (that I noted:

It should be noted that when collecting cards, Halper wasn't a "perfectionist" and condition wasn't the most important thing to him.

#797 (6) Yum Yum's w/3 HOF'ers (PR-GD)$5,462
#799 (17) N300 Mayo's (Fr-GD w/4 HOFers) $4,312
#801 (18) E107 Cards (Waddell + Flick, overall G-VG) $8,625
#819 T202 Set EX-NM (wide range of conditions) $20,700
#822 T206 Honus Wagner Famous Strip $85,000
#823 T206 (520) Nr-Complete Set (GD-EX) $20,700
#827 T206 Ty Cobb w/ Ty Cobb Back (G) $28,750
#836 (10) Plow Boys (VG-EX) w/ Gandil $3,737
#838 (24) D322 Tip Top w/ Wagner (G) $2,300
#846 1914 Baltimore News Babe Ruth (EX) $79,500
#847 (50) T216 Kottons w/ Cobb, Plank (mostly Gd) $3,450

I came away from the auction with "nada".

DJ

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Posted By: Mike

Which Mike, me ? I recently went through some changes on my system. I am still figuring things out. I'm computer illiterate anyway, which doesn't help. Any suggestions on a fix? I have never been able to scan on to the forum. Wish I could. I have many things I would like to share.

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Posted By: MVSNYC

i was at the live Halper auction at Sotheby's, it was really cool to sit in the room and see the scope of what was going past (very quickly) on the auction block...i was sitting there for the T206 Wagner Strip (many of us thought that was goin gto go for the moon, but it went cheap, IMO)...i think that was the same day Billy Crystal bought Mickey Mantle's glove for $200K+ and said he was going to jump off the balcony now...LOL.


The Halper/Sotherby's Catalog is truly a journey into the history of the game, i pull it out every so often, absolutely stunning items...his focus, mind you, wasn't on top top condition (although he had many high quality items), rather his focus was to acquire simply unique, one-of-a-kind pieces (i.e. Lou Gehrig's glove, cy young's pipe, ruth's robe, etc)...he also had the most incredible game used collection (bats, jerseys, etc)...

he was the greatest ever, i think...

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Posted By: leon

I won this in another auction but they said it was from the Halper collection and I believe it was. Under oath I must say I erased some of the pencil markings on all of the players foreheads. You can still see the markings but the card looks a little better. (boy, glad I got that off my chest...I can sleep at night again)

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Posted By: Paul

I bought my cards in the internet portion of the Halper sale. Did these even make it into the fancy catalog?

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Posted By: Judge Dred (Fred)

The Halper collection catalogs were even selling on ebay for a good amount of money for a while. There are three sets right now.

The cheapest set ends in about 3 hours:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Sothebys-ULTIMATE-BASEBALL-AUCTION-Barry-Halper_W0QQitemZ200059208330QQihZ010QQcategoryZ734 30QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

The other two are $39.95 a set + S/H. Search HALPER on ebay for the other two Halper Catalogs.

I might have a couple of extra sets but I can't remember where I put them.

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Posted By: paulstratton

Looks like the same one Leon but this one has the dreaded pencil marks. It looks better without them imo.

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Posted By: MVSNYC

word of free advice to ALL...buy the catalog IF you do not already own it, i don't care if it is $50 or even $100...it is simply the most incredible auction catalog, but more than that, it is a BOOK on baseball history...a time machine to the past...

you will NOT be dissapointed. (notice i didn't use the word "guarntee" ryan)...

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Posted By: Brian Weisner

Hi Michael,
I agree the catalog is awesome, and an incredible resource guide.
Too bad I don't have any extra copies.

Be well Brian

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Posted By: ErikV

These are two of my favorite cards in my collection. Both are Famous & Barr Backs.
They are from lot 850 from the Barry Halper Collection.
I've tried to submit them both to PSA and SGC for Pedigree (labeled as the Halper Collection). No luck thus far.

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Posted By: leon

Hey Paul,
Your scan is the way it looked when I got it. If you have a little bit bigger scan it would be a good pic to see a little bigger.....though there will always be the other side of the debate saying I altered it. I can live with that...

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Posted By: barrysloate

The internet part of the sale was not catalogued, except online. It was the very first time Sotheby's conducted an online auction. Part of the appeal of getting the Halper collection, besides the obvious one that it was both valuable and prestigious, was that Sotheby's wanted to enter the cyberworld and this was the ideal opportunity.

I have two copies of the catalog, and because I worked on the sale I was fortunate to have Barry sign and inscribe one of them. There aren't too many like that. He kept a low profile throughout. I only remember him paying a single visit while we were working to see how things were going, and during the auction he spent almost the entire time in his private suite. He was a fine man and a consummate collector who died too young.

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Posted By: greg

I just picked up this gem formerly of the Halper collection. Not sure how many hands it passed through since the auction, but it's found a permanent home now. It's now in a new frame and displays beautifully. Thanks to my friend, Chris, for this one. Greg

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Posted By: Fred Y

Thanks for the link to that auction, Fred!

Was able to pick up the set for Min $19.99.

Fred

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Posted By: paulstratton

Leon,

I scanned/scammed the image from the catalog. It doesn't translate well for some reason

I sometimes see these catalog's at Barnes and Noble or Borders for $9.99.

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Posted By: Fred Y

Now ya' tell me!! LOL!!

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Posted By: Robert S

w/original tag still on glass:

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Posted By: Robert S

Honus at the wheel...Click image to enlarge...

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Posted By: Robert S

The Halper Auction spilled over online with Sotheby's and Amazon teaming to auction off items online after the in-person auction ended.

The kicker -- the site didn't work on the day it was supposed to launch and the surrounding press buzz was lost.

They eventually got the site working and it went live with no fanfare. As such, if you were lucky enough to stumble onto it in its first day in operation you found that many items were selling for the opening bid or only had a couple of bidders.

So...pieces of Honus Wagner's estate and other great items were being sold for $50.

They finally did get the word out...But those first few hours were great!

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Posted By: Judge Dred (Fred)

The auction was pretty huge, it netted almost $22M (including juice). That was from ONE collection. A good Mastro auction is just a little over $10M and the material is from several sources.