Barry Halper

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Posted By: Rob D.

I wrote a story for our paper leading up to Sotheby's auction and interviewed Barry over the phone. I remember contacting Sotheby's in hopes of talking to him, and the woman I spoke to didn't sound very optimistic. But the next day he called at about 6 p.m. and said he had only about 10 minutes to talk. After I crammed as many questions as I could into that amount of time, he mentioned again that he had an appointment and we'd have to wrap it up. I thanked him and mentioned that as a collector, I was looking forward to the upcoming auction.

"Oh, what do you collect?" he asked.

I told him (quite hesitantly, I might add, because this was, after all, Barry Halper), and he proceeded to ask a number of questions -- what was my favorite item, how did I acquire certain pieces, how long had I been collecting, etc. We ended up talking for 20 more minutes, before he said, "Oh, now I'm really going to be late. Thanks for telling me about your collection."

That was my only contact with Barry Halper, but in that half-hour, I became quite a fan.