Company type | Private |
---|---|
Founded | 1976Dallas, Texas, U.S. | in
Founder | Steve Ivy (founder and CEO) Jim Halperin (co-founder) |
Headquarters | Dallas, Texas, U.S. |
Products | Antiques and collectibles |
Services | Auctioneer |
Website | ha |
In 1982, Heritage Auctions became an equal partnership between two collectors, Steve Ivy and Jim Halperin. [1] In 1967, Ivy dropped out of the University of Texas at Austin to form Steve Ivy Rare Coin Co. in Dallas, Texas. [2] In 1971, while still a freshman at Harvard University, Halperin established New England Rare Coin Galleries. He would later drop out of school. In the same vein, Ivy, the one who initially formed Heritage Auctions in Dallas in 1976, [1] transitioned from his earlier, smaller enterprise. These two individuals frequently crossed paths at industry trade shows and auctions. In 1982, Halperin sold his Boston-based business and relocated to Dallas to join Ivy. Alongside him, he brought Marc Emory, a partner who currently oversees a segment of Heritage's European operations. Another key addition to the company was Greg Rohan, who joined in 1986 and now serves as the president of the company. [2] [3] Besides Ivy, Halperin, Rohan, and Emory, the company includes four other partners: Paul Minshull, Ryan Carroll, Todd Imhof, and Cristiano Bierrenbach. [2]
In 1996, Heritage Auctions initiated a website that facilitated online auctions for buying and selling coins. This online platform significantly expanded the pool of potential sellers and buyers for the company. Following Halperin's guidance, Heritage took steps to broaden its business scope by incorporating collectibles beyond numismatics. This diversification began with comic book auctions in 2001. Subsequently, in 2003, the company introduced a memorabilia department, which hosted its inaugural auction valued at approximately $2 million. [2] During the mid-2000s, Heritage Auctions ventured into the market of music, entertainment, and film memorabilia. By April 2006, the auction house had already conducted its third biennial auction featuring collectibles previously owned by renowned actors, musicians, directors, and other figures in the film industry. These auctions showcased diverse collections comprising props, set elements, and attire from some of the most iconic films and television series in history. Additionally, personal items belonging to various musical artists were also part of these auctions. [1] In 2010, Heritage launched its luxury items division, which includes jewelry, handbags, and other accessories. [4] In some instances, rare items from these auctions have sold for over two hundred thousand dollars. [5] By 2013, the auction house was also auctioning modern and contemporary art including works by artists such as Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Joan Mitchell, and Edward Ruscha. [6]
In the immediate aftermath of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically between April 20 and 27, the online sales conducted by the auction house amounted to $41 million. This figure accounted for approximately 10% of the entire previous year's annual online sales, which had reached $483 million in 2019. [7] In the year 2022, Heritage Auctions accomplished remarkable sales surpassing $1.45 billion. This impressive figure does not include the charity auction organized by Heritage for Dmitry Muratov's Nobel Peace Prize, which amassed $103.5 million. The entirety of these proceeds was directed towards UNICEF to support humanitarian initiatives for refugee relief. [8]
By 2023 Heritage Auctions was ranked third among Western auction houses with total sales of $1.76 billion. [9]
On June 1, 2020, Heritage Auctions consolidated three Dallas-area locations to a new world headquarters in Dallas, located at the northwest corner of West Airport Freeway and Valley View Lane near Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. [10] The 160,000 square foot facility is located in the DFW Airport international trade zone and will house 450 of the company's 600 employees. [11] The company also has offices in New York located on Park Avenue. [2] Its New York operations are mostly geared towards the fine arts industry. [12] Heritage has a West Coast location in Beverly Hills, California, located on Olympic Boulevard. [2] In 2011, Heritage acquired Greg Martin Auctions in San Francisco, California, forming the auction house's division specializing in weapons and armament. [13]
Heritage expanded operations by adding an office in Hong Kong in 2015. [14] In spring 2017, the company formed a Florida branch with offices in Palm Beach. [15] In January 2017, company opened an office in Chicago, also, opened a new London office in 2017. [16]
In 2015 Heritage Auctions took over MPO located in IJsselstein, The Netherlands. Founded in 1988 as a coin and stamp fair organizer, Jacco Scheper and Huib Pelzer acquired the company in 1996 and three years later began auction operations. Through the merger with MPO Heritage Auctions also has a Belgium office located on the outskirts of Brussels in Zaventem. [17]
In 2023 sales were $1.76 billion – the highest in its 47-year history. [18] The 21% year-over-year increase was driven by records in many categories including coins in the Harry W. Bass Jr. collection, comics and comic art, and sports and entertainment memorabilia. [19]
In 2009, Heritage Auctions faced a lawsuit from a former employee named Gary Hendershott. The allegation made in the lawsuit was that the company had participated in fraudulent activity by employing a "shill" bidder under the pseudonym "N.P. Gresham". This shill bidder was purportedly used to manipulate bidding prices artificially, an action claimed to be in violation of anti-racketeering laws. [58] [59] The lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice. [60]
In 2012, the country of Mongolia sued Heritage Auctions for auctioning a 70-million-year-old fossil skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus bataar (75% complete) because the specimen came from Mongolia where exports of fossils are prohibited. [61] Heritage subsequently assisted the Mongolian government in resolving ownership and storing the specimen for the parties until it could be legally repatriated to Mongolia. [62]
In 2014, Heritage Auctions took legal action against Christie's for hiring their primary expert in handbags and two additional handbag specialists. The lawsuit alleged that this act constituted a breach of contract and that it also involved the misappropriation of trade secrets. [63]
In 2016, Heritage Auctions filed a lawsuit against Christie's and its subsidiary Collectrium, alleging copyright infringement. The claim centered around the accusation that Collectrium had engaged in improper web scraping of three million of Heritage Auctions' listings. It's noteworthy that at that point in time, Collectrium had been recently acquired by Christie's in 2015. [64] [65]
In 2019 a judge ruled that Collectrium had to pay Heritage Auctions close to $1.8 million of the $49 million Heritage initially sought. The judge dismissed Heritage's claims of trespassing, unfair competition, and civil conspiracy, and also ruled that only Collectrium had any liability. [66]
In December 2020, Heritage Auctions sold a painting titled Eyes Upon You by Margaret Keane. It was later revealed that this painting had been stolen from its rightful owner back in 1972. Following an intervention facilitated by the FBI, the painting was returned to the owner's daughter. The buyer of the painting was issued a full refund. The true owners expressed their gratitude in a written statement, acknowledging both the FBI agent and Heritage Auctions for their roles in resolving the situation. [67]
In August 2021 YouTuber Karl Jobst released a video that claimed that Heritage Auctions, along with the grading company Wata Games, had artificially created a collectable bubble in the sealed video game market through a conflict of interests. [68] [69] In a statement to Video Games Chronicle released following the video's publication, Heritage Auctions denied engaging in any illegal or unethical practices. Wata Games also denied the claims made in the video. [70] [68]
On April 13, 2024, Heritage Auctions played a crucial role in resolving the controversy over the original USS Enterprise model from Star Trek . Initially listed on eBay but flagged by fans who recognized it as the missing model used in the opening scenes of the original TV series, Heritage Auctions authenticated and facilitated its return to Gene Roddenberry's son, Rod. Valued at more than $1 million, but considered priceless, Rod plans to restore it and place it in a museum.<ref> "Long-lost first model of the USS Enterprise from 'Star Trek' boldly goes home after twisting voyage". AP News. April 18, 2024. Retrieved April 24, 2024.</ref
In 2024, Heritage was sent a cease and desist letter from the Atlanta Braves. Heritage claims to have all the bases from Hank Aaron's 714th HR game, but one of these bases was donated to a museum in 1982 and has been there since.
Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, and it has additional salerooms in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Amsterdam, Geneva, Shanghai, and Dubai. It is owned by Groupe Artémis, the holding company of François Pinault. In 2022 Christie's sold US$8.4 billion in art and luxury goods, an all-time high for any auction house. On 15 November 2017, the Salvator Mundi was sold at Christie's in New York for $450 million to Saudi Prince Badr bin Abdullah Al Saud, the highest price ever paid for a painting.
Sotheby's is a British-founded multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, and maintains a significant presence in the UK.
James L. Halperin is an American businessman and author, who is the co-founder and co-chairman of Heritage Auctions, now the largest American auction house with 2022 sales in excess of $1.45 billion. In 1985 Halperin authored a text on grading coins, How to Grade U.S. Coins, upon which the grading standards of the grading services PCGS and NGC were ultimately based. He is the author of two futurist fiction books, The Truth Machine (1996) and The First Immortal (1997), which were in 2001 both chosen by PC Magazine in a survey put out to their online newsletter subscribers, as possible responses for the top 17 science/technology fiction books of the previous 20 years. In the 1980s he and his businesses were investigated by federal agencies, which investigation was settled by signing consent decrees and agreeing to pay a substantial fine.
Certified Guaranty Company, also known as CGC, is a Sarasota, Florida comic book grading service. CGC is an independent member of the Certified Collectibles Group of companies. It is the first independent and impartial third party grading service for comic books.
Video game collecting is the hobby of collecting and preserving video games, video game consoles, and related memorabilia. Most video game consoles, and their games, are considered to be collectors' items years after their discontinuation due to their functional longevity and cultural significance. Collectors usually narrow their search to games holding characteristics they enjoy, such as being published for a specific video game console, being of certain genre, or featuring a specific character.
Action Comics #1 is the first issue of the original run of the comic book/magazine series Action Comics. It features the first appearance of several comic-book heroes—most notably the Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster creation, Superman—and sold for 10 cents. It is widely considered to be both the beginning of the superhero genre and the most valuable comic book in the world. Action Comics would go on to run for 904 numbered issues before it restarted its numbering in the fall of 2011. It returned to its original numbering with issue #957, published on June 8, 2016 and reached its 1,000th issue in 2018.
The T206 Honus Wagner baseball card depicts the Pittsburgh Pirates' Honus Wagner, known as "The Flying Dutchman", a dead-ball era baseball player who is widely considered to be one of the best players of all time. The card was designed and issued by the American Tobacco Company (ATC) from 1909 to 1911 as part of its T206 series. Wagner refused to allow production of his baseball card to continue, either because he did not want children to buy cigarette packs to get his card, or because he wanted more compensation from the ATC. The ATC ended production of the Wagner card, and a total of only 50 to 200 cards were ever distributed to the public. In 1933, the card was first listed at a price value of US$50 in Jefferson Burdick's The American Card Catalog, making it the most expensive baseball card in the world at the time.
Julien's Auctions is a privately held auction house based in Beverly Hills, California founded in 2003 by Darren Julien and co-owned with Martin Nolan. They specialize in auctions of film memorabilia, music memorabilia, sports memorabilia, Fashion and street and contemporary art. Julien's Auctions has received attention for their auctions of various high-profile items. They have handled collections and estates from entertainers such as Marilyn Monroe, John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Banksy, Cher, Bob Mackie, Michael Jackson, Tompkins and Bush, Slash, Ronnie Wood, Bill Wyman, Frank Zappa, Greta Garbo, Nirvana, Hugh Hefner, Sharon Tate, Pelé, Elvis Presley, Burt Reynolds, Johnny Cash, Neil Young, Sylvester Stallone, Frank Sinatra, Whitney Houston, Prince, Madonna, Olivia Newton-John, Bette Midler, Mae West, Barbra Streisand, Jane Fonda, Aretha Franklin, Janet Jackson, Amy Winehouse, Elizabeth Taylor, Doris Day, Betty White, Don McLean and Fleetwood Mac. The auction house's first placement was in 2009 for the sale of one of Michael Jackson's bejeweled white gloves which sold for $420,000.
Profiles in History was an auction house in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1985 by Joseph Maddalena, who is an auctioneer and dealer of authentic and original collectibles, including Hollywood memorabilia, historical autographs, letters, documents, vintage signed autographs, and manuscripts. Maddalena was the company's president and CEO. It became defunct in January 2021 when Maddalena joined former rival Heritage Auctions.
RR Auction is an auction house established in 1976 by Bob Eaton. The company headquarters is in Boston with a production office based in Amherst, New Hampshire. The company is known for its monthly auctions of historical documents, manuscripts, autographs, artifacts, sports collectibles, spaceflight memorabilia, presidential items and more. The auction house has developed a worldwide client base and publishes monthly catalogs in print and online via issuu.
Concierge Auctions is a residential real estate company based in New York and Texas. It auctions properties to the highest bidder.
Noonans Mayfair, formerly Dix Noonan Webb, is an auction house based in London. It specialises in coins, medals, jewellery and paper money. Since being established, the firm has sold over 400,000 lots.