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Coins, Rodman, Jockeys, Jesse; Big Player in Downtown Brea

I brought two small plastic bags of coins,one with silver dollars, the other, old nickels. After all, it was a nickel that made entrepreneur Dwight Manley $1 million richer.

As Manley sat at his desk in Newport Beach, he looked at the nickels. Nothing. He pulls out one of the silver dollars and surprises me: It’s worth about $75, he said.

Manley is what’s known as a numismatist,a student of coins. He became part of coin-collecting history after selling his 1913 Liberty Nickel in 2003 for a then-record $3 million. He bought it in 2001 for $1.84 million.

“I love the history,” he said. “I love holding things that people held. To me they’re like time machines.”

The fascination with coins is part of a larger love of money. Manley knows money’s history, and he’s good at earning and investing it.

The way he makes money could be called counterintuitive, even eccentric. Manley’s a former agent to basketball bad boy Dennis Rodman. He’s also a developer, coin dealer, sunken treasure buyer and head of the Monrovia-based Jockeys’ Guild, to name a few.

“I like anything creative,” he said. “The biggest thing: I just want to make a difference.”

Money isn’t the motivator, according to Manley. It’s relationships: “To me, it’s personal.”

Manley said he’s collected coins since he was a boy, when he found a valuable 1909 Lincoln penny in a coffee can. He still has the cent, as it’s called in coin lingo.

“My parents got divorced, and I really got into collecting,” he said. “It’s in my blood.”


Brea Boy

Manley spent his youth in Brea kicking around a neighborhood coin shop. The owner died and the shop closed. Manley now owns the site, home to a Yard House restaurant.

At 15, he worked at Fullerton Coins & Stamps making $5 an hour. Bill Pannier, owner of the shop, calls Manley the “Donald Trump of the West.”

Manley became one of the leading coin dealers in the country after he left the shop, according to Pannier.

“He’s known by every dealer in the U.S.,” he said.

Manley knows how to “grade” coins better than others, Pannier said.

“He can spot the underpriced one,” he said.

Manley now visits the shop with his son Quentin, who is 7.

“My son is really into it,” he said.

Daughter Victoria, 9, not so much.

As a sports agent, Manley helped smooth Rodman’s professional life. Manley never aspired to be a sports agent. His interest was Rodman, whom he got to know first.

“I like people I feel are the underdogs,” he said.

Manley’s United Sports Agency still takes care of retired Utah Jazz player Karl Malone’s off-court affairs. He bought Malone’s Utah house in an auction and flipped it, making a tidy profit.

“I knew the house really well,” he said.

Manley’s been fixing up another house in Hollywood, one he bought from actress Beverly D’Angelo for $2.5 million.

“I could sell it in the end,” he said. “I think I should keep it.”

Manley always is weighing which treasures to keep and which to sell.

A treasure he kept,sunken gold bars from the California Gold Rush days, reported to be worth $100 million. They’re from the S.S. Central America, which left Panama for New York and sunk in 1857. The cargo of gold and coins were recovered in 1986 and were stored for years, pending litigation over ownership. It was Manley, who in 1999, swooped in and bought the bulk of the treasure from Tommy Thompson, leader of the expedition team that found it.

The deal was big in the coin world.

“The most important thing was I got to handle it,” Manley said.

Manley’s lent some of his gold bars to the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where they’re on display. Gold bars used to be melted into coins and used as currency before paper money, he said.

Manley published an 11-pound book on the Gold Rush, written by his numismatic mentor Q. David Bowers.

“The Gold Rush made America a financial powerhouse,” he said.

Manley’s son Quentin is named after Bowers (the “Q”). A coin historian, Bowers taught a weeklong Young Numismatist workshop in Colorado Springs, Colo., when Manley was 15.

Manley was able to attend because the American Numismatic Association gave him a $400 scholarship his parents couldn’t afford.

“It was a big deal,” he said.

After that, he immersed himself in coin collecting. Since, Manley gave $250,000 to help build the association’s library, which bears his name.

In 2003, he dipped into his gold bar loot to buy real estate in Brea.

“I wanted income producing property,” he said. “Something passive, so I didn’t have to work all the time.”

Scott Riordan, former economic development manager for the city of Brea, runs MIMCo LLC, a holding company for Manley’s assorted real estate, which also includes Laguna Beach properties.

“Finding the right person is to know I’m not the right person,” Manley said. “Essentially I become a quarterback or a director of whatever project is going on.”

Manley’s been more active in Brea than he expected. He owns several of the retail and apartment buildings in the city’s revived downtown on Birch Street. He’s been sprucing up the buildings and signing tenants. He spent $50,000 to close a shop he didn’t see as a fit for the area.

Manley describes Brea as neighborly with a large workforce population in the day.

“I have a good feel for Brea,” he said.

Other developers didn’t understand Brea’s downtown, said Shaun Riley, director of Irvine-based real estate brokerage Faris Lee Investments.

“When we were marketing the properties, we were looking for a developer that had a lot of vision,” he said. “So many wrote the deal off.”

Vision was needed, said Eric Nicoll, economic development director for Brea. The redevelopment wasn’t the kind that would lead to instant return, he said.

That’s what traditional investors are looking for, he said. Manley looked at the long-term benefits, he said. “He’s not pushing rental stream as much as tenant mix,” Nicoll said.

Manley now is looking to go more upscale by adding restaurants such as the Yard House and, soon, The Melting Pot. He brought in popular stores J. Jill and White House Black Market. He sat on a building for two years until he got the right tenant, Nicoll said.

“His replacement strategy is right on target,” he said.

There’s more.

Manley said he’s also working with movie mogul Penny Marshall on producing a movie, a modern version of “Shampoo” that doesn’t involve a hairdresser, he said.

“I can’t get into specifics,” he said.

Marshall, a big basketball fan, is a close friend, Manley said.


Jockey Boss

Taking up most of Manley’s time these days: an unpaid position managing the Jockeys’ Guild.

Well, not entirely unpaid. First he has to fix the guild, in a heap of financial trouble, then he can earn a percent of revenue he creates, he said. Manley’s invested at least $500,000 of his own money to get the guild out of a hole, he said.

What does Manley know about horse racing? At first, not a lot, he said. When he signed on last year, critics, including some jockeys, balked. Manley had no experience with jockeys or horses and pulled in Rev. Jesse Jackson to help him.

Jesse Jackson?

Critics teased about the unlikely pairing. Manley said Jackson is a friend who knows how to bring people together.

Manley said he was against getting involved with the guild at first. A friend, a local horse owner, invited him to meet the jockeys.

“They were good people,” he said. “I got to know them personally. I got attached.”

Manley’s already made his mark. His first task was to resolve a $10 million lawsuit against the guild by jockey Gary Birzer.

Birzer became paralyzed in a racing accident, and the guild was nearly broke. On Manley’s first official day on the job, he met with Birzer.

“He was frozen out,” Manley said. “He got tears in his eyes. He wanted his daughter and his wife to be taken care of.”

Manley wrote him a $30,000 check, got him insurance and settled the matter. Birzer now is going after the racetrack for negligence.

“We’re supporting that,” he said.

Horse racing is one of the most dangerous sports in the world, Manley said.

Of the 1,300 guild members, fewer than 200 are insured, he said. Health insurance is top priority, according to Manley. Another concern is getting larger “mount fees” for the jockeys. Those are what a jockey’s paid to get on the horse and ride it. In California, the fee is $45. Too little, Manley said.

“The overhead costs for horses have gone up dramatically,” he said.

There are agent fees, transportation costs and leather boots. A horse alone costs $30,000 a year for upkeep.

Later, Manley said he’d like to up the jockey’s racing weight by at least five pounds so they’re healthier. But first he’s got to get the guild financially solvent.

Ever the sports agent, Manley said he sees corporate sponsorship and branding as the future of the sport. Horses are glorified, he said. Jockeys are not.

“It’s an incredible group of personalities,” he said. “Part of my ability is to see things other people might not,” he said.

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