Where there’s wealth, there are collections.
Auto dealer Donnie Crevier has his vintage cars. So does real estate tycoon William Lyon and Behr paint’s former owner Jack Croul.
Bond fund manager Bill Gross has spent an estimated $50 million to $100 million on stamps. Sports agent Dwight Manley and real estate investor John Saunders amass rare coins.
Art Astor, who made his fortune in radio, has one of the biggest vintage radio and telephone collections in the world. He’s also got a classic car collection that includes Howard Hughes’ limousine and Gen. George Patton’s Jeep.
For many of the wealthy, collections are investments,along with stocks and real estate. For others, collecting is just as likely to be a hobby that reflects the collector, who likely began accumulating things long before becoming a multimillionaire.
“It’s more of a passion for them,” said Steve Nielander, managing director for the Costa Mesa office of Deutsche Bank AG’s private wealth management arm.
Classic cars and rare coins are pretty common. Other collections are a little more exotic.
Gigantic Megalodon shark teeth, fossils, antique encyclopedias and meteorites fascinate Brian Glabman, the fourth-generation chief of Costa Mesa’s Glabman Furniture Inc.
His interest in those things was sparked and nurtured early on by his mother, who traveled to South America to look for ancient pottery, he said.
“My mother took me on my first dig at 10,” Glabman said.
Collecting old things is fun, Glabman said. He said he didn’t even realize his collection had value until recently.
Glabman’s collection includes what could be the largest Megalodon shark’s tooth, which is about seven inches tall. The tooth came out of an ancient shark’s mouth that spanned six to seven feet in width and seven to eight feet in height.
“You really can’t find them anymore,” Glabman said.
The best place to try and find one is Calvert Cliffs at Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, where ancient sediments are exposed, he said.
Glabman’s tooth is extra valuable because it’s from the front of the mouth and is symmetrical. Pricing, like a diamond, is based on size and quality.
The tooth still has some of its enamel and serrations on the side. The price: Whatever a collector wants for it. A smaller one is listed on the Internet for $60,000. Glabman said that’s over priced.
The Megalodon, estimated to be 50 to 100 feet long, is the predecessor to the Great White and lived some 25 million years ago during the Miocene period. No one knows when the Megalodon became extinct, according to Glabman.
He also has some meteorites he’s found.
“Believe it or not, they’re all over,” Glabman said.
They look rusty because they’re made of iron.
“It looks like nothing that’s formed on Earth,” he said.
Other interesting pieces in Glabman’s collection include a Woolly Rhino tooth, about 1 million to 3 million years old, some volcanic rocks and a Spinosaurus tooth that came from
a tall, meat-eating dinosaur. It could be 100 million years old.
Glabman enjoys history. He said he likes looking at his antique encyclopedias and reading something that once was right but since has been proven wrong.
Stamp and coin collectors are history buffs, too.
With stamps, the pedigree of the owners who have held them are part of the allure, said Michael Haynes, chief executive of Newport Beach-based Collectors Universe Inc., an authenticator of collectibles.
“The survivability is so rare,” he said.
Pacific Investment Management Co.’s Gross is one of the few people who’ve held a rare stamp collection, Haynes said.
“His name is in history,” he said.
People start collecting in their youth, according to Haynes. As they grow wealthy, their ability to buy higher value things increases.
Gross’ mother in Ohio collected stamps, hoping to send her son to college. Gross later found out they were worthless and ending up getting a scholarship for school.
But he was hooked on collecting.
“I knew stamps could be a money-losing proposition,” he told the Chicago Tribune last year. “Being a bond investor, I wanted it to be a hobby, but a successful one. I just didn’t want to lose my shirt.”
Earlier this year, Gross raised $9.1 million for Doctors Without Borders, a charitable medical group, after selling stamps he bought for $2.5 million.
Coins as History
Real estate investor Saunders starting collecting when he was a kid. He owns London Coin Galleries in Newport Beach and another in Mission Viejo, plus another store in Encino.
As a boy, Saunders said he liked history and read historical adventure novels by Thomas Costain and Edison Marshall. He began collecting coins for their historical value.
Saunders’ coin collecting has led to a thriving real estate investment business for him.
Rich collectors aren’t gathering Pez dispensers, according to Haynes. Art is another popular collectible, as is jewelry, he said.
While the wealthy are enthusiastic about what they collect, they are mindful of the value of the investment, Haynes said. They look for things with long lasting value.
“It’s a statement of wealth,” Haynes said.
As zealous as some may be about their collectibles, the wealthy don’t throw money away, he said.
Automobiles, boats, airplanes and other luxury “investments of passion” account for a quarter of the wealthy’s investments, according to a recent study by Merrill Lynch & Co. and Capgemini. Art makes up 20%, jewelry, 18%.
Art buying fuels a global market that’s seeing record sales prices not only for scarce work but also for contemporary art, according to the report.
Orange County has many low-profile art collectors with significant collections, said James Carona, one of the principals of Rohrer Fine Art in Laguna Beach.
Most collect art because they are passionate about it, Carona said. But they also see art as an asset, a hedge against their other investments, he said.
“There are also some beneficial tax and estate consequences when transferring wealth from one generation to the next,” Carona said.
‘No Dividends’
Collections are a way for people to broaden their portfolios, Deutsche Bank’s Nielander said. But they can be a harder sell. They aren’t like real estate and aren’t easily sold. There are no dividends.
But “spectacular returns can be made on these things,” he said.
But what to do with that rare auto collection?
Some of the county’s wealthiest have built elaborate garages and showrooms in their homes.
Frank Pritt, founder of Seattle software maker Attachmate Corp., built an auto museum and workshop at his Portabello mansion in Corona del Mar, which is up for sale for $75 million.
The museum and shop has space for 12 cars, a full auto workshop, a lift system and special ventilation.
Others rent space at classic car storage facilities or start their own museums.
Radio station owner Astor has Astor Classics Event Center and Living Automotive and Communication Museum in Anaheim, with about 280 autos.
Astor researches cars on the Internet and then buys or trades them at shows and auctions.
“It’s a lot of work,” he said.
Celebrities such as Cary Grant, Gary Cooper and John Wayne once owned some of the cars Astor now owns.
He plans to bring a few to this year’s Corona del Mar Coastline Car Classic show in September. It’s a passion and an investment, he said.
“Most of these guys that are buying these cars are retired captains of something,” said Robert Escalante, owner of Custom Auto Service in Santa Ana, which specializes in Packards, a luxury brand made by Packard Motor Car Co. “They’re very astute businessmen. They’re not going to throw their money away. They’ll research the cars as if they were buying a company.”
