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barrysloateI was fortunate to be able to catalog the Halper collection during most of 1999 at Sotheby's. It was stored in its entirety at their warehouse at 110th Street and First Avenue in Manhattan, and I have to say it was one of the most memorable projects in all my years in the hobby. Barry had an enormous and diverse collection of memorabilia; not all of it was museum quality and his cards were mostly sold off beforehand, but his historic material was truly wonderful. I was in charge of cataloguing primarily his 19th century pieces, and it was just great. Rob Lifson headed the project and they couldn't have picked a better person to do it, nor could I have found a better person to work with. It was amazing how even-tempered he was despite all the pressures and people tugging at him from every direction at once. That was a once in a lifetime for me. I had never seen Halper's collection before and within a year I felt I knew it as well as anyone. They assembled a great team and at times there could be a dozen people working at the same time for weeks on end. Imagine a collection so large that it took a team over six months to write it up!