Ivy (c) holds weekly internet auctions, where lots can go for anywhere between $50,000 and $10MCHRIS IVY
CHRIS IVY grew up in the Dallas area with his father taking him to coin shows all across Texas, but it was the baseball collectors at those same shows who helped him develop a passion for sports collectibles. Ivy heads up the sports auctions for Heritage Auctions, a company co-founded by his father, STEVE, that also calls Dallas home. Ivy: "When I grew up, Heritage was just a coin company. But as I got out of college in the late '90s, Heritage was diversifying into different categories and building an online platform. I joined in the early 2000s and the rest is history." THE DAILY caught up with Ivy to see what a weekend auction is like, how he and the family gear up for football season and what he thought of QUENTIN TARANTINO's latest film.
EYE OF THE BEHOLDER: We have 52 Sunday internet auctions every year. They’re smaller ones for us, maybe 150-250 lots and they’ll go for about $50,000 each. We do six of our big catalog auctions a year. Those are closer to $10M each. These smaller ones do have cool stuff for collectors, but it’s more moderately priced. Things from $100-$1,500 typically. When we take a clients’ collection, we don’t cherry pick it and just take the top items. We’ll take everything and process it for them. For the Sunday auctions, we don’t even come into the office because we don’t need to. It’s all automated and closes online. You can bid on the lot anytime in the week proceeding, and then it culminates on Sunday night at 10:00pm CT. It runs very smoothly. Our IT department has got it all under control and everything is pretty self-contained.
WEEKEND AGENDA: I like to relax over the weekends, though I’ll usually come into the office on Saturdays for a couple hours just to catch up. I always try to get out a little before noon. Then, I’ve got two young daughters, so I like to make it to their team sports. But now we have football season upon us -- my wife and I's favorite sport. We go to games when we can, and we’re big Texas Longhorns fans after meeting there in school. We’re also Cowboys fans. You can’t be a sports enthusiast growing up in Dallas without being a Cowboys fan. But if I had to choose, I’d go with my Longhorns.
IN THE MEANTIME: For family dining, we love Tex-Mex. If the girls are choosing, it’s usually Mi Cocina or Mesero. If it’s my wife and I, our favorite place right now is Neighborhood Services. I’ve been listening to podcasts lately when I workout. “Armchair Expert” with DAX SHEPARD and DR. JAMES BECKETT, who is here in Dallas, has a good one as well. Beckett Baseball Card Monthly was one of the biggest publications in our industry when it was really booming in the ‘80s and ‘90s. I do love movies as well. The more recent one I went to go see was “ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD” from Tarantino. I thought it was an homage to old school Hollywood and a really good slice of history, too.
