PORTRAITS

Steve Ivy



STEVE IVY’S RARE COIN COMPANY, Inc. had already grossed $5 million in sales for the then-24-year-old, long-haired wunderkind when he was profiled 20 years ago in the first-ever issue of D. “To make more money,” Ivy stated as his 1974 goal. “I’m talking nine- and ten-figure money.”

In the ensuing 20 years, he’s put his collectibles where his mouth is. The company’s current incarnation, Heritage Rare Coin Corporation, boasts annual sales in excess of $100 million as the largest dealer of rare U.S. coins in the country. Sister firm Heritage Numismatic Auctions ranks as one of the top three coin auctioneers.

When Ivy looks back over the past 20 years, he sees a numismatic landscape dotted with peaks and valleys. During the late 1970s, coins skyrocketed in value 1000% as perceived hard-asset hedges against inflation, only to drop again in the recessionary early ’80s. High profits on Wall Street later in the decade increased discretionary income, and coin collecting became fashionable among yuppies- until the 1990 crash. Since then, he says, it’s gotten “quite good again.”

Ivy says his company has dealt nearly all of the rarities at one time or another. But have certain coin deals really pumped his adrenalin? “We sold a couple of 1804 dollars, one of the most famous coins. They sell for a half-million to a million dollars each. We also sold an 1894 ’S’ dime, one of only 24 struck, and one of only 10 known today. We buy collections in the seven-figure range fairly often.”

Today the “coin freak” D described 20 years ago appears the distinguished conservative with slightly receded hairline in his Highland Park office. No longer a collector himself (“It stifles your business”), Ivy picked up a partner in 1983 to handle the coin trades so he could focus on marketing and running the business. He limits his collecting to Texana and invitations to charitable functions which he attends with his socially active wife-the same wife, by the way, he’s had since pre-1974.

Ron Chapman

I SHOULD HAVE BEEN DRUBBED OUT OF THIS Business 15 years ago, but things have continued to work,” says the radio icon who has assured three generations of early risers that he’s peeked outside the drapes and it’s OK to go to work one more day. And work they have.

Formats may change, call letters come and go, and musical trends zip in and out as fast as a Texas thunderstorm, but Ron Chapman in the morning seems almost eternal.

As “Irving Harrigan,” Chapman was morning man in the early 1960s to young Dallas-Fort Worth boomers growing up to one of rhe country’s great Top 40 stations, KLIF-AM 1190. In the mid-’60s, he was North Texas’s answer to Dick Clark, hosting “Sump’n Else,” Channel 8’s local version of “American Bandstand.”

But for the past 25 years, he’s had the comfortable address of 103.7 on the FM dial, a milestone he celebrated with KVIL by taking his morning show on the road to 25 stops around North Texas. In a notoriously fickle business, Chapman has built a loyal audience, chiefly women between the ages of 25 and 54, by treating them like “a lady”…no loud and abrasive commercials, no Dolly Parton jokes, no slasher movie ads, and no Howard Sternisms. “I think people who trade in shock value have to keep coming up with a new shock. Those things come and they go, but almost always, they go.

At 58, Chapman is philosophical about what he’ll do when he decides it’s his time to go. He envisions himself writing advertising or doing a part-time show on either coast-as long as he can park a sailboat close to the station. His time-frame’ “You’d like to quit while you’re on top,” he says, “but you also want to ride it while it’s there. So, yeah, I can sec me doing this for five more years.”