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Lazard steps to the plate
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September 18, 1996: 1:41 p.m. ET
Investment bank to find buyer for $40 million in baseball memorabilia
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) -- Lazard Freres plans to find the highest bidder for one of the world's largest collections of baseball memorabilia.
That's right. Not an auction house. An investment bank.
Among the thousands of items in the collection is a baseball autographed in 1954 by Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe. Babe Ruth's last will and testament is there too, as is one of the oldest baseballs known to exist. The entire assortment is believed to be worth a combined $40 million.
The venerable investment bank took on the project for Barry Hapler, a baseball enthusiast who has spent the last 50 years building his collection. Hapler decided that, rather than go to a traditional auction house and sell items individually, he wanted to find a single buyer who could make the collection the main attraction of a theme park or a museum.
"The collection, which is really unbelievable, is something you could easily envision being an attraction like the Baseball Hall of Fame," said Paul Ezersky, managing director at Lazard in New York.
Ezersky declined to name any potential buyers, but observers said that any list would likely include entertainment companies and sports cable networks. A company such as Classic Sports Network, for example, could use the collection in a documentary on the history of the game.
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