Alex Winter, President of Hake’s Auctions, spoke at our weekly meeting on June 22, 2021. Hakes Americana and Collectibles became the first auction house to specialize in 20th century popular culture artifacts. In 1985, Alex began working for Ted Hake (founder) as a shipping assistant, writing shipping addresses into the UPS log book each afternoon after school. Winter soon graduated to packing, bid taking, describing items, photography and serving as assistant, as he would select items from the inventory shelves for the upcoming auction. In 2014 Winter became president after climbing the ranks from the bottom to the top working at Hake’s for 31 years as the cataloguer, merchandise manager, production manager, and general manager. Winter said that now Hake’s is part of the “ultimate pop-culture family,” because of its sister companies, Gemstone Publishing, Comic Wow, Diamond International Galleries, Geppi’s Entertainment Museum, E. Gerber and parent company, Diamond Comic Distributors, who supplies every comic book store in America with its product. Hake’s memorabilia includes pop-culture items with both vintage collectibles and new merchandise. Hake’s preserves and conserves materials, writes price guides and reference books, among other activities. Winter said that Hake’s bills itself as “America’s first and most diversified auction house for a reason. Since the beginning, they have led the way in offering just about every type of pop culture collectible and Americana. Hake’s continue to offer all manner of ‘classic/vintage’ items, along with following the trends and offering more ‘recent’ material that continues to expand and cultivate collectors of this generation and beyond.” Winter said, “Prices of bids are going up because interest continues to grow.” Hake’s will be expanding its connections and collectibles like it has since 1967. |
