Harvey Elander: The Real Deal!
By Kurt Kuersteiner ©2021 Monsterwax
Monster Trading Cards for
The Wrapper Magazine
One of the most interesting but little known Wrapper readers has recently passed on. I say “little known”, but to certain vendors and traders, his number was on speed dial—because he was always ready to make a deal. The rarer the item, the better! Harvey Elander of C&B Non-Sports died May 2nd, 2021. He was 84. More noteworthy than his collection was Harvey’s personality. He was a real card!
I met Harvey on the phone in 1992, when he contacted me about the first trading card set I published (Tune In For Terror). He was excited about the set and encouraged me to release it in wax packs. I was pretty green back then, and that all sounded rather complicated, but Harvey encouraged and walked me through the steps. He even physically helped assemble the packs at his house, which was nine hours away. And even more amazingly, he helped line up sales. And wow, could that guy sell!
Harvey was a born salesman. His enthusiasm and knowledge about a subject made him difficult to resist. The old “he could sell ice to the Eskimos” cliché seems appropriate, except Eskimos have no use for extra ice, and Harvey was more about connecting people to things they really wanted or needed. Then again, Harvey might have determined that Global Warming threatened the Eskimo’s way of life, and therefore, they needed spare ice more than anyone else. (And he was the one to sell it!)
Harvey was a classic example of what makes the Wrapper community special. He was a unique character. He made an impression on everyone he met and it was impossible to ignore him. When he focused on you, everything else faded into the background. He was intense and very convincing. But the things he would say often sounded so improvable, that after you left his orbit, you might question his claims: BIG mistake! Time after time, I discovered he was not one to exaggerate. Top of the list was his amazing collection…
Harvey claimed to have nearly everything, always in top condition, and usually purchased at bargain prices. Horrors of War, Lone Ranger (w/ premiums), Outer Limits, Lost in Space, Get Smart (w/ kits), Laugh-In, War News Pictures, Civil War News, Battle, Mars Attacks, Cops & Robbers (all variations), G-Men and Heroes of the Law, 1930s sets out the wazoo, War Gum, Green Hornet, Dark Shadows, Look & See, Wacky Packs (all), Scoop, all the Batman, all the Superman (including 1940s), Tarzan & the Isis Vault, and the super rare Knock Knock Jokes (only missing #38). Everything was the best of the best. It sounded like complete baloney—so I naturally assumed he was exaggerating (the diplomatic version of lying). Sometimes, other collectors who heard I knew Harvey called me up to ask if I thought any of it was true. We would laugh at the mere possibility… But that was before I ended up visiting him and saw it in person. He wasn’t exaggerating about the title, the quality, or even the quantity (which he sometimes had cases of). To say I was drop-jawed is an understatement.
Not only that, but Non-Sports was just the tip of the Eskimo’s Iceberg. He also collected rare coins, rare books, vintage Christmas cards, pre-WW1 Halloween Post cards (which he started me on), antique toys, comic books, old stock certificates, and even vintage cars! Nothing Harvey collected was ever done half way. It was always “all in”. Top shelf stuff, the most popular products, and often painstakingly stored and preserved. Take the vintage cars for example. He had a 1923 T-bucket Roadster, a 1934 Ford Sedan, a 1939 Ford De Luxe, and a 1998 Corvette. All (except the Corvette) he usually kept stored out of the weather and on blocks to keep the paint, upholstery, and tires in premium condition. How did he do it? Did he win the lottery or inherit it all? Nope. He started small and grew it all from there.
Harvey was born in 1937 in Sidney, NY.. He helped his Swedish grandparents operate their horse and cattle farm alongside his brother and sister. In the 1950s, he joined the military and became a Navy Frogman (the precursor to modern Seals). Frogmen often work with explosives. In Harvey’s case, a grenade injury hospitalized him for nearly two years. Fortunately, he fully recovered. Unfortunately, when he came home from the military, he discovered that his mom had thrown out his collections. (Yes, it happens to us all!) Not to be deterred, however, he opened the Hanover Coin & Collectible shop in Horseheads, NY, and started stocking up again, professionally. His shop was right across from the police station and grew to over 2,000 square feet, remaining open from 1960 to 1982. During that time, he learned a lot about the items he went on to collect, as well as how to recognize future trends. He sold a lot of precious metals, as well as jewelry, coins, cards, antiques, and antique toys. He even dreamed up and manufactured the official bicentennial coin for Horseheads County (in bronze, silver, and gold). But as thorough and careful as he was, nobody is perfect. At one time, he bought a Barber dime worth $10,000… and lost it before he could get it into his shop. Several stress ridden days passed before a Good Samaritan found and returned it. It was hiding in a crack in the sidewalk, right outside his storefront! (Did I forget to mention Harvey was also very lucky?)
Another thing Harvey lucked into was a second chance at love. He married his second wife, Caroline, in 1983. She not only tolerated his obsessive collecting habits, she enjoyed many of the things he liked, especially the postcards and antique toys. The two loved to decorate the house for Halloween and Christmas, complete with many of the postcards from Harv’s collections.
Harvey worked for an Engineering firm up North, but quit in 1970 to focus more on his own business. He used that experience again when he started working as a construction foreman in the mid 1980s after moving to South Florida with Caroline. But he still kept his friends from up North. A good example was Mark Macaluso, one of the biggest collectors (and sellers) in The Wrapper back then.Like Harv, Mark had owned a collectible shop (but for comics), and eventually invested big into Non-sports. At one point, Mark almost sold his entire warehouse of cards to Harvey for over a million dollars. It was going to take several semi-tractor trailers to move it all down South. The collection was so massive, Mark changed his mind while inventorying it all before doing the deal. (But the two remained good friends.)
Harvey was an enthusiast of many things. He once got into a Monopoly game with his brother-in-law Charlie, and it lasted all through the night for 16 hours straight! (Naturally, Harvey won.) Those antique cars I mentioned earlier? They were decked out in the latest hot rod gear and looked like the chrome-covered contractions you would see on Odd Rods stickers. He took Caroline to many of the Fort Lauderdale Street Rod Club shows, where they joined the parade of mean machines.
One of my favorite stories about Harvey was one he told me about his childhood. I happened to ask him if he believed in UFOs. His face lit up. “Absolutely! I’ve seen one, right outside my window, clear as I see you!” He went on to explain that at age nine (just after WW2), he was at his Grandparents farm and they saw a glowing, hovering saucer-shaped craft in their field at nighttime for several seconds. Then it took off and silently disappeared. He looked sincere, but I kept quizzing him to see if he was joking. “I’m not joking, I'm not lying! I know what I saw!” What does one say to that? I’ve seen some “Unidentified Flying Objects” myself, but they were always explainable as other possible phenomena. But 1946 was long before drones, high-tech experimental aircraft, or even the flying saucer craze of the 1960s that fueled a mass onslaught of reported incidents. It was also before the drug craze. Harvey claimed he never did drugs—but even if he had, he didn’t do them in 1946 at age nine! However, some kids remember nightmares they had as real, so I attributed it to that. Years later, I asked Caroline about it. She revealed that she had spoken to Harvey’s grandmother, and she had witnessed the exact same UFO event!
It still sounds far fetched, doesn’t it? And yet, fast forward to 2021: One of the last things Trump signed before leaving office ordered the military to release all the information they have about UFOs within 180 days. By my math, that will be the same month this article publishes. Coincidence? Perhaps not…
These are just some of the fun details I’ll always remember about Harvey. He’ll certainly be missed by those who knew him. Harv is survived by his wife Caroline, sons Steve and Wayne, and grandchildren Christopher and Erin (by Steve & Tanya), and Apryl (from Wayne & Deanne). Like many of the items he loved to collect, Harvey was one of a kind.
Harvey & Caroline Elander