Steve Ivy started collecting coins when he was just 9 years old, and by the time he was 12, he was going to coin shows and running ads and selling them. He was hooked.
“I consider collecting a genetic disorder,” Ivy says. “Once you’re a collector, you’re always going to have the bug to collect.”
As a junior at the University of Texas, he was still buying and selling, so he left school and started his own business in Dallas. Today, that business has grown into Heritage Auctions Inc., the third-largest auction house in the country — only trailing Christie’s and Sotheby’s. The $700 million business may be smaller than its two biggest competitors, but it has three times the Internet traffic as the other two combined.
Ivy is always looking for new collectible areas to expand into, and next year, he is also opening offices in Beverly Hills and New York.
“Our vision is to continue to add categories that we don’t currently deal in and then grow the categories that we do deal in,” the co-chairman and CEO says. “That is our goal. We’ve averaged over $700 million a year in volume. Our goal is to do as much more than that as possible. … We don’t want to grow too fast but don’t want to lose opportunities either. … It’s a balance. There are 1,000 moving parts.”
Some of the ways Ivy balances his growth is by always looking forward, generating ideas and resolving conflict.