Coin dealer wise to world treasure
By NEIL STEINBERG nsteinberg@suntimes.com January 27, 2012 1:10PM
Harlan Berk, owner of iconic Loop Harlan J. Berk coin shop, 31 North Clark St., and trader in valuable antiquities behind the counter of his store. | Rich Hein~Sun-Times
Article Extras
Updated: February 3, 2012 8:36PM
Treasure is a relative thing, depending entirely upon the person seeking it.
Which is why at Harlan J. Berk Ltd., you can walk in to the small shop at 31 N. Clark and walk out a delighted 7-year-old clutching a worn Indian head penny fished out of a bowl of old coins for $1.50, the start of a lifetime of collecting, or a satisfied 60-year-old clutching a gold stater of Alexander the Great you have searched for all your life, a steal at $5,000.
I was drawn to Berk because the kid who used to save wheaties — Lincoln pennies minted before 1959 with wheat stalks on the back — still lurks within, and I was charmed that, while you can’t find a toy store in the Loop, there is still a place selling cardboard books to press your Mercury dimes into.
But, spending a morning with the dapper and knowledgeable Berk, I very quickly realized that the extraordinary aspect of the place isn’t as an oasis of nostalgia but as a treasure house of ancient wonders — Berk sells coins, yes, but also antiquities: Roman marble, Corinthian helmets. Each has a tale.
“This is Minoan,” Berk says in front of a large, sand-colored casket with the tangled cartoon of a sea beast on it. “A cuttlefish, or squid. When the Minoan society was destroyed, Greeks came in a thousand years later, saw homes without roofs and [pictures of] bulls inside — the Minoans did bull leaping — so the Greeks said, ‘Oh, this must be a labyrinth.’ The whole thing of the Labyrinth and the Minotaur was a misinterpretation. This is better than the one in the Met.”
We’re standing in the warren of rooms behind the store, cluttered with centuries-old maps, Egyptian funereal objects, Neolithic burial statuary, oddly smiling figures, plus 17,000 books with titles such as The Red Figured Vases of Apulia — reference works, not for sale, though interested members of the public are allowed to consult them.
“It’s hard to keep the place in order,” Berk says.
Upstairs, where Berk has more offices, on the floor between two large safes is a pile of FedEx bags containing 50,000 rusty nails — hand-forged nails from a horde found at the site of a fort the Roman legions built at Inchtuthil in Scotland.
“Within 45 years of the crucifixion,” says Berk, who offers the nails at three for $75. “Almost all are sold to churches.”
Just as ancient coins can be wonderfully preserved — they tended to get hidden — so ancient relics can be surprisingly inexpensive. A small glass bottle from the 3rd century might sell for $100. Antiquity was a long time and left behind a lot of stuff.
“We sell things at what they’re worth,” says Berk, who has 22 employees, including his three children and a daughter-in-law. Each has a particular field of expertise.
Berk introduces me to Roxana Uskali, a specialist in world coins who is examining a rare Charles I half-pound that a customer sent to Berk to see if he wanted to buy it.
“In our business, we don’t use contracts,” Berk says. “If we want a million dollars in coins, we just tell someone we want this, this and this, and they send it to us. All we have to do is ask because we always pay our bills. If we bounced a check, the world of numismatics would know within a week.”
Berk once had a regular customer who admired a certain bar in the 2010 gold show at the Field Museum, a Johnson Matthey 400 troy ounce bar — 27 pounds of pure gold, worth a half million dollars. Berk acquired one and had it ready. The man parked his car on Clark, and the cardboard box was carried out and put in the trunk. Did the customer want to see it first? No. He drove away without looking inside.
“This is a business based entirely on trust and reputation,” says Berk, who was born in Joliet, the son and grandson of jewelers.
“My grandmother gave me some Indian head pennies when I was 7. Then, his father gave him his 35 cents allowance, and he saw a 1916 D dime worth $12.50. Eureka!
“That’s a year’s worth of allowances.”
In 1964, he got his first job, as a coin expert at Carson Pirie Scott, eventually starting his own coin and antiquities business, moving into the Chicago Temple in 1989 because he wanted to sell not only coins but also paper money, autographs, relics. “I wanted to deal in everything,” he says.
And he does.
