If I stopped to read everything interesting I encountered in the course of a day I wouldn’t get anything done, but this small item from Coin World, August 4, 1961, really caught my eye. It truly was the golden era of coin collecting, when a small firm like Q. David Bowers’ and James Ruddy’s Empire Coin Company could buy its own lake for the private use of its employees!

In 1961, we learned that one of the largest privately-owned lakes in the region, near a place called Newark Valley, as part of a 212-acre preserve was available, Phantom Lake it was called, with its own beach and swimming area, with forest surrounding. We bought this, and named it Lake Empire. We built a pavilion in addition to a two-story house that was already there, and made it available to our employees and friends for their recreational enjoyment. This was a bright idea. Later, it was sold to the State University of New York (SUNY Binghamton), and used as a similar facility for college students. The name was retained.

I always felt that our business success should be shared with employees. It was company policy to suggest that when we attended conventions in distant cities those inclined should go a day earlier or stay a day later to visit museums, tourist attractions, and other things of interest. It was also policy to have all employees sign in for the same hotels and restaurants, the last often the best in town, that we did.

On the other hand a not-so-bright idea was when Jim and I learned that a local company, Creative Printing, was for sale. As we were turning out catalogs, coin-premium guides, and other things, this seemed be a great idea! It proved to be analogous to buying a herd of cows instead of buying milk at the grocery store. IBM, General Electric, and some other local businesses were clients, not in a major way, but because they liked to spread their printing contracts around. We bought another printing press and made some improvements, but to little avail, as we soon learned that margins in the printing business were nothing like those in rare coins. We gave up the effort and sold it at a loss.