For the
entire second half of the 20th Century, the name of Chet Krause was well-known
throughout the numismatic hobby; first nationally, then globally. This
recognition resulted from his life's work focused on providing coin collectors
with authoritative reference books, accurate price guides, hobby news and
entertainment and trustworthy marketplaces to bring together buyers and
sellers.
Chester L.
Krause was born Dec. 16, 1923, in rural Waupaca
County, about six miles east of the village of Iola
in central Wisconsin.
He was the youngest of six children. His education began in a one-room
schoolhouse that had been built by his father next door to the family farm.
From an early age, Krause learned the building trades working with his father
who was an accomplished stone mason. He attended high school in Iola,
graduating in 1941.
At the age
of 19, Krause was drafted into the U.S. Army in February, 1943. He served as an
auto mechanic with the 565th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion, part of
Patton's 3rd Army, in Belgium,
Luxembourg and Germany through
the end of World War II. He was among the first U.S.
troops to witness the concentration camp at Buchenwald
the afternoon after it was liberated in May, 1945.
Following
his release from the Army in 1946, Krause returned to Iola where he worked on
the family farm and set himself up as an independent builder. Through the early
1950s he constructed two dozen houses, two churches and a 105-foot ski jump in
the Iola area.
In October,
1952, Krause published the first issue of Numismatic News. The
one-sided 11" x 17" sheet was meant to fill a niche Krause identified
to serve the buying, selling and trading needs of coin collectors nationwide
who were far removed from metropolitan areas where numismatists enjoyed coin
shops, clubs, shows and conventions. He was the prototypical customer for his
new venture: a serious coin collector who was geographically cut off from that
hobby's mainstream.
For the
next five years the publication grew in advertising volume and circulation as
Krause nurtured it on evenings, weekends and when inclement weather kept him
away from current construction projects. In 1957, Krause finished the last
building he would ever construct, a 40" x 40" brick and glass office
a block off of Iola's Main Street.
That would remain, with occasional additions as expansion dictated, the offices
of Krause Publications for nearly two decades.
Numismatic News grew throughout the 1960s and Krause
Publications expanded through acquisitions and start ups of periodicals to fill
needs Krause identified in the coin collecting community.
When the
coin collecting hobby suffered a serious downturn in the mid- 1960s, almost
forcing the demise of his publishing business, Krause recognized that
diversification was key to insure its survival. In 1971 he founded Old
Cars, a virtual clone of the contemporary Numismatic News, and
began to develop a parallel line of periodicals for antique auto enthusiasts.
His
involvement with the car collecting fraternity led to one of the most significant
contributions he would make to his hometown. In 1972, in conjunction with a pig
roast and donation auction fundraiser sponsored by the Iola Lions Club, Krause invited two dozen area
vintage car owners to display their vehicles at the cookout. That was the first
Iola Old Car Show, an annual event that draws tens of thousands of spectators
to the village to view more than 2,000 collector cars and do business with
1,500 swap meet vendors. The event has raised millions of dollars with profits
benefiting the dozens of area civic organizations that provide volunteer
staffing for the largest collector car show in the Midwest.
The car
show is only the most visible of the philanthropic activities that Krause has
been engaged in over the years. Both personally and through a family foundation
that he endowed, millions of dollars have been spent in such projects as
village park improvement, street renovation, the removal of dilapidated
buildings and the provision of assisted living housing for seniors.
Less
visible support of the community has been ongoing for decades, often
unbeknownst to the general public. He has been instrumental in drawing
resources into the community such as medical practices, outdoor winter sports
facilities, housing for seniors, day care operations and other amenities not
usually found in similarly sized rural Wisconsin
locales.
Besides
providing financial impetus for such improvements, Krause consistently gave of
his time to the community. He was a member of the local volunteer fire
department, a member of the Iola Village Board of Trustees for eight years and
a member of the Waupaca County Selective Service Board during the Vietnam War
era.
Though most
of his philanthropy has been focused locally, Krause has been a major
benefactor over the years to the Rawhide Boy's Ranch for at-risk youths, the
Badger State Winter Games, the Melvin Laird Center
medical research facility at the Marshfield Clinic and the Max McGee National Research
Center for Juvenile Diabetes at
Children's Hospital
of Milwaukee.
Through
much of his publishing career, Krause devoted time and money to further the
growth of the hobby fields in which he published. He testified frequently on
coinage related matters before Congressional committees in Washington, D.C.,
lobbying the U.S. Mint and Treasury Department on behalf of the interests of
his coin collecting readers.
He is a
lifetime member of the American Numismatic Association and has been recognized
by that organization with every major award it can bestow. In 2007, when the
ANA was struggling with financial and operational issues, Krause ran for and
was elected to the association's board of governors at the age of 83, bringing
his decades of business acumen to bear in creating new leadership and direction
for the ANA.
Krause
guided the growth of his publishing company through the 1980s, expanding into
more that a dozen collectible hobbies including sports cards and memorabilia,
postcards, comic books, records, stamps, firearms, knives, toys, and general
antiques, producing dozens of periodicals and more than 150 book titles, with
revenues exceeding $50 million annually.
At the age
of 63 he stepped down as president of the firm in late 1986, remaining as
chairman of the board. In 1988, he converted the company to an Employee Stock
Ownership Plan, eventually vesting the company's stock in the hands of its 400+
employees. When he had completed the transition of his shares to the ESOP in
1992, Krause retired from active participation in the company, though he maintained
an office in the company headquarters.
While the
ESOP was intended to insure that Krause Publications would remain in the hands
of its employees, and thus in the Iola community, in 2002 a group of its
largest shareholders voted to sell the company to an outside investment capital
group.
Krause
severed all ties with the company at that point. He set up a retirement office
from which he oversaw the disposition of his lifelong collections of numismatic
material, vintage autos and a large personal collection of World War II U.S.
Army vehicles.
Now, as he
nears the age of 90, Krause spends much of his time writing monographs on
subjects ranging from family and local history to a compendium of places named
Iola throughout the U.S.
Uncommon commons: In more than 30 years in
sportscards publishing I have thrown hundreds of notes into files about the
players – usually non-star players – who made up the majority of the baseball
and football cards I collected as a kid. Today, I keep adding to those files as
I peruse microfilms of The Sporting News from the 1880s through the
1960s. I found these tidbits brought some life to the player pictures on those
cards. I figure that if I enjoyed them, you might too.
He was a four-time All-Star and the league three times in
stolen bases, and once in runs scored.
