Terry and Ralph Kovel were married in 1950 with Harry Truman in the White House and the Diner’s Club introducing a newfangled financial tool called the credit card. It was a heady time for young lovers, one in which a sign reading “The Buck Stops Here” sat on Truman’s Oval Office desk while consumers were discovering the perils of pushing the buck down the road in minimum monthly payments.
Honeymooning in Bermuda, the Kovels were captivated by the pottery and porcelain they saw in antiques shops, giving rise to both their collecting passion and their first book, 1953’s Dictionary of Marks - Pottery and Porcelain.
That one title positioned the couple as pioneers in the wilderness that was the antiques and collectibles field at that time. The Marks book went through forty-two printings, an unheard-of number, and yet in was their 1968 book, The Complete Antiques Price List, that cemented their legacy.
Known today as Kovels’ Antiques &, the fifty-fifth edition of the book just dropped. Ralph died at age 88 in 2008, but Terry, who recently turned 94, is still going strong. With the help of her daughter, Kim, and a dedicated team in her home office in Shaker Heights, Ohio, Terry Kovel continues an unparalleled publishing tradition.
