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Bruce Halle On His Passion For Antique Tire Art

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This article is more than 10 years old.

What began with an impulse purchase by tire magnate Bruce Halle has evolved into what is assuredly the most expansive collection of antique tire posters ever assembled.  From Continental to Vigor, impressive color lithographs from every major player in the history of the industry adorn the walls of Halle's Discount Tire headquarters.

Below Halle discusses how he got started and why he loves each of the nearly 360 pieces in his collection:

This story appears in the Oct. 10, 2011 issue of Forbes Magazine.

Thirty years ago my wife and I were in Aspen on a skiing vacation, walking through town, and we came across a poster gallery. Like a dutiful husband, I followed her into the store and stood there while the merchant showed us a bunch of big lithographs. All of a sudden up comes a tire poster - it was a Michelin. I wasn't even aware they existed. This one wasn't really that expensive, and I thought, "I'll buy it and hang it in the office someplace."

As I got into it, prices started climbing. I wondered why. Well, I was competing with myself. I was dealing with several brokers and, essentially, bidding against myself. So I pulled out for a year, year and a half. Prices came down to reality, so I continued to collect.

There's over 100 years of history of the industry I'm involved in. They're big, spectacular, colorful. Years ago in Europe this is how some young struggling artists made a living. We have a couple Toulouse-Lautrec posters; Leonetto Cappiello, the father of modern advertising. And, of course, we have Marius Rossillon, who went by the name of O'Galup and started doing the big Michelin posters of Bibendum, the big fat guy.

I especially like ones of companies we're still doing business with today. The older ones appeal to me quite a bit, like the dark Pirelli poster from the 1920s. So do strange ones, like the Vigor poster that depicts a tiger with his fangs around a tire. It beats collecting old tires, which are big and smell bad.