{"id":4438,"date":"2016-06-26T18:55:00","date_gmt":"2016-06-26T18:55:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-07-31T19:00:15","modified_gmt":"2020-08-01T00:00:15","slug":"chet-krause-1923-2016-comics-buyers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/2016\/06\/26\/chet-krause-1923-2016-comics-buyers\/","title":{"rendered":"Chet Krause, 1923-2016: Comics Buyer’s Guide publisher, and a titan in collecting"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n
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As many in the Krause Publications<\/b> community have posted this
\nmorning, Chester “Chet” Krause<\/b> has died at the age of 92. You may not be
\naware of the name — there is no Wikipedia page, only one on a currency site<\/b><\/a> \u2014<\/b> but if you have been
\nto the collectibles magazine and book sections of your bookstore or
\nlibrary, you have certainly seen his name. Chet took Numismatic News<\/b><\/i>, a magazine for coin
\ncollectors started on his kitchen table in 1952, and parlayed it into
\nthe world’s largest hobby publisher, greatly spurring development in his hometown of Iola, Wisconsin.<\/span><\/p>\n

The company’s line grew not only to include his own hobby interests in
\ncoins and old cars, but also sportscards, records, toys, and comics \u2014<\/b>
\nwhich is how I learned his name, following his 1983 purchase of the
\nmagazine that became Comics Buyer’s Guide<\/b><\/i>. I had been a subscriber for
\nnearly a decade when I took a life-changing job with the staff in the
\nearly 1990s; Chet came to visit me at my desk, as he did all new
\nemployees, bringing me a signed copy of the book you see here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Krause with the first issue of Numismatic News<\/i> in 1952.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

I
\nsaw him frequently following that, as he would stop by to offer advice
\non publishing and indexing collectibles. Early on as I struggled to find
\neasy ways to report on all the items comics shop sold, he said he’d
\nlearned that “the only category in any hobby that captures everything is
\n‘miscellaneous’.” Later on he dropped by after we bought Scrye<\/b><\/i>, the
\nMagic: The Gathering<\/b><\/i> magazine; he confessed he didn’t understand the
\nproduct area we were covering at all. Yet he understood there was a
\nmarket of hobbyists interested in the field, and that meant Krause
\nPublications needed to be there.<\/p>\n

Folks in the area also thrilled to one of his other hobby pursuits, collecting many of the military vehicles from his World War II unit. A tour of Chet’s tanks was a regular stop on the Comics Buyer’s Guid<\/i>e picnic. There are old car and military vehicle shows near the publishing company’s grounds to this day; the Iola Old Car Show<\/b>, every July, attracts more than 100,000 annually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Krause at the historical marker unveiling outside his home
\n(Credit: Iola Historical Society)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Importantly, he arranged to sell
\nthe company to its employees, giving them all a stake in its future.
\nThe employees later sold the company as it faced internet headwinds; he
\nwas unhappy following that, wanting to take his name back. I remember
\nsuggesting at the time it might be worth renaming the town after him as
\nhe had played such a role in so many lives. Certainly I would not be
\nworking in the comics and science fiction fields today without his
\npresence, and I know there are other writers with similar
\nstories.<\/p>\n

I did see him later as he continued to keep offices
\ndowntown in Iola; a couple of years ago he gave my young son several old
\nrailroad stock certificates, from yet another hobby he was pursuing. I
\nthought it made sense: he was continuing to spread the word about
\ncollecting. Chet will be very much missed indeed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As many in the Krause Publications community have posted this morning, Chester “Chet” Krause has died at the age of 92. You may not be aware of the name — there is no Wikipedia page, only one on a currency site \u2014 but if you have been to the collectibles magazine and book sections of … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4439,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-4438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-obituaries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4438"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6368,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4438\/revisions\/6368"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}