Ralph Kovel; Brought Antiquing to Middle America

Ralph M. Kovel, 88, a pioneer of price guides for antiques and collectibles who wrote 97 books on the subject and helped create the modern mania for family heirlooms and flea-market finds on "Antiques Roadshow" and eBay, died Aug. 28 at the Cleveland Clinic. He had complications from hip surgery.

He lived in Shaker Heights, Ohio, with Terry Horvitz Kovel, his wife of 58 years and co-author of his books.

"Kovels' Antiques & Collectibles Price Guide," as well as the Kovels' other books on such subjects as silver and American art pottery, are written primarily for average collectors and history buffs, not museum curators.

The couple's intensive research and wide-ranging knowledge -- communicated through syndicated newspaper columns, newsletters and a Home and Garden TV show -- helped educate Americans for decades.

Today, the whole field of junking -- buying something discarded by someone for a low price and then reselling it, often through eBay, to someone who collects it -- is big business.

"The Kovels were the first ones to get information to people about what was once a very secretive business -- antiques," said S. Clayton Pennington, editor of Maine Antique Digest.

The Kovels were on top of all kinds of collecting. From their home base near Cleveland, they and their staff of 14 interviewed thousands of dealers across the country, chronicling the highs and lows of hot collectibles, whether Tiffany glass, McDonald's Happy Meal toys, vintage eggbeaters or the early 20th-century American art pottery known as Roseville Pottery.

"He had a rare combination of great knowledge, as well as great personality and humility," said Leigh Keno, who is a New York antiques dealer and acts as an appraiser on the PBS series "Antiques Roadshow" along with his twin brother, Leslie.

As teenagers, the Kenos used the Kovels' guides to catalogue their budding collection of glass bottles and 18th-century English ceramics.

"The Kovels were pioneers on the idea of publishing prices for American antiques. Imagine how important this book was pre-Internet. It made the field much more exciting," Leigh Keno said.

Ralph Mallory Kovel, whose father ran a menswear manufacturing business, was born in Milwaukee on Aug. 20, 1920.

He attended Ohio State University and served in the Coast Guard on Lake Erie during World War II.