One of the worse views of humanity is summed up in Leo Durocher’s famous line “Nice guys finish last”. Durocher was a major league baseball shortstop and manager and its not clear what in his life led him to this philosophy. Durocher was famously not a nice guy. He was a drinker, passer of bad checks, womanizer and once said that if he was playing third base and his mother was rounding third base trying to score he would trip her. Its not clear at all that being so prickly helped Leo finish any better than being a bit kinder would have. He was a mediocre shortstop, never making the list of the top fifty who played the game, nor did he make the top ten list for managers, supposedly his greatest baseball strength. Durocher is proof that being a nasty only-for-me-person isn’t the way to personal success either. You could ask any of his wives from his three failed marriages to attest to that.
The philatelic aspect of this point became clearer to me lately. We received from a long time collector a wonderful specialized South America collection. Many countries in South America have very interesting specialty items, such as Proofs, Essays and covers, that are very rare but not often very pricey. The philatelists that appreciate this area are not many but they are avid and though the prices for many of the rarer specialty items are not high they are fiendishly sought after. The items are very rare but not expensive. We could have sold this collection, which was attractively priced to any of a number of very keen specialists. But one name came to mind- a man and his wife who not only love the hobby but who are lovely people who it is a pleasure to work with. They were the ones we called and when the price was more than the amount that they had on hand we were happy to work out extended payments for them. We find it nice to work with nice people and we try to treat people as we wish to be treated. It’s worked pretty well for us over the years.