Herbert R. Axelrod

Herbert Richard Axelrod (b. June 7, 1927 in Bayonne, New Jersey) is a tropical fish expert, publisher of pet books, and entrepreneur. In 2005 he was sentenced in U.S. court to 18 months in prison for tax fraud.

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Early life

Axelrod was born to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents in New Jersey. His father was a mathematics and violin teacher, and his mother was a civilian employee of the U.S. Navy. Axelrod spoke four languages before he learned English in school at age 5.

He served in the Korean War, in charge of a MASH unit's blood bank.

Publishing empire

While in Korea he wrote his book The Handbook of Tropical Aquarium Fishes, which sold over one million copies. After returning from Korea, Axelrod earned a Ph.D. at New York University and started the magazine Tropical Fish Hobbyist. He wrote many other books on tropical fish and founded a publishing firm, TFH Publications (named for the magazine) that became the largest publisher of pet books in the world. TFH Publications was headquartered in Neptune, New Jersey.

Axelrod tells many tales of his adventures, but interviewers and biographers have had difficulty determining which are true. On leave in Japan during the Korean war, he claims to have met Emperor Hirohito and had a discussion of marine invertebrates with him. He says he corresponded with Winston Churchill about goldfish, and attended lectures at Princeton by Albert Einstein. He claims to have swum 24 km across Lake Ontario at the age of 10, and collected black panthers in the Amazon jungle for Walt Disney.^[1]

In 1989 he donated his collection of fossil fish to the University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario.^[2] The Axelrod Institute of Ichthyology at that university is named for him. He was credited with discovering the cardinal tetra of Brazil, an extremely popular aquarium fish. He gave it its scientific name, Paracheirodon axelrodi. There was, however, another claimant for the discovery and some question about the dating of Axelrod's published report.^[3]

He holds 29 U.S. patents, in the fields of animal care, publishing and cigar production. He also wrote biographies of violinists Nicolo Paganini (1989) and Jascha Heifetz (1990).

In 1997 Axelrod sold TFH Publications to Central Garden & Pet Company of California for $70 million. The following year, however, the purchaser filed suit against him, claiming that he had grossly and illegally inflated the value of the company before the purchase. On September 1, 2005, Axelrod was ordered to pay Central Garden & Pet Company $16.4 million (net, after deducting $3.7 million the company was ordered to pay Axelrod in his countersuit).^[4]

Musical instruments collection

Axelrod, a violinist himself, assembled a large collection of old and rare stringed instruments. In 1975 he bought his first Stradivarius violin.^[5] Over the next 25 years he bought many more rare violins, violas and cellos, often lending them to orchestras and young musicians. He also made major cash donations to music schools around the country.

In 1998 he donated four Stradivari instruments — two violins, a viola and a cello — to the Smithsonian Institution. Their value was estimated at $50 million.^[6] In February 2003 he sold about 30 other instruments to the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra (NJSO) for $18 million. This collection was estimated to be worth $49 million. (Axelrod was a long-time supporter of the NJSO.)

Further legal difficulties

On April 13, 2004, Axelrod was indicted in federal court in New Jersey, accused of funnelling millions of dollars into Swiss bank accounts over 20 years without paying taxes. The following April 21st, he failed to appear for his arraignment, having fled to Cuba.^[7] He was arrested in Berlin on June 15, 2004 as he got off a plane from Switzerland^[8], and then extradited to the United States. On March 21, 2005 he was sentenced in U.S. court to 18 months in prison for tax fraud.^[9]

Questions surfaced about the value of the instruments he had donated to the Smithsonian and the NJSO. Although the instruments were all old and valuable, several were determined not to be the instruments he represented them as, and not to be as valuable as he claimed. He was said to have invented histories for the instruments to explain away doubts or to increase their worth.^[10] (But NJSO and the Smithsonian had accepted his appraisals.) The suspicions led to investigations by the FBI, the IRS and a U.S. Senate committee.

Selected publications

• Handbook of Tropical Aquarium Fishes, McGraw-Hill, 1955.
• Saltwater Aquarium Fishes, TFH Publications, 1987. ISBN 0866224998
• Lovebirds As a New Pet, TFH Publications, 1990. ISBN 0866226176
• Swordtails and Platies, TFH Publications, 1991. ISBN 0866220909
• African Cichlids of Lakes Malawi and Tang, TFH Publications. ISBN 0876660219
• Aquarium Fishes of the World, TFH Publications, 1998. ISBN 0793804930
• Dr. Axelrod's Atlas of Freshwater Aquarium Fishes, TFH Publications, 2004. ISBN 0793800331

References

1. ^ John T. Ward, "The Maestro", New Jersey Monthly, August 2003
2. ^ [1] "Indicted violin donor flees to Cuba", New Jersey Star-Ledger, April 22, 2004
3. ^ [2] "A Life of Money and Myths", New Jersey Star-Ledger, April 25, 2004
4. ^ [3] "Jurors decide Axelrod must pay $20.2M", New Jersey Star-Ledger, September 1, 2005
5. ^ [4] "Indicted violin donor flees to Cuba", New Jersey Star-Ledger, April 22, 2004
6. ^ [5] "Indicted violin donor flees to Cuba", New Jersey Star-Ledger, April 22, 2004
7. ^ [6] "Indicted violin donor flees to Cuba", New Jersey Star-Ledger, April 22, 2004
8. ^ [7] "False Notes", NJ.com, August 2, 2004
9. ^ [8] "Axelrod Sentenced in Tax Fraud Indictments", Pet Product News International, March 23, 2005.
10. ^ [9] "False Notes", NJ.com, August 2, 2004