Lifestyle : Financial : Invest/ Collectibles

Sydney Lewis (October 24, 1919 – March 12, 1999) was an American businessman, philanthropist, and art collector who founded the Best Products Company.

Lea Bondi, later Lea Jaray or Lea Bondi-Jaray (12 December 1880 – 1969) was an Austrian art dealer and art collector who was forced to emigrate to Great Britain due to Nazi persecution after the annexation of Austria to the Nazi German Reich. The Würthle Gallery, which she ran, was "Aryanized" by Nazis and her art collection, including the Portrait of Wally by Egon Schiele, extorted.

Caroline Flora Burke (née Berg; July 7, 1913 – December 5, 1964) was an American actress, theater producer, television producer, writer, and art collector. She appeared in several films in the early 1940s before becoming a theater producer in New York City, notably producing several stage productions of Harold Pinter plays and Broadway productions. She also worked as a producer for NBC in the 1950s, and at the time was the company's only female producer.The daughter of a prominent Portland, Oregon businessman, Burke studied art history at Bryn Mawr College before embarking on a short-lived career as an actress. Her first role was a starring part in The Mysterious Rider (1942), which she followed with three minor film appearances before retiring from film acting. In the 1950s, she transitioned into executive and production work for NBC, as well as theatre producing for various Broadway and Off-Broadway productions. In addition to her career in entertainment, Burke also taught television production at Columbia University, and was the founder of the art history department at Reed College. She died of undisclosed causes in 1964 while in the midst of producing a second Harold Pinter stage production, which opened the week following her death.
Burke and her husband, business executive Erwin Swann, owned a significant art collection of modernist paintings and sculpture—including works by Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin, and Auguste Rodin—which has showed at several national art museums. Additionally, the couple's collection of cartoon and caricature artwork is owned by the U.S. Library of Congress.

Christian Ringnes (born 3 March 1954) is a Norwegian businessman and art collector whose family founded Norway’s now largest brewery Ringnes in 1876. In his hometown of Oslo, Ringnes owns restaurants, hotels and museums, and recently donated more than $70 million for the creation of a large sculpture and cultural park, which opened in 2013. The Wall Street Journal ranks it as one of the top five parks in the world. Over decades Ringnes has built one of the largest private collections of art in the world.Ringnes holds an MBA from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland and an MBA from Harvard Business School in the United States. He has been an active real estate investor since 1984, and is currently the largest shareholder and CEO of real estate companies Eiendomsspar and Victoria Eiendom.
In 2001 he bought the dilapidated Ekeberg Restaurant in Oslo, not far from the place where Edvard Munch painted The Scream. He renovated it and opened the restaurant in 2005. He has also given Oslo the sculptures Peacock Fountain at the National Theatre station and Kate Moss at the Opera Passage. The Marketing Association in Oslo appointed Ringnes to "Oslo Ambassador " for his efforts to promote Oslo as a city and destination. In 2005 he was awarded the honorary award "City Patriot " by Oslo. In 2013 he was voted "citizen of the year " by the readers of Norway's largest media outlet Aftenposten.
At the age of seven, Ringnes developed a hobby after he received an unusual gift from his father: a half-empty Gordon's Gin miniature liquor bottle. It was this afterthought of a gift that led him on a path towards amassing what is recognized today as the largest mini-bottle collection in the world with over 52,000 miniature liquor bottles commissioned to a three-story museum in Oslo.

Lothar-Günther Buchheim () (6 February 1918 – 22 February 2007) was a German author, painter, and wartime journalist under the Nazi regime. In World War II he served as a war correspondent aboard ships and U-boats. He is best known for his 1973 antiwar novel Das Boot (The Boat), based on his experiences during the war, which became an international bestseller and was adapted as the 1981 Oscar-nominated film of the same name. His artworks, collected in a gallery on the banks of the Starnberger See, range from heavily decorated cars to a variety of mannequins seated or standing as if themselves visitors to the gallery, thus challenging the division between visitor and art work.

John Jay Ford Jr. (March 5, 1924 – July 7, 2005) was an American numismatist from Hollywood, California, known for his extensive collection of historical currency and medals. Ford largely collected American coinage, particularly U.S. colonial coins, medals, and obsolete U.S. and colonial currency. Ford was one of the premier experts in the field of numismatics, and it is estimated that the total value of his numismatic holdings was upwards of $55 million at the time of his death.

Jackie Ormes (August 1, 1911 – December 26, 1985) was an American cartoonist. She is known as the first African-American woman cartoonist and creator of the Torchy Brown comic strip and the Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger panel.