Herbert Richard Axelrod was a tropical fish expert, a publisher of pet books, and an entrepreneur. In 2005 he was sentenced in U.S. court to 18 months in prison for tax fraud.
Early life
Axelrod was born to a Jewish family in New Jersey, the son of immigrant parents from Russia. His father was a mathematics and violin teacher, and his mother was a civilian employee of the U.S. Navy.
Aquatics and publishing
While serving in an Army MASH unit in Korea, he wrote his book The Handbook of Tropical Aquarium Fishes, which eventually sold more than one million copies. After returning from Korea, Axelrod earned a Ph.D. in biostatistics 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 that became the largest publisher of pet books in the world. TFH Publications was headquartered first in Jersey City, New Jersey, and then in Neptune, New Jersey. The New York Times has written that "his importance was undeniable. In an era before web forums and Google, collectors turned to Tropical Fish Hobbyist and Axelrod's dozens of books". In 1956, Leonard P. Schultz described the cardinal tetra, a popular aquarium fish, and gave it its scientific name, Paracheirodon axelrodi, which honors Axelrod. Although the fish had been discovered in Brazil in 1953 by Harald Sioli, a discus collector, Axelrod claimed that he had made the discovery himself during a steamboat trip on the Rio Negro, and he sent fish that he purchased from a dealer in New Jersey to the Smithsonian Institution, where the species was identified. In 1989, Axelrod donated his collection of fossil fish to the University of Guelph, which the university says is one of the largest donations by an individual to a Canadian university. The Axelrod Institute of Ichthyology at that university was named for him. The University of Guelph also named a lecture hall after him, the Axelrod Building, but in 2010 renamed it the Alexander Building, after Lincoln Alexander. In 1997 Axelrod sold TFH Publications to Central Garden & Pet Company of California for $70 million. The contract included potential payouts to Axelrod if TFH reached earnings targets after the sale. He sued under that provision, accusing Central Garden of suppressing earnings to avoid paying the extra money. The following year, however, the purchaser filed a countersuit 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.
Musical instruments collection
Axelrod, a violinist himself, assembled a large collection of old and rare stringed instruments, including the Hellier Stradivarius. In 1975 he bought his first Stradivarius violin. In 1998 he donated four Stradivari instruments — two violins, a viola and a cello — to the Smithsonian Institution. Known as the Axelrod quartet, their value was estimated at $50 million. In February 2003 he sold about 30 other instruments to the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra for $18 million. This collection was estimated to be worth $49 million.
Further legal difficulties
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 unnamed experts determined them 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. In an unrelated case, Axelrod was indicted in federal court in New Jersey on April 13, 2004, accused of funneling millions of dollars into Swiss bank accounts over 20 years without paying taxes. The following April 21, he failed to appear for his arraignment, having fled to Cuba. He was arrested in Berlin on June 15, 2004 as he got off a plane from Switzerland, 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.
Legacy
For his philanthropy, the Smithsonian Institution named Axelrod their 1999 Donor of the Year. Axelrodia, a genus of characin from South America, is named for him. A number of fish species are also named for him, including Paracheirodon axelrodi, Hyphessobrycon axelrodi, Hyphessobrycon herbertaxelrodi, Corydoras axelrodi, Neolebias axelrodi, Schultzites axelrodi, Brittanichthys axelrodi, Sundadanio axelrodi, Cynotilapia axelrodi, Chilatherina axelrodi, Ecsenius axelrodi, Pseudogramma axelrodi, Melanotaenia herbertaxelrodi, Parananochromis axelrodi, Labeobarbus axelrodi, and Sternarchorhynchus axelrodi.
Selected publications
Handbook of Tropical Aquarium Fishes, McGraw-Hill, 1955.
