MARKSON, HARRY SIGNED BOXING HALL OF FAME FIRST DAY ENVELOPE (1992)

Boxing's buccaneering image flourished at the Garden, then at Eighth Avenue and 49th Street, almost from the time the sport became synonymous with the famous arena. But in the haze of clouds of cigar smoke, Mr. Markson was a calm pipe smoker.

He joined the Garden as a boxing publicist in 1933 under Mike Jacobs, a promoter who made Joe Louis more or less the arena's house fighter..

As a publicist and then the boxing director, Mr. Markson was involved in more than 2,000 bouts. Perhaps his most famous was the 1971 extravaganza in the present Garden that pitted Muhammad Ali against Joe Frazier, both undefeated, for the heavyweight championship. The ringside celebrities included Frank Sinatra, who was taking photographs for Life magazine; Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken, and the author Norman Mailer.

Mr. Markson was proud of the Garden and its place in history. He liked to recall his meeting with Pope Paul VI in 1967, when he flew to Rome to try to sign the Italian boxer Nino Benvenuti. When the Pope was told what kind of work Mr. Markson did, he held up his hands in the classic boxer's pose and said, ''Ah, Madison Square Garden.''

In 1974, when the Garden was becoming more corporate and businessmen were running the operation, he was shocked when the new president, Alan N. Cohen, said he was considering dropping boxing as a cost-cutting measure.

''You're a bottom-line man,'' Mr. Markson told Mr. Cohen at a luncheon, ''and I'm a boxing man.'' From then on, the Garden president was known as Bottom-Line Cohen.

Mr. Markson was born March 10, 1906, in Kingston, N.Y., and graduated from Union College in 1927. He was a boxing reporter for The Bronx Home News before joining the Garden, where Jacobs's Twentieth Century Sporting Club held sway. In 1937, Mr. Markson became the head of publicity for boxing.

He enjoyed keeping track of the fractured phrases he came across in the rich diversity of managers and trainers. His orderly notes included these nuggets:

*''I don't believe anything I see unless I see it with my own eyes.''

*''This kid, punches roll off his chin like a duck takes to water.''

*''Look,'' said the manager, beseeching Mr. Markson for more money, ''I'm in a terrible squandry. I just gave my daughter $400 for intuition at college. The tax people want me to atomize expenses, and my home was ramshackled by burglars.''

In 1949, Mr. Markson became the general manager of boxing under Mr. Norris, whose International Boxing Club had a stranglehold on championship promotions.

Mr. Norris had a propensity for hanging out with gamblers and gangsters. He was investigated by a Senate committee, and in 1959, when the courts ordered his organization dissolved, the Garden took control of boxing in its building and made Mr. Markson the director. Each night, Mr. Markson would leave the hurly-burly of his sport, go home to the Flatbush section of Brooklyn and listen to classical music.

In recent years, he and his wife of 68 years, the former Rachel Karpet, lived in Middletown, N.J., with their son, Robert, and his wife, Stephanie. 

Harry Markson passed away in 1998.

Offered here is an original International Boxing Hall Of Fame Cover envelope from June 7, 1992 which has been signed by Harry Markson.

FULL DESCRIPTION: This is an original International Boxing Hall Of Fame Cover envelope from June 7, 1992 which has been signed by Harry Markson. Date stamped. Clean front and back. Not creased or torn. 3 5/8" x 6 1/2."