Lakewood Ranch author becomes expert on evolution of tie bars

It was 2022, and Lakewood Ranch's Joseph Harb was visiting his niece in Japan where her husband was the commanding officer of the USS Howard, an Arleigh Burke class destroyer that was docked at Yokosuka Naval Base.

Considering Harb had spent almost 40 years working with the National Security Agency of the United States Department of Defense, the potential field trips had to be enticing to him. Part of his intelligence career, from 1986-1990, was spent on assignment in Japan.

So on an October day, his niece Lisa, and her husband, Commander Travis Montplaisir, took Harb, along with their 7-year-old son William, to a flea market on the grounds of the Gokoku-ji Buddhist Temple in Tokyo.

Huh?

Yes, they went to a Japanese-style Goodwill.

Harb, who in 2017 released his espionage thriller, "Team Triad: A Nuclear Spy Hunt: Iran," was in collector's heaven. On this day, espionage would have to take a back seat.

"At one flea market booth, the vendor had a box with hundreds of vintage tie bars," Harb said. "William helped me select 67 tie bars. I told him my selection criteria, and he followed my guidance perfectly."

Photo by Jay Heater

At 70 cents apiece, this was a major tie bar score in line with landing a novel on the New York Times Best Seller List.

Harb, 81, calls it the best day of his tie bar collecting life.

"We found the 1968 centennial celebration (tie bar) of the Meiji Restoration, a Singaporean lion's head emblem, a Polymer Science Symposium, Osaka 1966, and tie bars from a number of Japanese sports festivals," Harb said.

For those who are not thrilled by tie bars, Harb's experience in Japan might be met with a sarcastic "oh joy!" But Harb said his choice of hobby fits perfectly with his analytical mind, even if it is not a followup to "Team Triad."

He now has 3,960 tie bars from 92 countries and international organizations, dating back to the 1890s.

"I doubt that there is any jewelry expert in the world who knows, or cares to know, more about this topic than I do," he said.

Harb said anyone who wants to "get a sense for my insights," should check out his Instagram, @tiebarguy.

He has a tie bar representing every U.S. president from Herbert Hoover to the Joe Biden, with the exception of Harry Truman. He has 10 different John F. Kennedy campaign tie bars, along with many tie bars from vice presidents and failed presidential candidates.

Photo by Jay Heater

However, politics is just one category. He has a collection of tie bars that represent auto parts companies and feature spark plugs, to shock absorbers, to car keys, to batteries. There are drawers full of first responder tie bars, and battleships, and animals.

The obsession with his collection began during his assignment in Japan in 1988. Whenever he would visit a Japanese military unit, it was customary to exchange gifts. The Japanese military gift at the time was a tie bar. He picked up tie bars from Japan's Navy, Army and Air Force, and his hobby was underway.

He thought the hobby was cool, and he continued collecting tie bars over the years, although he said some years went by when he didn't add to his collection at all.

But by 2020, he had built a collection of 1,700 tie bars.

Then COVID-19 hit.

"In 2020, I started to take photos of the tie bars, and I put together details of them for a catalogue," he said. "I thought if I passed away, and my kids — daughter Alexandria Harb and son Mike Harb both live in Lakewood Ranch — inherited the tie bars, they would have all the details ... the cost ... the significance."

That project turned into a three volume set, "The Development & Evolution of Mens Tie Bars — Volume I, Details, Analysis, and Insights; Volume II — A Global Mélange; and Volume III — The World of Military Tie Bars — Ancient & Modern Themes."

"The only reason I started this book publishing project is that, in the early 2020 self-isolating days of COVID, I was searching for some way to occupy my time at home," said Harb, whose wife of 52 years, Linda, died in 2018. "I ended up finding so much historic information that it took me three years to reach publication."

All the volumes are available on Amazon through Habu Press.

His research was extensive and included countless hours on the Library of Congress' Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers database, which has digitized 19 million newspaper pages from 1777 through 1963. Harb would search through advertisements to compare tie bars and to see how they were marketed.

"It is astonishing what you can find online," he said. "All those Montgomery Ward and Sears catalogues. I analyzed the ads to see how the popularity changed."

For instance, in 1913, Omar Turkish cigarettes would run ads — buy a pack, get a free tie bar.

All along the way, his tie bar collection grew.

The collection also grew in importance from a fun hobby to something more.

"They connect you to people's lives," he said. "I've got 500 tie bars from friends and family. I had a friend who was a rocket scientist and I have nine missile tie bars from him."