Houston, Texas – Trident Growth Fund is auctioning off the trademark, Internet domain name and related goodwill of Crazy Eddie, the formerly notorious New York metro area CE chain.
Crazy Eddie dominated the New York metro area market with 43 stores and $350 million in annual sales at its peak in the 1980s. The chain gained national recognition thanks to a collection of grating TV spots featuring DJ Jerry Carroll and the tagline “His prices are insaaaaaane!” which achieved cult status.
Crazy Eddie’s founder Eddie Antar was charged with fraud and embezzlement in 1990 after stockholders lost $200 million. He became a fugitive for two years, but returned to custody and was convicted of stock fraud in 1993. The conviction was overturned in 1995, but he pleaded guilty rather than face another trial. Authorities found some $120 million held by Antar in foreign bank accounts, and he served six years in prison.
Antar resurfaced with a Crazy Eddie e-commerce site in 2001. It closed in 2004, two weeks after Klipsch filed suit against the company for selling its products without authorization.
Trident obtained the trademark from the Antar family in 2004. Larry St. Martin, a partner at the capital investor group, said the eBay auction “is a rare opportunity to purchase an asset with such a strong history in both pop culture and in the U.S. retail industry. While it’s a novelty people associate with a lot of fun and high energy, Crazy Eddie is also known as a defining brand representing value in consumer electronics purchases. We anticipate the auction will draw bids from retailers, both ‘brick and mortar’ and Internet merchandisers, and from Internet search engine companies that specialize in leading consumers to the lowest price product offerings.”
Trident set a “Buy It Now” price of $800,000 on eBay. On the second day of the auction, 24 bids had been placed, with a top offer of $9,766.66.
