A little-known centimillionaire gets rich by staying private
Curtis Carlson, a freewheeling entrepreneur who made his first millions selling Gold Bond Stamps, has a gilt complex. He loves gold. The energetic conglomerateur controls the worldwide operations of his Minneapolis-based empire (hotels, restaurants, discounting) from offices reminiscent of that Bondian archvillain, Auric Goldfinger: his gold-embossed telephone, gold vinyl chair and gold-striped sofa are set off by the rich, warm shades of a gold-hued carpet. When Carlson's Gold Bond Stamp operation was at its peak in the 1960s, its executives drove a fleet of company-owned...
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