Paul DeBoer; built business on games

Mr. DeBoer was a relentless salesman, family and colleagues said, heading an artwork stationery company with his son until three years ago, when he became ill with bone marrow cancer.

Mr. DeBoer was born into a modest Dutch family in East Orange, N.J. After his father, also a salesman, died when he was 3 years old, Mr. DeBoer and his two brothers were raised by their mother, a teacher.

He graduated from East Orange High School in 1950 and transferred to Rutgers University in 1952 after a stint at a junior college. He received his bachelor’s degree in agriculture in 1955.

As a member of ROTC, Mr. DeBoer went to Korea as an Army first lieutenant following his graduation. He spent three years there, working reconnaissance.

“He certainly didn’t like it too much, but he enjoyed the travel aspect of it, the foreign cultures,’’ said his son Matthew, a high school history teacher in Pittsburgh. “He was very skillful at making the best of a bad situation.’’

After first returning to New Jersey in 1959, Mr. DeBoer moved to Marblehead, where his mother’s cousin lived.

There he met the woman who would become his wife of more than 45 years, Charlotte (Goodwin). He initially contacted her for a blind date through a mutual friend but it was not until a chance meeting later that Charlotte accepted his proposal.

They married in 1963 and moved to Ipswich in 1989.

“Dad had holes in his shoes, and Mom’s mom made finger sandwiches,’’ Matthew said of the wedding.

They also toured a sardine factory in New Brunswick, Maine, during their honeymoon.

“That was Dad’s tongue-in-cheek way of being romantic,’’ Matthew said. “He couldn’t afford much else.’’

One year earlier, Mr. DeBoer had poured everything he had, $180, into starting American Publishing Co., initially a board game outfit, with his future business partner, Herb Kavet of Wayland.

The two began with a skiing-themed board game called Skigammon.

“You’d go up the ski lifts and down the different trails, accumulating points,’’ Kavet said. “It was silly.’’

They marketed the game to every ski shop in the area, sometimes selling 10 games with Mr. DeBoer’s superb salesmanship. But the partners soon realized it wouldn’t be a moneymaker.

Their first success was the board game Bankgammon, which they sold by the thousands to bank managers, who offered the game as a giveaway to prospective customers.

But the company’s first million came from the sale of puzzles of beautiful women.

In 1972, they scored the exclusive contract for puzzles of Playboy centerfolds, which were sold in a tin can.

“It became the hottest-selling men’s gift for perhaps 10 years,’’ Kavet said. “We sold them around the world.’’

The company, which moved from Marblehead to Waltham to Watertown, later bought the rights for Presto Magic, a popular 1980s arts and crafts game, and sold humor books, such as the “You Know You’re 40 When . . . ’’ series.

But above his “brilliant mind for business,’’ his two sons recalled his adventurous spirit.

In 1980, Mr. DeBoer bought a hot air balloon.

“The first week, he went up 100 feet on the junior high football field,’’ recalled Mr. DeBoer’s son Michael, of Ipswich. “The whole neighborhood, including the Police and Fire Departments, showed up to watch.’’

Mr. DeBoer would take his sons for rides five or six times each summer, always bringing a bottle of champagne to offer the angry owner of whatever garden he’d land in.

“I thought he was great,’’ Michael said. “He was the only dad in town with a hot air balloon.’’

In addition to his wife and sons, Mr. DeBoer leaves six grandchildren.

A funeral service and burial will be held at 11 a.m. tomorrow at the Waterside Cemetery in Marblehead.