Auction Highlights

At Kaminski’s West Coast premiere, Feb. 17-18 in La Jolla, Calif., 22.6% of the offered goods sold through LiveAuctioneers. Helping to boost the two-day Internet total to $160,881 was a pair of 19th century Rose Medallion porcelain vases with elephant-head handles, which garnered 23 bids and an online selling price of $4,500.

Morphy & Hake’s saw heavy Internet participation in the Feb. 15-17 auction they jointly conducted in Burbank, Calif., with online sales averaging 33.6% over the three sessions. A 1901 Coca-Cola serving tray emblazoned with the image of a beauty of the day holding a glass of the fizzy 5-cent beverage ignored its $2,000-$3,000 estimate to sell online for $6,710.

Pook & Pook’s Feb. 23 Variety Auction of Furniture, Art & Accessories chalked up nearly $179,000 in Internet sales, with Asian antiques once again topping the roster. A pair of circa-1900 Chinese porcelain plaques measuring 32 inches by 8½ inches had been estimated at $200-$400, but its explosive performance boosted by online bids resulted in a $46,360 selling price paid by a LiveAuctioneers participant.

Trains, toys and railroad memorabilia were on the menu at Stout Auctions’ Feb. 23-24 sale, with 447 lots selling through LiveAuctioneers, including a slice of pure nostalgia from the old Brightwood Roundhouse in Indianapolis: a six-chime whistle that actually had been used by the “big four” railroads. Made of cast iron and steel, the whistle attracted 51 bids before selling online for $3,407.50, more than six times its high estimate.

Great American’s Feb. 24 One-Day Marathon featured a circa-1900 artist-signed Russian bronze tableau of Cossacks watering their horses. An exceptional artwork, it sold via LiveAuctioneers for $6,318 against an estimate of $1,500-$2,500.