Morphy’s Sept. 5-8 Fall auction features 2,500 lots of antiques, fine and decorative art, toys and black Americana
August 23, 2007
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DENVER, Pa. – More than 2,500 lots of antiques, fine and decorative art, and other vintage items will be presented in Morphy Auctions’ Sept. 5-8 Fall sale, with real-time Internet bidding provided exclusively by LiveAuctioneers.com. Headlining the array of goods is an outstanding single-owner collection of black Americana, with additional noteworthy categories including Coca-Cola and other soda pop material, a 35-year collection of early colored-glass fruit jars, a 200-lot Christmas collection, antique advertising, a collection of mechanical banks, and a first-rate assortment of toys. Within the fine art category, Morphy’s will offer approximately one dozen paintings by listed artists, as well as a top-quality collection of original animation art.
“There’s a little bit of everything in the black Americana collection,” said Morphy’s chief operating officer Dan Morphy. “There are around 75 lots of toys, desirable artworks with a black theme, folk art, fantastic early black rag dolls and advertising signs featuring African-American subject matter.” Among the top pieces in the collection are a pâpier-maché candy container depicting a black man smoking a cigar as he rides atop a pig, a 26-inch black nodder, a tin windup Black Johnny toy in its original box, and a very special German-made, black-theme chocolate vending machine. The automated machine, which carries a $40,000-$60,000 estimate, is made of cast iron and has a glass insert through which a black man’s head and body may be viewed. When a coin is inserted, the black man kicks his tin legs back and forth behind the glass and rolls his eyes side to side as a sweet is dispensed.
A fine selection of approximately 40 near-mint-plus porcelain signs will be auctioned within the general advertising section of the sale. “There’s an excellent cross-section,” said Morphy, “with many general-store-related pieces, including bean and dye cabinets, and a Red Goose Shoes collection featuring string-holders, toys and various other items with the distinctive Red Goose logo.”
Another special highlight within the antique advertising is the 400-piece tobacco tin collection of Bob Copeland, a longtime hobbyist from Ohio. “This is a very comprehensive collection,” Morphy observed. “There are all types of tins: pockets, cubes, store displays – there are excellent buying opportunities for tobacciana collectors across the board.”
In line with a longstanding Morphy Auctions tradition, the advertising portion of the sale will contain a featured subcategory devoted exclusively to Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, Dr. Pepper, Hires and other soda-pop material. “We’ll have our standard selection of good, early Coke calendars and posters, as well as some superior Coke serving trays and festoons,” Morphy said. “Approximately 100 soft drink lots have been cataloged in total.”
Time is of the essence for bidders to check out the more than 75 vintage clocks to be auctioned in the sale. Standouts include a flat-top shelf clock and stovepipe hollow-column clock, both by 19th-century New York clocksmith Asa Munger; a George Marsh & Co. hollow-column clock, a Willard lighthouse clock, and many excellent-quality examples of shelf, wall and advertising clocks by other makers, including Baird.
From a single collector comes a select grouping of circa 1850-1870 American colored-glass fruit jars in original, untouched condition. Glass colors include amber, sapphire blue, olive green and several very rare color variants. An exceptional grouping of a caliber very seldom seen in the auction marketplace, the jars were carefully amassed over a 35-year period, with condition and rarity always of primary consideration.
For those who like to celebrate Christmas year round, Morphy’s will present an extensive 30-year collection of Christmas antiques that includes 20+ candy containers, a large grouping of belsnickles, and numerous other figural Christmas and Santa items. Christmas connoisseurs will surely appreciate the selection of handmade Dresden ornaments and the hundreds of gleaming glass ornaments and kugels, many of them hand blown.
Fine art is a category in which Morphy’s has made great inroads over the past few years. The auction will feature a number of excellent paintings by listed artists, including several by Johann Berthelsen (1883-1972). One of the entries is a signed 8¼ inch by 11 inch (sight) oil-on-canvas snow scene of Washington Square Arch in New York’s Greenwich Village. Other signed Berthelsen artworks feature the artist’s quintessential inclusions of pedestrians negotiating snowy streets against a backdrop of skyscrapers and other readily identifiable New York City landmarks.
A beautiful Eugene Boudin (1824-1897) oil-on-panel seascape titled Entrée du Pont du Havre depicts people walking alongside boats on a shore. Another marine artwork entered in the sale is a signed Berthelsen pastel of an industrial harbor scene with lights reflecting across the water, 17 inches by 22 inches (framed). Guy Wiggins’ (1883-1962) inscribed and signed watercolor titled Fishing Shack measures 10 inches by 13¼ inches (sight) and has a label on verso from Galleries Maurice Sternberg. The atmospheric waterside scene features a moored tug and rowboats, gulls swooping overhead and a man standing on the dock.
Measuring 9 3/8 inches by 5½ inches (sight), one of the most appealing pictures in the sale is Guy Carleton Wiggins’ signed oil on canvas titled 5th Ave. & 2nd Street. The diminutive cityscape is a busy conglomeration of pedestrians with umbrellas, and busses and trucks rushing down a snowy street; and features a row of apartment buildings and two American Flags. A fresh and vibrant work, it is affixed with a bronze I.D. tag on its frame that reads: Guy Carleton Wiggins 1883-1962.
Art of another persuasion – original animation art – also has been included in this pleasingly varied auction. Within the 70+ lots in this specialty category are many examples of coveted and highly collectible concept art, including one of very few original drawings of Mickey Mouse created by Walt Disney himself.
The auction will be rounded out by a varied selection of 200+ toys, including pressed-steel vehicles, tin windups and cast iron, and an assortment of always-popular vintage wood toys by Fisher-Price. Approximately 75 to 80 cast-iron mechanical banks will be offered, with highlights including a Girl Skipping Rope, a Professor Pug Frog, a Dentist bank and other desirable, humorously themed money boxes of the late-19th and early 20th centuries. In concluding the big, colorful four-day sale, Morphy’s will auction an array of figural cast-iron novelties including doorstops, bottle openers, doorknockers and bookends.
View the fully illustrated auction catalog, leave absentee bids or sign up to bid live via the Internet during the auction by logging on to www.LiveAuctioneers.com.
