April 2009 - Page 3 of 10 - Auction Central News

$100,000 baseball card ad poster discovered at estate sale

BOHEMIA, N.Y. – There is still treasure waiting out there to be found.

A rare, 1889 baseball card advertising poster with an estimated auction value of over $100,000 has been discovered at an estate sale in upstate New York, and will be auctioned in May by the sports auction house Lelands.

The poster advertises “The Goodwin Round Album,” a nine-page premium album of full-color round baseball card portraits of the leading players of the day. It was available by mail order by sending in coupons packaged with Goodwin Tobacco.

This poster, which is unrestored and in very good condition, is a one of a kind piece, as the two others known are both a different format. One of the two was also heavily restored. The other was once in the collection of super-collector Barry Halper. It was one of only two pieces that hung in his office.

The artwork features such future Hall of Fame players as Cap Anson, Mike “King” Kelly, Charles Comiskey, Mickey Welch, Tim Keefe, Roger Connor, John Ward and “Orator Jim” O’Rourke and Charles Comiskey

Looking for Dutch NYC 400 years after Henry Hudson

Painting depicting New Amsterdam as it looked in 1664. Public domain image, courtesy Wikipedia Commons.

NEW YORK (AP) – New York City is constantly being rebuilt, paved over and reinvented, so it’s not easy to find remnants of the colony of New Amsterdam 400 years after Henry Hudson sailed up the river that bears his name.

But whether you’re sitting on a stoop in Brooklyn, strolling through Harlem or wandering along the Bowery, you are connecting with the city’s Dutch roots. There are place names, statues, and even a 17th century Dutch farmhouse in Brooklyn, all serving as proof of this early chapter in New York history.

“New York City being what it is, it builds on top of everything,” said Russell Shorto, author of The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America.

But Lower Manhattan still bears the imprint of its first colonial settlers. “The Dutch laid out the streets there, and the street pattern is still the same,” Shorto said. “And Wall Street was the northern boundary of New Amsterdam. The Dutch built that wall not to keep the Indians out, but to keep the English out.”

Provincetown museum receives national accreditation

Interior view of one of the galleries within the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. Photo by Anton Grasl. Image courtesy PAAM. PROVINCETOWN, Mass. – The Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM) has achieved accreditation from the American Association of Museums (AAM), the highest national recognition for a museum. Accreditation signifies excellence to the museum community, governments, funders, outside agencies, and to the museum-going public.

AAM Accreditation is the field’s primary vehicle for quality assurance, self-regulation, and public accountability, and earns national recognition for a museum for its commitment to excellence in all that it does: governance, collections stewardship, public programs, financial stability, high professional standards, and continued institutional improvement.

Developed and sustained by museum professionals for 35 years, AAM’s Museum Accreditation program strengthens the profession by promoting practices that enable leaders to make informed decisions, allocate resources wisely, and to provide the best possible service to the public.
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Cleveland museum set to return Italian ancient artworks

Photo by Stu Spivack, courtesy Wikipedia Commons

CLEVELAND (AP) – The director of The Cleveland Museum of Art says museum officials are prepared to hand over 14 artworks to Italian authorities.

Timothy Rub says the transfer of the art, which includes ancient pieces looted or smuggled out of Italy, was scheduled for this week, according to The Plain Dealer newspaper.

Rub and the Italian arts minister agreed to the handover in November. It was unclear which Italian agency would carry the objects back home.

As part of the agreement, Italy has promised to lend 13 objects comparable in quality to the returned antiquities and to cooperate on future exhibitions.

Rub says those works will go on view in Cleveland in 2010, when the museum reopens galleries devoted to ancient art after the completion of a $350 million expansion and renovation.
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On the Net: http://library.clevelandart.org

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-CS-04-22-09 0120EDT

Part III of Jay Marshall magic collection in Apr. 26 Potter & Potter sale

Alexander (Deli) Martell 'Dance of Death with Alexander' poster, circa 1910, 27 3/4 inches by 41 inches. Estimate $4,500-$6,500. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com/Potter & Potter.

CHICAGO – It’s no illusion – a third offering of rare magic paraphernalia and memorabilia from the holdings of the late Jay Marshall will be auctioned by Potter & Potter on Sunday, April 26. Internet live bidding will be available to collectors anywhere in the world through www.LiveAuctioneers.com.

Jay Marshall was a renowned collector and magician. According to Potter & Potter, who also produced two previous sales of magic material from the Marshall estate, the upcoming sale includes what is “perhaps some of the best material” offered to date.

The 328-lot auction will include genuinely rare and historically significant ephemera, books, apparatus, scrapbooks, posters and memorabilia.

Man pleads guilty in Native-American artifacts case

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) – A Wessington Springs man has pleaded guilty to a federal charge of trafficking in artifacts taken illegally from public land and American Indian land in South Dakota.

Elliot Hook, 53, also agreed to forfeit the archaeological items to the federal government.
He could be sentenced to up to 2 years in prison and fined up to $250,000.

U.S. District Judge Charles Kornmann set Hook’s sentencing for Aug. 17 in federal court in Pierre.

Hook is one of five men indicted for looting or trading pottery, stone tools and other items taken from the banks of the Missouri River.

AP-WS-04-20-09 1546EDT

Clars Auction Gallery hosting May 3 sale of Merv Griffin collections

The late Merv Griffin. Image courtesy The Griffin Group of Companies.

OAKLAND, Calif. – Treasures from the personal collection of the late entertainment icon and entrepreneur Merv Griffin will be sold at Clars Auction Gallery in Oakland, Calif., on Sunday afternoon, May 3, 2009. Internet live bidding will be provided by LiveAuctioneers.com.

Authorized by The Merv Griffin Estate, the auction includes antiquities, fine furnishings and contemporary art from Griffin’s California residences in La Quinta, Carmel Valley and Beverly Hills.

Griffin, who passed away at age 82 on August 12, 2007, was the founder and chairman of The Griffin Group of Companies, which encompassed television and film production, a thoroughbred racing stable, real estate and hotel developments, and a variety of additional businesses.

Nonprofit taking over historic Old Trail Town in Cody, Wyoming

Trail Town, Cody, Wyoming. Image by Billy Hathorn, via Wikipedia.

CODY, Wyo. (AP) – A nonprofit museum is assuming ownership of dozens of historic buildings in Cody.

The 27 buildings, seven graves and various other artifacts at the Old Trail Town tourist attraction were at risk of being auctioned off piece by piece following a seven-year legal battle involving multiple owners.

Historian and archaeologist Bob Edgar started Old Trail Town in the 1960s. Following his divorce, the fractured ownership led to disagreements over maintenance and upkeep, according to Clay Gibbons, a Worland historian and president of the nonprofit Museum of the Old West.

“It got to be a very involved ordeal,” Gibbons said.

Museum of the West has now stepped forward to take over the property. Gibbons said volunteers will begin to repair several neglected buildings at the site.

The one-of-a-kind buildings Old Trail Town include a hideout used by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; the cabin of famed mountain man Jeremiah “Liver-eating” Johnson; and a building from the Marquette community, an early settlement now submerged in the Buffalo Bill Reservoir.

Auction Talk Germany: April 2009

Water has an undeniable allure. We gravitate toward the tranquil lapping of rivers, lakes and oceans as an escape from our landlocked lives. We imagine strolling the beach footage of our waterfront home or retiring to a tiny cottage by the sea.

But what would it be like to live directly on the water? And not just in a seasonal yacht or houseboat, but in a spacious, sleekly designed, year-round home?

“Since I was a kid, I always dreamed of living on the water, designing a house that would sit directly on the water,” German architect Martin André Förster told Auction Central News.

At the beginning of the 1990s, Förster’s design for a floating events platform was built. He toyed with the idea of placing a house on such a platform, further developing this concept until 2001, when he designed the first “Floating Home.”

Terry Kovel cast in new role as TV auctioneer

Terry Kovel will be the antiques and collectibles auctioneer for WVIZ's annual fund-raiser. Image courtesy Kovels.

CLEVELAND – Antiques and collectibles expert Terry Kovel, whose popular Kovels – Antiques and Collecting column is a regular feature on Auction Central News, will be the guest auctioneer for WVIZ’s annual fund-raising auction April 23-23. For the first time the auction will be streaming live online to Kovels.com, the popular Web site for collectors. To watch the auction live and to bid online visit Kovels.com and link to the WVIZ website. Kovel is a longtime supporter of WVIZ, Cleveland’s Public TV station.

More than 4,000 items donated by listeners and businesses will be sold on air to the highest bidder – no reserves. Viewers are invited to call the station with bids or to bid online. The bidding phone number will be shown on the screen. So far, donations include a pair of 1950s Baker Furniture end tables, a satsuma bowl, a Meeks Victorian chair, a Jenny Lind bed, a French provincial 1960s dining room set, Meissen figurines, an early pair of Sheffield candelabra, a Lenci doll, Tootsietoy dollhouse furniture in the original box, paintings, comic books and baseball cards. More items are arriving every day.

Kovel will be auctioning antiques every evening, from Thursday, April 23, through Sunday, April 26. The auction starts at 3 p.m. Thursday and Friday, and at noon Saturday and Sunday. Watch it all or just the antiques, art and collectibles segments. There are always bargains and great surprises.

Viewers can preview auction items or register to bid online now. Go to the WVIZ Web site, WVIZ.org, or call the auction office at 216-916-6154. Donations will be accepted until April 23. When a donated item is auctioned, the donor’s name will be read on the live TV auction.

Terry Kovel, with her husband, Ralph, has written more than 98 books about collecting, including the best-selling annual price book, Kovels’ Antiques and Collectibles Price Guide. Terry publishes a subscription newsletter and writes a syndicated newspaper column that appears in more than 150 newspapers and digital publications. She and Ralph starred in the weekly HGTV program, Flea Market Finds with the Kovels. The Kovels website, Kovels.com, offers 700,000 free prices and other information for collectors, including books, special reports, a weekly e-mailed letter to collectors, and an archive of other informative material. Since Ralph’s death in 2008, the Kovel brand has been continued by Terry Kovel and her daughter, Kim Kovel. This fall they will go on a lecture tour to promote the 2010 edition of Kovels’ Antiques and Collectibles Price Guide.

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