Pair of rare 19th-century English silver salt cellars, $19,550. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers Archive/Kaminski Auctions.
BEVERLY, Mass. – Kaminski Auctions’ May sale, which took place May 30-31, 2009, attracted bidders both locally in Massachusetts and internationally via phone and through the Internet via LiveAuctioneers.com. Day one of this two-day sale featured general fine art, antiques and collectibles, while day two highlighted a diverse selection of maritime antiques and memorabilia. Consignments hailed from estates spanning Massachusetts to Kaminski’s second location in California. All prices quoted include a 15% buyer’s premium.
A pair of rare 19th-century English silver salt cellars stole the show. Each boasts a figural design with shell, butterfly and salamander accents. The salt cellars are marked Edward and James Barnard, and two accompanying spoons are marked George Angell. Estimated $10,000-$15,000, the duo realized $19,550 after a volley of more than 20 bids. Continue reading
Image courtesy Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery. All rights reserved.
BRISTOL, ENGLAND (AP) – Elusive graffiti artist Banksy, who made his name tagging walls and bridges, took his work indoors Friday as he unveiled his biggest-ever exhibition in his hometown’s museum.
Banksy installed over 100 pieces, including over 70 new works, at the City Museum and Art Gallery in Bristol after swearing museum staff to secrecy over the project. Outlandish pieces fill the museum’s three floors, including a burned out ice-cream van with a giant dripping cone and portable toilets stacked to look like Stonehenge.
Banksy, who refuses to reveal his real name, began his career in Bristol spray-painting local buildings. His works are now coveted, with stars like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie among his admirers. Continue reading
Obverse view of the Ice House Cover bearing a Lincoln stamp, posted to India in 1873. Sold for $431,250 by Robert A. Siegel Galleries. Image courtesy Robert A. Siegel Galleries.
NEW YORK (AP) – A rare Abraham Lincoln stamp that was stolen from Indiana in 1967 and surfaced 39 years later in Chicago has sold at auction for more than $400,000.
The stamped envelope was offered at auction by order of the Dorothy Jean Baker Revocable Trust and was sold on Saturday, June 13, 2009 at Manhattan’s Robert A. Siegel galleries.
The buyer is Arthur K.M. Woo, a doctor who would reveal nothing more about himself.
Dr. Woo paid $431,250 (inclusive of 15 percent buyer’s premium) for the 90-cent stamp. It had been entered in the sale with an estimate of $300,000 to $400,000.
The so-called Ice House Cover with Lincoln’s likeness is on an envelope mailed from Boston to an ice house in India in 1873.
The stamp vanished from its owner’s safe in Indianapolis and turned up in 2006 at a home in Chicago. A collector notified police.
Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-CS-06-14-09 0048EDT
ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE
Obverse and Reverse view of the Ice House Cover bearing a Lincoln stamp, posted to India in 1873. Sold for $431,250 by Robert A. Siegel Galleries. Image courtesy Robert A. Siegel Galleries.
English silversmith Edward Vincent produced this George II teapot and stand in 1731. It has a $5,000-$7,000 estimate. Image courtesy Wiederseim Associates.
CHESTER SPRINGS, Pa. – Estate items from Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland and Georgia will be featured in Wiederseim Associates’ auction Saturday, June 20. In addition to fine antiques the sale will include 125 paintings, many by listed artists. LiveAuctioneers.com will provide Internet live bidding.
Among the most intriguing items in the sale is an English silver pocket watch “presented by the Government of Canada to Mr. John R. Styles, Light Keeper at Grindstone Island in Recognition of His Humane and Gallant Exertions in the Rescue of the Crew of the Brigantine ‘Annie Bogart’ of Digby, Nova Scotia on the 22nd December 1881.” Made by Sam Buckley & Co., London the watch has a hunter case. It carries at $3,000-$4,000 estimate.
A fine George II teapot on stand bears the marks of silversmith Edward Vincent, 1731. Estimated at $5,000-$7,000, it stands 12 1/2 inches high and 10 inches wide and has an engraved armorial crest.
Furniture is highlighted by a Federal inlaid mahogany sideboard, circa 1790, which has a D-shape top and square tapered legs with banded cuffs. It has a $10,000-$12,000 estimate.
From the late 19th century is a finely carved three-piece parlor set consisting of a settee, armchair and side chair. The settee is 55 inches high, 47 inches wide and 25 1/2 inches deep. The set has a $4,000-$5,000 estimate.
A large oil on canvas winter landscape signed John R. Peirce (1900-1970) probably depicts French Creek near the artist’s home in Kimberton, Pa. The painting measures 26 by 29 inches and has a $2,500-$3,500 estimate.
Ceramics include a pair of Staffordshire figures, whippets holding game. The dogs stand 11 1/4 inches high. Circa 1860, the pair has a $1,000-$1,600.
The auction will be conducted at Griffith Hall, Ludwig’s Corner Fire Company, 1325 Pottstown Pike (State Route 100), near Glenmoore, Pa. Previews will be held Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday 7 a.m. until the 9 a.m. start of the sale. For details phone Ted Wiederseim at 610-827-1910.
View the fully illustrated catalog and sign up to bid absentee or live via the Internet during the sale at www.LiveAuctioneers.com.
ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE
The Federal inlaid mahogany sideboard is 65 3/4 inches wide. It has a $10,000-$12,000 estimate. Image courtesy Wiederseim Associates.Pennsylvania artist and illustrator John R. Peirce dated this oil on canvas painting ‘40.’ Image courtesy Wiederseim Associates.All three pieces of this heavily carved parlor set stand 4 feet or higher. Dating to the late 19th century, the set is estimated at $4,000-$5,000. Image courtesy Wiederseim Associates.
Ulysses S. Grant, photographed sometime between 1870-1880 by either Mathew Brady (1823?-1896) or Levin C. Handy (1855?-1932). Library of Congress, Pictures and Photographs Division, Brady-Handy Collection. Courtesy Wikipedia Commons.
AUBURN, Ala. (AP) – Auburn University has acquired a rare letter from Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee outlining the terms for the surrender of Lee’s army, clearing the way for an end to the Civil War.
The handwritten letter is dated April 10, 1865. Dwayne Cox, head of Auburn Libraries Special Collections said it is a copy Grant made of a letter he wrote to Lee the day before after Lee formally surrendered at Appomattox Court House.
“In 30 years as an archivist, I have never received an item of greater significance,” Cox said.
The letter has been independently authenticated by two experts. It was a gift to the university by James L. Starr, a 1971 graduate. Continue reading
SCHENECTADY, N.Y. (AP) – FBI agents created a stir in Schenectady when they swarmed an auction house wearing hazardous materials suits, reportedly to check out a suspicion that there might be anthrax in the trash at the building.
But the episode Friday turned out to be a false alarm.
New York Surplus Auction owner Les Paine says investigators came to his business as part of an investigation into the discovery at a different location of a vial purportedly containing a holistic anthrax vaccine.
Investigators spent the day rifling through garbage outside the business.
Schenectady County Director of Emergency Management Thomas Constantine says preliminary tests came back negative for any dangerous biological agents. ___
Information from: The Daily Gazette, http://www.dailygazette.com/
Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
This strange toy, a car driven by a rider on a horse, is the famous Moxie Horsemobile used to advertise the soft drink from 1915 into the 21st century. The tin die-cut toy, 8 1/2 inches long, sold in March at Bertoia Auctions of Vineland, N.J., for $5,750.
Moxie, the soft drink that was introduced as a medicine in a Massachusetts drugstore in 1876, used some early automobiles in advertising campaigns. In 1915 or ’16 Frank Archer, the Moxie adman who started as a clerk at the Moxie Nerve Food Co., designed the first Moxie horsemobile. It was an eye-catching full-size car with a live horse mounted on the back. The first Horsemobile was top-heavy and dangerous to drive, so it was redesigned with a horse made of papier-mâché. In later years the horse was molded from aluminum. The first car was a Dort Speedster, but in later years the car was a Buick, a LaSalle or a Rolls Royce. Horsemobiles were driven in parades by daring drivers who rode the horse while controlling the vehicle’s speed and steering with specially designed pedals and extensions. Moxie advertised in many ways and sold a lithographed tin toy replica of the horesmobile. Today there are organized groups of collectors who search for Moxie-related items. In March a rare version of the toy horsemobile with a blue car sold at Bertoia Auctions in Vineland, N.J., for $5,750.
