June 24, 2010 - Auction Central News

Upward momentum continues for West Palm Beach Antiques Festival

West Palm Beach skyline as seen from the north.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – The West Palm Beach Antiques Festival continued its steady growth with sold-out dealer spaces and very active buying during the June 4-6 edition of the popular show. Festival owners Kay and Bill Puchstein reported that interest on the part of visitors was especially high in the areas of antique guns and 1950s vintage items. [Antique firearms do not require a Federal Firearms license, and a permit is not required to own or carry one.]

One dealer had great success with vintage television sets. He sold three sets in working condition that had the usual arrangement of small screens, around 12 inches, but housed in much larger 30 inch cases. Buyers were delighted to find working models. Original Florida Highwayman R. L. Lewis demonstrated his painting technique, while his son R. L. III, explained the method and took orders. One bystander was curious about the assortment of very large brushes used by Lewis. He replied, “That’s so I can paint fast.” And paint fast he did, to keep up with orders.

The new WPBAF summer series of two-day shows kicks off on July 3-4. Other summer shows are scheduled for Aug. 7-8, Sept. 4-5 and Oct. 2-3 and will featured reduced booth rent. Some dealer space is still available for the summer.

One booth that will not available is the prominent lobby booth occupied by Americana dealers Nancy and Woody Straub. The Straubs are veteran dealers in American fine art circa 1860-1945 and American furniture ranging from the colonial era to the Arts & Crafts period of the early 20^th century. They have been antiques dealers for more than 40 years and have family ties to the business going back beyond that. Nancy and Woody have been regular exhibitors at the West Palm Beach Antiques Festival since Kay and Bill Puchstein took over the show in late 2008.

The most popular items shown in the Straub booth are paintings by listed American artists. Younger buyers are attracted to American regional artists of various art colonies. The Straubs recognize the need for dealers to maintain a diversity of inventory, and they buy and sell authentic cowboy gear and American Indian material, and sdisplay hundreds of small accessory items from many periods in their booth at West Palm Beach.

The popular “early buyers admission” feature will be continued in the summer, starting at 8 a.m. on Saturday before the regular show opening time of 10 a.m. The $25 early buyer ticket is good for the entire weekend.

Summer show hours will be 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Sunday. Adult daily admission $7, seniors $6, with a discount coupon for adult admission available on the website. Anyone under 16 is admitted free. There is no charge for parking at the fairgrounds.

The West Palm Beach Antiques Festival is held at the Americraft Expo Center at the South Florida Fair located off Southern Boulevard in West Palm Beach, Fla., 1.5 miles west of the Florida Turnpike and 1 mile east of 441/SR7. For more information contact the West Palm Beach Antiques Festival at 941-697-7475, e-mail info@wpbaf.com or log on to www.wpbaf.com.

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Book Review: Fender – The Golden Age 1946-1970

The Stratocaster. The Telecaster. During the quarter-century following World War II, Fender guitars didn’t just make music. They made musical history. Those spectacular years are remembered and celebrated in Fender: The Golden Age 1946-1970, a definitive new book by Martin Kelly, Terry Foster and Paul Kelly, which tells the story of the Fender company and the wondrous instruments it created.

The culmination of the passion and obsession of three authors who live on both sides of the Atlantic, almost 10 years in development, this book is a celebration of Fender’s “golden age,” 1946-1970.

The book includes:

More than 250 spectacular photos of Fender guitars, including archival images of legendary guitarists and many of the rarest instruments from private collections.
The largest collection of Fender ephemera ever assembled, including every catalog, every price list and Fender Facts newsletter, along with hundreds of advertisements and promotional items.
The comprehensive account of Fender’s golden age, from its humble beginnings through its creative heyday, and five years beyond its sale to CBS in 1965.

A unique look at some of the finest musical instruments ever produced, Fender: The Golden Age will be irresistible to anyone interested in guitars, rock ’n’ roll, or mid-century American collectibles and ephemera. Like the guitars it documents, the book simply brings down the house.

Would Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck or Stevie Ray Vaughn steer you wrong?

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About the Book’s Collaborators:

Martin Kelly is a joint managing director of the highly acclaimed British independent record label, Heavenly Recordings. His love affair with Fender instruments began in 1977 when he has only 12 with the purchase of his first Fender guitar, a secondhand 1968 Mustang Bass.

Canadian-born Terry Foster is the world’s leading authority and collector of Fender ephemera from the golden age. Terry has written for Vintage Guitar Magazine, and is widely regarded as the expert on pre-CBS Fender student guitars.

Paul Kelly is a documentary filmmaker and designer. He is responsible for the photography and design work within these pages. Paul also discovered Fender guitars during the punk-rock era and soon developed a keen interest in early Fender Jazzmasters.

* * *

Fender: The Golden Age 1946-1970

by Martin Kelly, Paul Kelly, and Terry Foster

$29.99, 287 pages, ISBN: 9781844036660

Published by Cassell, an imprint of Octopus Books USA/ 237 Park Ave., New York, NY 10017

Click here to purchase the book through Amazon.com.

Chinese Imperial wedding box, Frilli bust at Kaminski’s, June 25-26

Antonio Frilli (Italian, 1860-1920), "Busto di un Giovane". Est. $50,000-$60,000. Image courtesy Kaminski’s.

BEVERLY, Mass. – Kaminski Auctions has included a fine selection of Asian items in its June 25-26 auction of fine art, antiques and furnishings. Consignments have come from estates spanning Massachusetts to Kaminski’s second location in California.

The auction will be held under the tent at Kaminski’s suburban Boston gallery, with Internet live bidding provided by LiveAuctioneers.

Highlighting the Asian antiques in Friday’s session is a Chinese Imperial wedding box (est. $3,000-$5,000). The engraved brass box features five dragon heads and a polished jade medallion with a peach, bat and urn design. The tradition of the Chinese wedding box dates back a millennium, and bears a similarity to the hope chests of the Western world. The more boxes each family contributed to the marriage, the wealthier they were perceived as being. This particular example is in fine condition, with only a light patina validating its age.

Saturday’s session also features a number of rare and valuable items. Of particular interest is a marble bust by Italian sculptor Antonio Frilli (1860-1920). Titled Busto di un Giovane, the sculpture depicts a young man with his head tilted to the right. The figure’s detailed facial features and lifelike musculature are characteristic of Frilli’s Classical style, which has solidified his presence as one of the premier sculptors of the second half of the 19th century.

A fine selection of jewelry is also set to cross the auction block. Of particular interest is a yellow gold and sapphire bracelet (est. $30,000-$40,000). The bracelet features a varied array of natural unheated sapphires, in blue, yellow and violet tones, accompanied by a GIA certificate. A delicate 14K gold setting also highlights the piece.

Fine art offerings include a painting by American impressionist Morris Hall Pancoast. Burano Afternoon (est. $15,000-$18,000) is a bold and colorful watercolor depicting an afternoon canal scene. The Venetian subject matter is a departure from Pancoast’s traditional depictions of New England winter scenes, but offers the artist the opportunity to showcase a wide spectrum of color – from the sparkling turquoise water to the bright golds and yellows of the canal architecture.

“We’ve recently received a bevy of wonderful consignments from our second location in California,” said Frank Kaminski, owner of Kaminski Auctions. “It’s a pleasure to offer such fine items from the West Coast to our loyal East Coast audience, and to the world via live online bidding.”

For additional information on any lot in the sale, call 978-927-2223 or email auctions@kaminskiauctions.com.

View the fully illustrated catalog and register to bid absentee or live via the Internet as the sale is taking place by logging on to www.LiveAuctioneers.com.

ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE

Yellow gold and natural unheated sapphire bracelet with GIA certificate. 14-karat gold, 6.74" length. Est. $30,000-$40,000. Image courtesy Kaminski’s.

Brass engraved Chinese Imperial wedding box with dragon design and jade medallion. Est. $3,000-$5,000. Image courtesy Kaminski’s.

Eco protesters target BP portrait prize ceremony

LONDON (AP) – Environmental protesters demonstrated Tuesday outside a BP PLC-sponsored art awards ceremony, as a senior executive said the company deeply regretted the human and environmental tragedy caused by its huge Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

About a dozen demonstrators sporting white coveralls and surgical face masks and dubbing themselves the “Greenwash Guerrillas” distributed leaflets outside London’s National Portrait Gallery, where the 25,000 pound ($37,000) BP Portrait Award was being handed out.

Inside, Iain Conn, the company’s chief executive for refining and marketing, said the awards ceremony “comes at a very, very difficult time for BP.”

“We are dealing with a tragedy both human and environmental,” he said.

He said the disaster was something “we regret very deeply” and vowed BP would make changes so that it never happened again.

The prize – open to artists of any nationality and sponsored by BP for more than 20 years – was won by 63-year-old English painter Daphne Todd for a portrait of her 100-year-old mother’s corpse on her deathbed.

Todd said BP’s support for the arts was “fantastic.”

“I know they haven’t had a good press – they’ve had a bad press,” she said. “But they have been philanthropic, and where else is that money going to come from?”

But as millions of gallons of oil gush into the waters of the Gulf, protesters are intensifying their calls for arts bodies to stop taking money from BP because of the environmental and economic devastation it has caused.

Several U.S. musicians, including Lady Gaga and the band Korn, have said they will not use BP fuel on their tours this summer.

Sam Chase, of protest group Art Not Oil, said he wanted to see oil company sponsorship become as socially unacceptable as taking money from tobacco companies.

“Arguably climate change and what’s happening in the Gulf is a great deal worse than what tobacco companies do, because they are threatening the survival of many species,” Chase said.

BP will not say how much it gives to the arts, but in Britain it is a major supporter of the British Museum, the Tate galleries, the Royal Opera House and the National Portrait Gallery.

In a joint statement, those institutions praised BP for its “very significant contribution to the arts and cultural life of this country.”

“We are grateful to BP for their long term commitment, sharing the vision that our artistic programs should be made available to the widest possible audience,” the statement said.

BP says it remains committed to arts sponsorship, despite the spiraling cost of the Gulf disaster.

“It’s not huge amounts of money from our point of view, but for institutions like this it is very important,” said Steve Westwell, BP’s chief of staff.

BP shares have lost almost half their value since the April 20 explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig, and the company says it has spent $2 billion fighting the spill and compensating victims. Under pressure from the U.S. government, it also agreed to set up a $20 billion compensation fund.

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Never-before-published Michael Jackson photos to be auctioned in Paris

© Vente aux enchères Pierre Bergé & Associés – Arno Bani – 2010

PARIS (AP) – A Paris auction house says it plans to put 12 never-before-published portraits of Michael Jackson on the block in December.

The portraits were shot by French photographer Arno Bani in 1999. One of them, called Michael Jackson’s Blue Eye, depicts Jackson with a sad expression and a large blue dot over his left eye.

Jackson contacted Bani, only 23 years old at the time, after seeing his fashion photography in a newspaper.

Auctioneer Frederic Chambre said Tuesday that the bidding is expected to start at euro1,000 ($1,228) for each portrait. Chambre said the images could not be displayed before because of copyright issues.

Auctioneers Pierre Berge Associes will put the photos on the block, along with 50 contact boards.

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Online sellers challenge eBay’s PayPal rules

DETROIT (AP) – EBay has asked a federal court in Detroit to set aside a default judgment in a lawsuit over the online auction giant’s practice of forcing sellers to use PayPal.

The class action suit filed April 12 against the Delaware-based company seeks unspecified damages and the right for sellers to accept other forms of payment. Since 2008, eBay has required all sellers to use PayPal, an Internet payment service it purchased in 2002.

Peter Macuga, an attorney for six eBay sellers, says eBay has violated antitrust laws.

EBay was held in default last week in U.S. District Court in Detroit, after failing to respond to the lawsuit. Attorneys for eBay requested a 14-day extension.

EBay attorneys did not immediately respond to The Detroit News for comment.

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Information from: The Detroit News, http://detnews.com/

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Documents bought at flea market reveal details of Hitler’s jail time

BERLIN (AP) – Adolf Hitler enjoyed special treatment while jailed in 1924, being allowed hundreds of visitors – sometimes unsupervised – including some 30 to 40 to celebrate his 35th birthday, according to a treasure trove of documents that have surfaced from the prison near Munich where was held.

The 500 documents from the Landsberg prison were recently found by a Nuremberg man among the possessions of his late father, who had purchased them at a flea market in the 1970s, according to Werner Behringer, whose auction house in the Bavarian city of Fuerth will offer them for sale next month.

Behringer said they were packed among a bundle of books on World War I that the man had bought, and his 55-year-old son, who has requested anonymity, never knew of their existence.

“His father probably didn’t know what he had there,” Behringer told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Robert Bierschneider, an archivist with the Bavarian State Archives in Munich, said he had examined images of the documents that Behringer sent to him, and that they had stamps and notations that matched with others from the same prison at the time.

“The documents appear to be genuine, but to do a real examination we need to have the originals in our hands,” he told the AP.

The documents are to be auctioned on July 2, with a starting price of euro25,000 ($30,677).

Though only one document is signed by Hitler himself, and much of the information about his time in prison is otherwise available, they do provide an intriguing window into his early days as Nazi leader.

Hitler was imprisoned in Landsberg after the Nazi’s abortive bid to seize power in 1923 in the notorious “beer hall putsch” coup attempt in Munich. It wasn’t until a decade later, in 1933, that the Nazis would eventually come to power through parliamentary elections.

Despite being sentenced to five years in prison, Hitler was granted early release and ended up only serving about nine months of his sentence.

His right-wing politics and German nationalism won him some high-placed friends among the German establishment, including World War I hero Gen. Erich Ludendorff. Ludendorff came to visit Hitler several times during his imprisonment, and the Prussian general was allowed to see the former Austrian corporal unsupervised for as long as he wanted, the documents show.

The documents include some 300 to 400 original cards listing Hitler’s other visitors, including the 30 to 40 who were allowed in to celebrate his birthday with him on April 20, 1924 – only 19 days after he was put behind bars.

“His time in prison was more like a holiday,” Behringer said.

Prison director Otto Leybold gushed about Hitler in a memo about the inmates on Sept. 18, 1924, saying he was always “sensible, modest, humble and polite to everyone – especially to the officers of the facility.”

Hitler spent much of his time in prison writing his infamous manifesto “Mein Kampf,” or “My Struggle,” detailing his ideology and ambitions, but the documents also show he had time for more prosaic thoughts.

In a typed copy that prison authorities made of a letter Hitler wrote to a Munich car dealer, the future dictator says he is having a hard time making up his mind about whether to purchase a newer model Benz 11/40 or the older 16/50 because he had concerns that the higher RPM’s of the motor in the former might mean that it would have more mechanical problems.

“I can’t get a new car every two or three years,” he wrote.

He also noted that he had many court costs to pay once he was released and asked the dealer if he might arrange a discount for him, indicating that he had his eye on a particular 11/40 on the salesman’s lot.

“In any case, please reserve the gray car that you have in Munich until I have clarity about my fate (probation?),” Hitler wrote.

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Belhorn to present unique pieces in Pottery Lovers auction July 9

Little is known about Mignon Martineau, the decorator this rare 8-inch Roseville Mongol vase. An award winner at the 1904 World’s Fair, the Mongol line is rarely decorated. The vase has a $2,500-$3,500 estimate. Image courtesy of Belhorn Auction Service.

ZANESVILLE, Ohio – Ohio Valley art pottery will be the star attraction Friday, July 9, when Belhorn Auction Services conducts a sale to coincide with the Pottery Lovers Reunion 2010. One of the country’s longest-running American art pottery auctions, the event will feature Weller, Roseville, Rookwood, Owens, Peters & Reed and Cowan as well as a sampling of Grueby, Van Briggle, Pillin, Shearwater, Fulper and much more.

The sale will be conducted at the Muskingum County Welcome Center beginning at 4 p.m. Eastern. For those who cannot attend the event, LiveAuctioneers will facilitate Internet live bidding.

A rare decorated Roseville Mongol vase by little-known Mignon Martineau will cross the block in the second half of the 282-lot auction. “Potters found it difficult to decorate under the oxblood red glaze,” said auctioneer Greg Belhorn. “I am aware of only one other piece that is decorated and I’ve only seen a picture of it. It indicates what a rare and extraordinary piece this is.” The 8-inch vase, offered for the first time in more than 20 years, has a $2,500-$3,500 estimate.

Another exceptional piece of Roseville is a seldom-seen example of Rozane (Light), which is decorated in finely detailed roses in slate blue and white on a background of the same slate blue fading to cream. The 12 1/4-inch vase is signed “H.L.,” possibly for artist Harry Larzelere. The vase is marked with a Rozane Ware wafer and an impressed “7.” It has a $1,000-$1,400 estimate.

A tall and exceptional Weller Dickensware vase featuring an expertly carved scene of a man and woman in period dress is estimated at $2,500-$3,500. Surprisingly, the 15 1/4-inch-tall vase is unsigned, but Belhorn notes that it was certainly executed by one of Weller’s master artisans.

The auction will have much more than Weller and Roseville. An excellent Owens Utopian portrait vase by Mae Timberlake, signed “MT,” pictures an American Indian wearing a fur-lined jacket and a traditional bone necklace. Marked “J.B. Owens Utopian 010 B.O.,” the 10 5/8-inch-tall vase carries a $1,800-$2,400 estimate.

An exceptional Teco vase covered in rich matte green glaze is a strong Arts & Crafts form. The 12 1/8-inch-tall vase has eight buttresses encircling the widest portion of the body along with a ridged skirting around the neck. It is marked with the impressed Teco mark and an incised “87.” With restoration to some of the buttresses and the base the vase carries a $3,000-$4,000 estimate.

A preview will begin at noon the day of the sale.

For details contact Belhorn at 614-921-9441.

View the fully illustrated catalog and register to bid absentee or live via the Internet as the sale is taking place by logging on to www.LiveAuctioneers.com.

ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE

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