DENVER, Pa. (ACNI) – Auction Central News has learned that Morphy Auctions will be selling the late Bob Levy’s personal collection of gambling and coin-op machines over Labor Day weekend, 2011. The collection of 350-400 antique and vintage machines will be offered in its entirety in a Sept. 3 session at Morphy’s gallery, with Internet live bidding through LiveAuctioneers.com.
A renowned expert in the field of coin-ops, Levy died on Feb. 21. Although he was a prominent dealer for many years, Levy had a treasured private collection of machines that he called his “keepers.” The executors of his estate, in carrying out the instructions in Levy’s will, appointed Morphy’s to handle the collection, with no private selling to occur prior to auction day.
At the time of his death, Levy was head of the Antique Coin-ops department at Morphy Auctions. Morphy’s CEO, Dan Morphy, told Auction Central News that he feels a personal commitment “to make every effort possible to put the machines Bob loved in the hands of others who would appreciate them just as much as he did.”
Morphy continued: “Those machines were Bob’s life. He enjoyed every minute of buying and selling, but the machines he kept for himself were of utmost importance. They meant everything to him. We’re deeply honored that Bob chose us to auction his collection. My staff and I knew Bob very well, and as sad as we are that he is no longer with us, we feel certain that Bob would want us to be excited about marketing and auctioning the wonderful machines he considered so special.” Morphy said the collection has already arrived at his company’s gallery.
The Bob Levy collection is the centerpiece of an auction lineup that will contain additional select consignments of antique gambling, vending and other coin-operated machines. For more information, call Morphy Auctions at 717-335-3435 or e-mail dan@morphyauctions.com.
Auction Central News will publish further details as they become available.
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Copyright 2011 Auction Central News International. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Bob Levy with a prized $5 jackpot coin-op machine. The late Mr. Levy’s collection will be auctioned by Morphy’s on Sept. 3, 2011. Image courtesy of Morphy Auctions.
Functional man-turning-lever whirligig, circa 1920s, painted wood, 24 inches high by 13 inches wide. Estimate $2,000-$2,500. Bertoia Auctions image.
VINELAND, N.J. – The late Donal Markey was one of an elite circle of illuminati who bought and sold the rare antique toys 25 years ago that are now considered masterworks of their category. Markey’s own immaculate personal collection of antique toys, folk art, and mechanical and still banks is now headed to auction in a March 25-26 sale organized by Bertoia’s, the firm his old friend the late Bill Bertoia co-founded. More than 1,000 lots will be presented in the two-day auction, with Internet live bidding through LiveAuctioneers.com.
The common thread in all of Markey’s collections was color, especially reds, various shades of green, and yellow. Multicolored pieces were his favorite. “Every item Donal bought was for display. He lived with all of it in his home, and the cardinal rule was that it had to have color and visual appeal, whether it was a clock, a whirligig or a framed mirror – and the condition had to be as close to perfection as possible,” said gallery associate Rich Bertoia.
Markey also favored pieces with a folk art quality. His collection includes such highlights as a cabinet and small 4-drawer chest with carved floral and botanical designs; tramp art picture frames and mirrors with delicately carved floral corners, amusement wheels, trade signs and hand-painted sleds with exquisite images of pelicans and other birds. A desirable horse theme typical of early folk art is seen on Markey’s early, decorative wall shelves and other pieces.
Also among the folk art highlights is a framed, carved-wood die-cut of a hand holding a placard that says “Made by J.P. Brown, Invalid.” Its decorations include butterflies, a dog, and a cat blowing a horn. Another unique article is the early hand-painted ballot box with four candidates’ names and slots for depositing ballots. Probably late 19th century, the ballot box is an exceptional work of art whose detailing is of a very high standard.
Before he became a full-time antique dealer, Markey was a menswear retailer in New York. Many of the old painted-wood advertising signs in his collection are an homage to his previous profession and publicize clothing, shoes and other products aimed at 19th-century men, e.g., cigars and other tobacco products. An imposing highlight is a 6½ft.-long, double-sided sign that says “Positively No Smoking.” Originally displayed in a train station, the sign features bright, eye-catching “Donal” colors.
A prized 19th-century sign in the collection is painted on canvas and advertises a hat shop. On each side, its design includes an elaborate ladies hat and a pair of scissors, and is edged with a painted faux frame.
Donal Markey’s name was always closely associated with mechanical banks. Bertoia’s will present approximately three dozen examples in the auction, even including a few banks that Markey was in the process of buying or had committed to buy at the time he fell ill last year. “Condition wise, they’re so beautiful, they look like their paint is still wet from the production line,” Bertoia remarked. Highlights include a superb yellow-dress version Mammy with Child, old store-stock Elephant banks in super-mint condition, and an “unbelievable” example of an Uncle Sam bust bank.
More than 100 still banks – all in pristine condition – also will be auctioned. “I think Donal collected them before he got into the mechanicals because they were so affordable then,” Bertoia said. “He was ‘Mr. Still Bank’ for many years. People would line up at bank conventions, waiting for him to open his doors to sell.”
From the moment Markey discovered American antique toys, they became his passion, and he set his sights on acquiring only the finest horse-drawn cast-iron examples. His collection contains one of the very best: an Ives Cutter Sleigh. Ornately detailed and precisely cast, the 1880s toy measure 18 inches long and features embossed pink seating. Very few Ives Cutter Sleighs exist. “This one is the crème de la crème,” Bertoia said. Also to be auctioned is the ultimate example of a Pratt & Letchworth 4-seat brake, ex Hegarty collection, estimate $25,000-$35,000.
The wild card section of the sale, which accommodates the items Rich Bertoia described as “the beautifully unusual,” includes a counter-size, 24-inch-tall cast-iron Indian on a wood podium marked “Cigars,” a large painted cast-iron ashtray crafted as a parrot hovering over a bucket, a cardboard advertising box for Rich Fur Goods that actually contains a new and unused fur muff, and a brightly painted presentation baseball bat dated 1863 and emblazoned with the name “G. Hall.” In a league of its own is an oval mirror held by two women standing on branches, with an American Flag and boat on its base.
“This is going to be a phenomenal sale that will get the market buzzing,” said Bertoia Auctions’ owner and co-founder, Jeanne Bertoia. “We believe there may be many Americana and folk art collectors who aren’t aware of Donal’s collection, and they’re in for quite a surprise. It took Donal many years and a great deal of travel to accumulate the pieces he so loved. His collection is unique by anyone’s standards.
Ives Cutter Sleigh with walking horse, cast iron, 1890s, 22 inches long. Estimate $30,000-$40,000. Bertoia Auctions image.Diamond Dyes cabinet, copyright 1912, double-sided lithographed-tin panels. Estimate $800-$1,000. Bertoia Auctions image.Early wood Monopoly game board, circa 1920s, hand-painted property markers and corner landing squares, reverse side has similar graphics, 24 inches square. Estimate $3,500-$4,500. Bertoia Auctions image.Pratt & Letchworth cast-iron four-seat brake, late 1890s, 28½ inches long, ex Hegarty collection. Estimate $25,000-$35,000. Bertoia Auctions image.Circa-1900 hand-painted tin sign from train station, “Positively No Smoking,” 73 inches wide. Estimate $1,500-$1,700. Bertoia Auctions image.Cast-iron woman at sewing machine, attributed to Sandt, rear lever activates head and hand motions when turned; side of chair actually holds spool of string for sewing cloth items. One of very few known examples. 7½ inches high. Estimate $8,000-$10,000. Bertoia Auctions imageCirca-1885 Ives Palace still bank, red painted version, 7½ inches high by 8 inches wide. Estimate $8,000-$10,000. Bertoia Auctions image.
Irish silver hot water urn, 1830-1831. Estimate: $5,000-$10,000. Image courtesy of Pook & Pook Inc.
DOWNINGTOWN, Pa. – Pook & Pook Inc. will sell the collection of business executive J. William Warehime of Hanover, Pa., on Saturday, March 26. LiveAuctioneers will provide Internet live bidding.
Born in 1927, Warehime was the son of Harry and Airie Warehime, founders of the Hanover Foods Corp. He worked in the family business and also at the head of Warehime Enterprises, a leasing and investment company, and later was on the board of directors for Snyders of Hanover.
Warehime was an enthusiastic collector of antiques, furnishing the Myers Mansion, which he later donated to the Hanover Area Historical Society. J. William Warehime died Jan. 10, 2008.
Collectors and dealers alike with be interested in the monumental pair of English silver candelabra bearing the touch of Robert Garrard. Each have six serpentine arms and are ornately decorated with bellflower chains, shells, flowers and acanthus leaves and an engraved coat of arms. The pair is 30 3/4 inches high and carries an estimate of $30,000 to $50,000.
An Irish silver hot water urn bearing the touch of Smith & Gamble will also attract much attention. Bearing a coat of arms inscribed “Fortitudine Et Prudentia” and measuring 17 1/2 inches high, it is expected to bring within its $5,000-$10,000 estimate. Several other pieces of interesting silver include a Steiff three-piece tea service with repoussé decoration, a continental silver basket, a Redlich & Co. centerpiece bowl and a Steiff ladle in the rose pattern.
A major focus of the sale will be a wide variety of porcelain objects. A massive Royale Vienna urn with a painted portrait of Ruth and signed Prellen is estimated at $1,500-$2,500. A Sevres type thee-piece ormolu mounted garniture, a pair of Sevres type urns with hand-painted courting scenes and a pair of Meissen-type pate-sur-pate urns will attract attention. A large Sevres type urn with hand-painted scene of a man and woman surround by putti is expected to bring 2,000-$4,000. Other porcelain of interest include an ormolu mounted Imari centerpiece bowl, a large rose medallion palace vase, two Meissen flower-encrusted cups and saucers, a large celadon urn, famille verte vases and a group of Royal Worcester pieces.
The sale has many ornate decorative objects. A French ormolu tureen with dragon form cover is estimated at $3,000-$5,000, and a pair of ormolu mounted marble candelabra with pedestal bases carry the same estimate. Elaborate clocks include a French enameled brass and painted porcelain three-piece clock garniture (est. $500-$1,000), a French bronze doré wall clock retailed by Tiffany (est. $1,000-$2,000) and a French ormolu clock by Gille Laine Paria (est. $1,000-$2,000). Fancy pairs of marble urns, gilt lusters, Baccarat and Steuben glass, Chinese carved ivory and hard stone and crystal candelabra add to the mix of exciting objects.
Highlights in the furniture category include a Pennsylvania Chippendale tiger-maple tall-case clock with and eight-day brass face works, a George II Japanned tall-case clock by Rob Swan, Bridlington, and an Adams-style satinwood console table. Other items include a two-part Welsh cupboard, a George III walnut tabletop desk, a Williams Kimp Hepplewhite-style sideboard, a marquetry inlaid games table and a George III-style marble-top server.
Several paintings will be be featured. An oil-on-canvas interior scene by Otto Leitz is estimated at $2,000-$3,000. A harbor scene by Richard Henry Nibbs, a British artist is titled Amersham Bucks. An oil on canvas landscape with figures by Thomas Smythe as well as a Continental interior scene depicting a man and woman playing chess will garner interest.
For additional information on this or any upcoming sale at Pook & Pook, go to www.pookandpook.com or call (610) 269-4040.
Live viewing and bidding is now available through the LiveAuctioneers APP
Maira Kalman, ‘Self Portrait (with Pete),’ 2004-2005, gouache on paper. Image courtesy of the artist. NEW YORK (AP) – You may think you’ve never heard of Maira Kalman, but you have. In 1981 her doodles appeared on the cover of a solo record by Talking Heads lead singer David Byrne and she is the author of a dozen children’s books, some featuring the poet-dog Max.
For people who number their weeks by the arrival of a new New Yorker, Kalman is most famous for the New Yorkistan map that appeared on its cover in December 2001 and, for the first time in months, made people smile.
The cartoon map, produced with Rick Meyerowitz, bestows vaguely Central Asian names on the tribes and regions of New York: Taxistan in Queens, Pashmina on the genteel Upper East Side.
Now this map and dozens of other charming paintings and drawings are on view at New York’s Jewish Museum. It’s the last stop of “Maira Kalman: Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World),” which originated last year at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia.
Kalman’s work, with its childlike style and bright colors, is often described as whimsical, and it is. But it has an intellectual heft that reflects a deep and wide-ranging curiosity, as well as a subliminal anxiety that in one interview she ascribes to being the child of Holocaust survivors.
Born in Israel, Kalman moved to New York at age 4 and grew up in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. In college, she met Tibor Kalman, who would become an acclaimed graphic designer as well as her husband and artistic partner until his untimely death from cancer in 1999.
Kalman’s love for her family – her two children and sister, and the memory of her late husband and beloved mother – is front and center in her work. Curator Ingrid Schaffner draws a connection between the dreamy stream-of-consciousness that is a hallmark of Kalman’s style and her upbringing by a mother with a “serious love of distractions.”
Kalman’s mother took young Maira and her sister to museums and concerts, regaled them with stories about village life in Russia, and filled them with little blintzes and other snacks. Later, these “distractions,” and countless others, would show up in Maira’s work. Numerous paintings pay homage to her favorite artists, especially Matisse. A glass case lovingly encloses an onion ring collection that once belonged to her husband; it’s one of several eccentric but affecting personal collections on display.
Kalman’s absurdist way of thinking has clearly struck a chord with the public. Besides her books and illustrations, she’s designed clothing and fabric with Isaac Mizrahi and Kate Spade, and written online journals for The New York Times. This exhibition is a must for anyone who has admired her wacky sensibility, even if he/she didn’t know at the time that it was Kalman’s.
The show opens Friday and closes July 31.
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Online:
http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-ES-03-09-11 1032EST
ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE
Maira Kalman, ‘Self Portrait (with Pete),’ 2004-2005, gouache on paper. Image courtesy of the artist.Maira Kalman, ‘Corsstown Boogie Woogie,’ cover illustration for ‘The New Yorker,’ 1995, gouache on paper. Image courtesy of the artist.Maira Kalman, ‘Matisse in Nice,’ 2004-2005, gouache on paper. Image courtesy of the artist.
The issue, first published in 1962, was sold Monday by a private seller to a private buyer, ComicConnect.com chief executive Stephen Fishler told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
It’s not the highest price ever paid for a comic book, an honor that goes to Action Comics No. 1 with Superman on the cover, which went for $1.5 million.
But Fishler says the price paid is the most for a book from the Silver Age, the mid-1950s to about 1970.
“The fact that a 1962 comic has sold for $1.1 million is a bit of a record-shattering event,” he said. “That something that recent can sell for that much and be that valuable is awe-inspiring.”
Usually, it has been comics from the Golden Age – typically from the late 1930s to the early 1950s – that draw seven-figure sums.
In March 2010, a copy of the 1938 edition of Action Comics No. 1 sold for $1.5 million on ComicConnect’s website. That issue features the debut of Superman and originally sold for 10 cents.
In February 2010, Heritage Auctions in Dallas sold a rare copy of Detective Comics No. 27, which featured the debut of Batman, for $1,075,500. Fishler said the same issue had initially sold for just $2,500 in 1985 and for $140,000 in 2000.
“Over the last decade it has become a rather legendary copy because it was in the hands of a collector and no one thought he would sell,” Fishler said. “The owner came up with a figure that he didn’t think anyone would pay, and it was paid.”
Amazing Fantasy No. 15 has long been prized by collectors because of Spider-Man’s debut. It has been reprinted and made available as a hardcover, too.
The cover, drawn by Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, shows Spider-Man clutching a villain in one arm and swinging from his web with the other. It originally sold for 12 cents.
Writer Stan Lee and Ditko co-created the web-slinger and his alter ego, the awkward but educationally gifted Peter Parker, who was bitten by a radioactive spider.
“Spider-Man is one of Marvel’s flagship characters so, yeah, I’d say Amazing Fantasy is very important,” said Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Axel Alonso. “Funny thing is, the series – which was formerly titled Amazing Adult Fantasy – was scheduled for cancellation before issue Amazing Fantasy No. 15 hit stands. It ended up being one of Marvel’s highest sellers at the time, and paving the road for the Amazing Spider-Man series that’s run monthly ever since.”
It also helped pave the way for Spider-Man adventures on the radio, television and the movie screen.
Lee worked for Marvel for decades, eventually becoming its editor-in-chief, and then starting other businesses, including most recently POW! Entertainment.
He said, given the price paid for the issue, “I wish had saved my old Spider-Man books.”
Back in the early 1960s, there was never any thought of saving extra issues or the original artwork that made up comics because there was no space to store the artwork or books sent back by the printer.
“So if someone came to deliver our lunch or sandwiches or something, before he’d left we’d say ‘Hey, fella! You want to take these books with you or this artwork with you?’” Lee said. “We were giving all that stuff away. Nobody thought to save these books.”
Lee said there is more to the price tag than just money.
“I think it’s just wonderful that these old books are now considered, in some way, ancient treasures and are thought of so highly that people would give so much money for them,” he said. “I would never have believed it, but I am very impressed.”
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Online:
http://www.comicconnect.com/
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
A bronze bust of Honore de Belzac by Rodin is in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. JERUSALEM (AP) – A statue by French sculptor Auguste Rodin was stolen from the Israel Museum during the facility’s recently completed renovation, the museum said Wednesday.
The nude bronze of French novelist Honore de Balzac was one of a series of studies Rodin cast for a monument to Balzac on display in Paris. It was donated to the museum in 1966 by the Jewish-American impresario and lyricist Billy Rose.
The statue is probably worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, but an expert worried that it might be sold for scrap.
The museum said the theft was discovered three months ago and immediately reported to police. Police said an investigation is in progress but would provide no further details.
Museum spokeswoman Dina Wosner said the work was one of a series of four that were cast.
Made of bronze, with a dark brown patina, the statue is 50 inches high and 24 inches wide and weighs about 140 pounds. It was molded in 1892 and cast posthumously between 1918 and 1926.
Rodin, who lived between the years 1840-1917, is renowned for masterpieces such as The Thinker and The Kiss. A Paris museum is devoted to his work. The Rodin Museum refused to comment on the theft.
The Israel Museum, founded in 1965, is the largest cultural institution in Israel. The museum has the world’s most extensive holdings of biblical and Holy Land archaeology, among them a display of Dead Sea Scrolls.
Last year it completed a comprehensive renovation, including the creation of new galleries, orientation facilities, public spaces and the reinstallation of its encyclopedic collections.
The large scale construction presumably created an opportunity for the thieves. The museum refused to discuss its security arrangements.
The museum also said it could not provide a value for the Balzac piece. But based on Rodin sculptures of similar dimensions put the estimated value of the stolen item at approximately $350,000, according to the Art Loss Register, which specializes in recovering stolen art.
Christopher Marinello, the executive director and general counsel of The Art Loss Register, said it would be very difficult to sell such a high-profile piece of stolen art in the open market.
He said it was most likely that the thieves would move the piece underground, shop it on the black market or ransom it to an insurance company.
“Thieves don’t always think about Plan B. If the opportunity arises … they seize upon the opportunity they have to remove it,” he said. “Sadly, many of these bronze items are sold for scrap, as horrific as that may sound.”
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-ES-03-09-11 1005EST
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
A bronze bust of Honore de Belzac by Rodin is in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
PARIS (AP) – French investigators have found jewels valued at $25 million – part of the spectacular 2008 heist from luxury jeweler Harry Winston’s Paris boutique – hidden in a Paris rain sewer.
Nineteen rings and three sets of earrings – one pair valued at $19.5 million – were dug up from a drain at a house in the working class Paris suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis, police said, confirming a report on Europe-1 radio.
The jewels were hidden in a plastic container set in a cement mold inside the sewer, police said. The house belonged to one of the nine people charged in the heist.
The bold robbery on Dec. 5, 2008, netted the thieves – some dressed as women and wearing wigs – gems and bejeweled watches worth up to $118.1 million, police said at the time. More recently, police have set the figure at $85 million.
The Harry Winston boutique is on a street off Paris’ famed Champs-Elysees Avenue dotted with fashion houses and cafes.
The robbery, carried out while Christmas shoppers strolled outside, was among the most audacious in France in recent memory.
Some stolen rings, necklaces and watches were recovered when police rounded up 25 people in a June 2009 sweep and eventually charged nine of them.
Among those charged was the heist’s suspected mastermind, who had been sentenced to 15 years in prison in a drug trafficking case.
Police found stolen jewellery and the equivalent of $1.1 million in cash at this house.
When investigators learned that an Israeli was expected in Paris to buy some of the stolen jewels, police moved in to make the arrests.
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Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
