February 17, 2012 - Auction Central News

RM Auctions to sell historic Ferrari-powered hydroplane

Ferrari-engined 1953 ARNO XI Hydroplane, image courtesy of RM Auctions.

LONDON – RM Auctions has announced the consignment of the world-famous Ferrari-engined Hydroplane racing boat, ARNO XI, to its highly anticipated Monaco auction, May, 11-12.

A unique piece of history, ARNO XI joins an elite roster of blue-chip automobiles and motorcycles slated for the two-day sale at the Grimaldi Forum. The auction is on the same weekend as the Grand Prix de Monaco Historique.

“We are thrilled to be offering the historic ARNO XI at our Monaco sale. This awe-inspiring racing boat has beauty, history, provenance and performance; it simply ticks every box for any serious collector,” says Peter Wallman, specialist at RM Europe.

ARNO XI was the brainchild of Achille Castoldi, who, wanting to establish a world water speed record, set about developing the ultimate powerboat. During 1952 and 1953, Castoldi, a friend of the famous Ferrari Grand Prix drivers Alberto Ascari and Luigi Villoresi, succeeded in convincing Enzo Ferrari to provide knowledge and technical assistance to develop the boat. The result was horsepower provided by a 12-cylinder, 4,500 cc V-12 Ferrari engine, the same as that installed in the Type 375 Grand Prix car that gave José Froilán González Ferrari’s first ever World Championship Grand Prix Victory at Silverstone in 1951. The only addition was twin superchargers that developed in excess of 502bhp at 6000rpm.

On Oct. 15, 1953, ARNO XI achieved 241.70 km/h (150.19 mph) on Lake Iseo in northern Italy, establishing a world speed record for an 800kg boat. The record, incredibly, still stands today.

When Castoldi was finished with ARNO XI, it was sold to Nando dell’Orto, who went on to race it with great success for more than 10 years, securing numerous wins. The boat went through various aerodynamic improvements during that time, including a modified nose and the addition of a fin, finishing its competitive racing career in 1960 with a European championship victory and numerous fastest laps, many of which still exist.

The current owner acquired the racing boat over 20 years ago, restoring it to concours condition. ARNO XI has been in the water many times since and is not only an impressive sight when seen in action but also sounds magnificent. Well-documented, its sale is accompanied by an extensive history file including numerous period photographs and hand-written notes from the great Ferrari engineer, Colombo, during tests on Lake Iseo and during bench testing at Ferrari’s Maranello factory. This remarkable and unique machine is estimated to achieve between 1 million and 1.5 million euro when it crosses the auction podium in May.

“It’s an exceptional piece of history, made even more famous by the countless models one sees of it in important collectors’ libraries and is likely to appeal to serious car collectors as much as it will to traditional boat collectors,” adds Wallman. “It has that alluring mix of ’50s Ferrari grand prix car with the sheer beauty and simplicity of the hydroplanes of the period. We are honored to have been entrusted with its sale.”

Ahead of the auction, ARNO XI will be displayed at the Milano Autoclassica, Feb. 17-19.

For further information on the upcoming Monaco auction or to discuss consignment opportunities for RM’s Monaco sale, visit www.rmauctions.com or call + 44 (0) 20 7851 7070.

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Vintage image of 1953 ARNO XI Hydroplane courtesy of RM Auctions.

Click to view a YouTube video of the ARNO XI Hydroplane on the waters near Geneva.

VIDEO:

Thieves loot ancient Olympia museum in Greece

The ruins of the Phillippeion at Olympia, Greece. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

ATHENS (AFP) – Armed robbers stole more than 60 priceless artifacts including a gold ring from a Greek museum dedicated to the ancient Olympic Games on Friday, prompting the country’s culture minister to resign.

Two masked men took advantage of the fact the building was unguarded for an hour in the early morning, knocked out the alarm, then overpowered the museum’s sole female guard when she arrived for her shift, officials said.

“There were two of them, and they had a gun,” Olympia Mayor Thymios Kotzias told Flash Radio.

A staff unionist later told ANA that a Kalashnikov assault rifle had been used by the robbers.

“We must wait and see what the local archaeology supervisor will say, but the items were of incalculable value,” Kotzias said.

It was the second major theft to embarrass Greek culture officials in a month, prompting Culture Minister Pavlos Geroulanos to offer his resignation.

“This is a very unpleasant day for us,” said the culture ministry’s general secretary Lina Mendoni, who rushed to the museum alongside the minister, some 300 kilometres (186 miles) southwest of Athens in the Peloponnese peninsula.

“It’s a tragic day for the archaeology family and the ministry,” she said.

Greece, rich in archaeological heritage, has been targeted by antiquity smugglers for decades.

Authorities have long been unable to adequately guard key sites such as museums and Byzantine churches scattered across the country, but austerity measures Greece is implementing under its international bailout have forced further cutbacks.

“Clearly the museum’s security was insufficient … to guard a global treasure,” Olympia mayor Kotzias later told state television.

A ministry unionist said museums nationwide were over 1,500 guards short of a full complement after over two years of public sector layoffs imposed by the government to address the country’s debt crisis.

“All museums have suffered cuts, both in guards and archaeologists, the staff are no longer enough to operate at full shifts,” said Ioanna Frangou,general secretary of the union of short-term culture ministry staff.

Olympia, birthplace of the ancient Olympic Games, is visited by hundreds of thousands of visitors annually.

The incident occurred at the town’s second museum, which showcases nearly 500 objects related to the Games, such as clay vessels and bronze discs used in the events, stone tablets and bronze statues of athletes.

The police said “bronze and clay objects and a gold ring” had been removed from display cases at the museum, built on a forested hilltop on the outskirts of the small town of Olympia.

Another official put the number of objects taken at over 60.

The police placed traffic checkpoints in the area and were examining the museum’s cameras for clues, the semi-state Athens News Agency said.

The main Olympia museum, which is better guarded, features statues, architectural elements and offerings from the sprawling ancient complex where the Games were held from at least 776 B.C. to A.D. 393, when they were abolished by the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius.

The flame of the London 2012 Olympics is to be lit in a ceremony amid the ruins of the Temple of Hera, near the ancient stadium, on May 10.

Friday’s theft follows that last month of a painting personally gifted by Pablo Picasso to Greece from the Athens National Gallery.

In that case, the thief or thieves knocked out the alarm system and forced open a balcony door at the back of the building, which is located across from one of Athens top hotels.

The gallery was on reduced security staffing owing to a strike.

Two other important artworks by Dutch abstract artist Piet Mondrian and

16th century Italian painter Guglielmo Caccia, better known as Moncalvo, were also taken.

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Monroe, Mich., may honor Custer with national museum

A statue of cavalry soldier Gen. George Armstrong Custer stands at a busy intersection in Monroe, Mich. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

MONROE, Mich. (AP) – Officials in Monroe County are pursuing the creation of a national Gen. George Armstrong Custer museum and monument.

The Monroe Evening News reports the Monroe County Board of Commissioners agreed this week on pursuing a national museum, as well as a proposal to put a tax to support the Monroe County Historical Museum before voters in August.

William Braunlich, president of the Monroe County Historical Society, says the plans are “highly complementary.” His organization wants to combine the current George Armstrong Custer collection with National Park Service efforts for a museum and monument.

The tax could fund the Monroe County Historical Commission, which runs the county museum.

Custer grew up and attended school in Monroe. A successful and decorated officer of the Civil War, he met his end at the 1876 Battle of Little Big Horn in Montana at age 36.

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Information from: The Monroe Evening News, http://www.monroenews.com

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American Indian mounds hold secrets to be kept

Grave Creek Mound in Moundsville, W.Va. Image by Tim Kiser. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) – Indian mounds are mysterious snakes of dirt rising along the river floodplains, sacred calling cards left by another people from another time.

Piled hundreds of years ago as daises for burial grounds, temples or the homes of chiefs who were considered descendants of the sun, the mounds are scattered in remnants across the Lowcountry, as well as the state and nation.

If you roam or hunt a Lowcountry woodlands, you might well have stepped across one.

But they aren’t nearly as widely known as coastal shell middens or rings. Tribal groups and archaeologists keep most of them a closely held secret: The mounds are illegally looted for trinkets.

It’s a crime that can be prosecuted as a felony under state laws governing burial grounds, archaeological artifacts on public lands, and under federal laws pertaining to public land.

To tribal descendants, it’s no different than grave robbing. To archaeologists, it’s like burning rare books.

A mound was discovered dug into earlier this month in Manchester State Forest outside Sumter. A bridge contractor apparently dug inadvertently into a mound that was not a burial mound, said Scott Hawkins of the S.C. Forestry Commission.

But the incident raised fresh concerns about a problem so prevalent that archaeologists regularly find holes already dug when they are called to confirm a newly “found” mound.

“A lot of them have been dug into for centuries,” said Chester DePratter of the S.C. Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology.

“It’s an atrocity and a disrespect when someone will go in and desecrate a mound,” said Chief James Caulder of the Pee Dee Indian Tribe of South Carolina. “Your mother and father and brother and sister are buried in there. You don’t want to see someone dig up that box to see what’s in there.”

Tribal members who find a mound keep so quiet about it that—even though Caulder knows about mounds in Marlboro County near where he lives, he doesn’t know where they are. The mounds often are found by hunters and, if the word gets out, treasure seekers soon follow.

Authentic tribal items are valuable on the market, he said.

A few dozen mounds have been identified across the state, DePratter said.

More of them easily could be out there. In the Lowcountry, the Santee River was a major trade route for any number of coastal and inland tribes, so the mounds ought to be relatively commonplace.

But generations of overgrowth, erosion, as well as human digging, have left a lot of them unrecognizable. Caulder talks about scouring a Pee Dee River bottom for a mound the tribe knew about, but not finding any sign of it after years of logging and plowing.

Maybe the best-known of the mounds is a 50-foot-tall platform in Santee National Wildlife Refuge in Clarendon County. But the smallest found has worn down to little more than a swell, DePratter said.

Most outdoors enthusiasts who rove the forests will tell you they know where an Indian mound is. But Lowcountry bottomland is a naturally rolling landscape of low ridges and sloughs. A lot of “mounds” are just ridges left by retreating flood tides, or levee walls for logging or farming.

“I can’t tell you how many times in my career I’ve been taken out to see mounds that were natural erosional features in the floodplain,” DePratter said.

Only with careful trowel work can archaeologists find the signs of bucket piling, floors worn by footfalls or buried pottery shards.

Not so long ago, mounds routinely were excavated. But in the 1970s, the remains of nearly 30 Santee tribe natives were unearthed at the Santee mound in the wildlife refuge. The tribe’s descendants waged a years-long battle to repatriate those remains, and attitudes began to change.

Today, archaeologists rarely excavate a mound.

“There’s a newfound respect for the wishes of descendants. These sites are sacred sites to Native Americans. It’s their ancestors,” DePratter said.

To archaeologists, the mounds remain a scarce, irreplaceable insight into cultures in the region and how they dealt with the environs, he said.

“Every little clue is important to understanding past societies.”

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Weirdly wonderful: early artifacts from the Atomic Age

Retailing for $49.50 in 1950, few of these Gilbert Atomic Energy Lab toy science kits were sold. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Dan Morphy Auctions.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (AP) – Radium-powered golf balls. Fishing lures that glow in the dark. Atomic potions that add pep to your step and cure all that ails you.

Who knew radiation could be so much fun?

Welcome to what may be the world’s finest collection of nuclear paraphernalia, atomic doodads and just about anything having to do with the history of radiation and radioactivity.

“I’ve reached the point where I’m real happy,” said Dr. Paul Frame, senior health physics instructor at Oak Ridge Associated Universities and founder and curator of what he calls simply The Collection.

“It covers all the bases I wanted to cover, quantitatively and qualitatively,” Frame said. “That is what’s unique about the collection.”

Other historical collections may have more vintage X-ray equipment, early Geiger counters and radiation dosimeters or movie memorabilia with an atomic theme. But the ORAU museum has it all, ranging from the silly to the serious, beneficial to bizarre, rare to ridiculous.

Maybe the only disappointment is that this unusual collection, located at ORAU’s south campus on Bethel Valley Road, isn’t open to the public. The atomic artifacts are used primarily for the Professional Training Program and ORAU’s other educational efforts, and there isn’t the funding or personnel to make it a public exhibit.

Some items date back more than a century, including the handblown glass tubes from the late 1800s and early 1900s. They vividly illustrate the earliest use of X-rays for medical diagnostics and cancer therapy.

Here are some of the many items of interest on display:

– The oldest “pocket dosimeter” in existence. The pioneering device, which measured an individual’s radiation dose, was designed by and hand-built by weapons developer Charlie Lauritsen sometime around 1932.

– Atomic-themed comic books and toys (such as “Atomic Robot Man”) and movie posters from such classics as The Atomic Monster, Operation Uranium, and The Man With X-ray Eyes.

– A shoe-fitting fluoroscope. A machine that took X-rays of a person’s feet to get the proper fit for new shoes. It was a fixture of shoe stores in 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. By the early ’50s, a number of professional safety organizations raised concerns about the radiation exposures to shoe shoppers and salespeople, and fluoroscopes were eventually banned.

– A radioactive roof tile from Hiroshima, Japan.

– A variety of radioactive quack cures, such as Degnen’s Radio-Active Eye Application, circa 1930. These glasses, with radium-226 incorporated into the lenses, were to be worn for five to 10 minutes twice a day to cure eyestrain and just about any other eye problems—farsightedness, nearsightedness and “old sight.”

– Badges and personal items from nuclear pioneers. Those include a slide rule and visitor’s badge belonging to Glenn Seaborg, discoverer of plutonium.

– A “Glowbody” fishing lure. This lure, circa 1920, had a cylinder body that contained a small amount of radium-226 and crystals of zinc sulfide. When an alpha particle from the radioactive material struck the zinc sulfide, it would create a flash of light. This happened over and over again, creating the appearance of a continuous glow.

It was some of the early X-ray items that first caught Frame’s interest back more than 25 years ago and became the start of a collection that just kept growing.

Around 1984, when Frame joined ORAU’s Professional Training Program as an instructor in health physics, the science of radiation protection, he started exploring the labs. He found a bunch of items he thought were neat, and others thought so, too, and soon one of his bosses came up with a case to display things relevant to the course work and other items that were quirky or just interesting to look at.

Oak Ridge, of course, is a treasure trove for everything atomic, and Manhattan Project veterans and others started making donations. More items were purchased from online auctions and antique dealers. The national Health Physics Society contributed funds to help it grow into the definitive collection it is today.

Some artifacts, of course, are radioactive, but Frame tries to keep the radioactive source material down as much as possible. On the website, he tells people he’s not interested in acquiring any more radioluminescent items—such as radium-dial watches—and doesn’t recommend the general public collect these radioactive things either.

While Frame enjoys talking about the items and their origins and telling stories associated with them, he doesn’t like to talk about the value of the collection. In fact, he won’t.

He acknowledges that some items are worth thousands of dollars. In fact, a friend recently donated a 1950s-era “Atomic Energy Lab” for kids. It’s highly collectible with a value of at least $5,000.

Other items are priceless, and Frame emphasizes the worth of the collection cannot be translated into dollars.

“It’s not about the money,” he said.

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