Ice fish decoy, possibly late 19th century, carved wood body with metal fins and tail. Est. $200-$250. Photo: TAC Estate Auctions Inc. WAKEFIELD, Mass. – On Wednesday, Jan. 16, TAC Auctions will sell property from a well-known Newburyport attorney as well as from residences in the Boston suburbs of Wakefield and Lynn. LiveAuctioneers.com will provide the Internet live bidding for the diverse auction commencing at 6 p.m. Eastern Time.
A total of 213 lots will be auctioned. The long list of categories represented include Americana, French and Continental furniture and accessories; fine and costume jewelry, Orientalia and glass, china, sterling silver (some Continental) and antique and vintage toys.
Additionally, the lineup includes a collection of paperweights, a Stickley bedroom set, French side tables, crystal lamps and chandeliers; and a collection of antique guns and rifles.
Many interesting artworks will be auctioned. Two highlights are a birch bark work by Edward W. Merrill titled “The Deacon’s Prayer,” and an abstract oil on canvas by Allan Davidson.
The sale is rounded out by vintage clothing and accessories, clocks and old photographs.
For additional information on any lot in the Wednesday, Jan. 16 sale, call Tonya Cameron at 781-233-0006 or e-mail info@tacauctioneers.com.
View the fully illustrated catalog and sign up to bid absentee or live via the Internet at www.LiveAuctioneers.com.
Sculptor Ken Price (1935-2012) is known for clever twists on the cup form, which he embellished with bright paint. Examples rarely come on the market. This Geometric Cup (H. 5 1/4 inches) from a 1970s series made in Taos, N.M., brought $114,562.50 in a Cowans-Clark-DelVecchio auction in November 2011. Courtesy Cowan’s Auctions.
Ceramics are sometimes relegated to that artistic stepchild, the “crafts” category. But no one has ever suggested that the work of Ken Price (1935-2012) is anything other than fine art, even though his miniaturized sculptures can be held in one hand.
A new traveling retrospective exhibition, organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and designed by architect Frank O. Gehry, displays works from every twist and turn of Price’s career. Most valuable for enthusiasts is the accompanying 288-page catalog with magnificent images and essays by LACMA Senior Curator of Modern Art Stephanie Barron, Frank Gehry, Phyllis Tuchman and Dave Hickey, as well as past interviews with the artist himself.
In his review of the exhibition for Crafts magazine in London, ceramics expert Garth Clark wrote: “Ken Price Sculpture: A Retrospective is kiln hot, blazing with color with works that glow like embers plucked from the fire and forms that emulate the flow of molten lava. It is a pyrotechnic display that is shockingly beautiful for those who do not already know the work, an affirmation for those who do. However, brightly as this retrospective glows, it has taken Price his entire career to reach this point, his coronation as a great American artist. Alas, he died four months earlier at age 77.”
A Los Angeles native, Ken Price received a B.F.A. in 1956 from the University of Southern California and a M.F.A. in 1959 from the renowned New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. He divided his long working career between Venice, Calif., and Taos, N.M., producing some of his most celebrated pieces in the 21st century near the end of his life.
While some Alfred graduates are classed as studio potters or even just creative tableware makers, Price entered the art world at a high level. Clark pointed out, “Though one will not find an artist more dedicated to his core medium, this is not the craft-rags to art-riches scenario. Price lived his entire career in the fine arts. …”
“His first solo show was at Irving Blum’s legendary Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles in 1960, joining a stable of his surfing buddies and friends: Billy Al Bengston, Ed Ruscha, Craig Kauffman, Ed Keinholz, and others. He was also introduced to the New York artists Blum showed: Ellsworth Kelly, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol (whose first solo exhibition was at Ferus). This was, and remained, Price’s milieu.”
Clark wrote the extensive catalog entry when the Cowans+Clark+DelVecchio ceramics auction sold a Price Geometric Cup in November 2011 for $114,562.50. Confident in his status as a sculptor, Price was fascinated by the cup form, taking a ceramics standby and turning it on its head. He had ventured into this design area in the 1960s, but the series of strongly geometric cup shapes he created after moving his family to Taos in the early 1970s has become his most sought-after works. Examples rarely come up for sale, so the strong Cowan’s result came as no surprise; one offered at Sotheby’s in 2006 brought over $200,000.
Happy’s Curios – named after his wife Happy – was another series executed during his time in Taos (1972-1977). These colorful objects, inspired by Mexican folk art ceramics, can be more affordable for collectors. Three subtly colored tequila cups from this group sold for $4,880 at a Rago auction in 2010.
From 1991-2001, Ken Price returned to USC as professor of ceramics. The flat planes of earlier geometric pieces gave way to oozing, amorphous blobs with layered colors, which rose a foot or two off the base surface. The shapes made Catherine Wagley title her Oct. 8, 2012 exhibition review in LA Weekly: “Why are Ken Price’s Oddball Sculptures at LACMA So Compelling?”
She wrote, “But Price, who in the late 1950s fell in with the Ferus Gallery crowd now known as L.A.’s first art avant-garde, was making strange, sexy, alienlike sculptures in the last two decades of his career, forms as visceral and memorable as anything he’d done before. Hunchback of Venice (2000) has a wonky, curved, orange-on-green back and fluorescent purple underbelly you have to lean over to see. OG (2008) is a roly-poly amalgam of breastlike protrusions.”
She explained the creation process: “Price would build up clay forms like these, firing them up to 20 times each. He had stopped using glaze in the 1980s and would instead paint the surfaces with layer upon layer of acrylic before working back into the color with rubbing alcohol or wet sandpaper, making it look as if paint had eroded in places. Finally, with a Q-tip, he would add new, bright colors into those eroded spots, giving his sculptures meticulously mottled, multicolored skins.”
One only need look at Balls Congo, the 2003 work illustrated here, to understand the effect these later works have on the viewer. The speckled creature seems to rise on multiple legs in preparation for a slither across the table. These works also bring substantial prices. Last year at Phillips, Blind Bob 1998 sold for $80,500 in November and Steeps 2004 brought $98,500 in June.
Having finished its 2012 run at LACMA, “Ken Price Sculpture: A Retrospective” begins a national tour with stops at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Feb. 9-May 12, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, June 18-Sept. 22.
ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE
Sculptor Ken Price (1935-2012) is known for clever twists on the cup form, which he embellished with bright paint. Examples rarely come on the market. This Geometric Cup (H. 5 1/4 inches) from a 1970s series made in Taos, N.M., brought $114,562.50 in a Cowans-Clark-DelVecchio auction in November 2011. Courtesy Cowan’s Auctions.L. Red, a 1963 ceramic ovoid form painted with lacquer and acrylic, is one of 100 works in the traveling exhibition ‘Ken Price Sculpture: A Retrospective,’ organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. This 13-inch-high work is on loan from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Courtesy LACMA; photo Fredrik Nilsen.In 2007 this Ken Price geometric vessel brought $31,200 (est. $4,000/$6,000) at Rago Arts and Auction Center in Lambertville, N.J. Courtesy Rago Arts and Auction Center.A glazed stoneware figural vase from the 1950s, signed ‘K. Price,’ sold for $2,000 in February 2012. Courtesy Rago Arts and Auction Center.In the 1970s Price made a ceramic series inspired by Mexican folk pottery, which he called Happy’s Curios after his wife. These three subtly colored tequila cups brought $4,880 at a Rago auction in 2010. Courtesy Rago Arts and Auction Center.Shaped like an amorphous alien, this signature work from the current exhibition, titled ‘Balls Congo 2003,’ has the finely speckled surface characteristic of Ken Price’s later work. Courtesy LACMA; photo Fredrik Nilsen.
French bisque bebe doll incised ‘Eden Bebe Paris 9,’ 23 inches, $18,000. Morphy Auctions image. DENVER, Pa. – It was a beauty contest and a price war – that’s how some might have described the setting at Morphy Auctions’ Dec. 4, 2012 Dolls sale, which took in $480,000, inclusive of 20% buyer’s premium. Approximately 1,000 fine antique and collectible dolls lined up alongside a small selection of teddy bears, doll clothing and accessories apportioned into 681 lots. LiveAuctioneers.com provided the Internet live bidding.
The star lot of the day, a stunning 23-inch French bisque bebe doll took the longest postsale journey of any of the dolls in the sale, having been purchased by a collector in Japan. Incised “Eden Bebe Paris 9” and dressed in an attractively detailed green and cream dress, the doll also sported white leather gloves and a jaunty apricot straw hat with green ribbon. Against an estimate of $1,200-$1,600, the doll rose to the top of prices realized with a winning bid of $18,000.
Following closely behind the French bebe was a doll of quite a different type, but no less charming – a “Maggie Bessie” all-cloth doll manufactured by Maggie and Bessie Pfohl of Salem, N.C. Its delicately painted hair and facial features rendered a distinctly three-dimensional effect, and its desirability was enhanced by the doll’s original clothing – a light-blue day dress, lace-trimmed bonnet and ribbon-tie shoes. The 13-inch American beauty realized an above-estimate auction price of $16,800 and sold to a buyer local to Morphy Auctions.
Another American cloth doll that kept bidding paddles airborne was a 24-inch design by Izannah Walker of Central Falls, Rhode Island. Featuring a molded head and brown painted “hair” with Walker’s trademark corkscrew side curls, the blue-eyed girl doll was attired in a period aqua wool dress that appeared to be original. An antique painted-wood horse on wheeled platform accompanied the doll to suggest a pose that might have been seen in a 19th-century primitive painting of a girl and her favorite toy. Estimated at $8,000-$10,000, the Walker doll was right on target at $9,600.
Designed by the distinguished French doll maker Bru, a 15-inch bisque Circle and Crescent Bru Jne 4 with pensive expression was presented in an exquisite cream satin dress, bonnet and original shoes. It was bid to $10,800. Another French bisque highlight was the circa-1885 Jules Steiner 12-inch bebe, extremely rare Series E doll dressed in a couture ensemble with vivid maroon-satin ribbons and ruffles. The final selling price for the Steiner was $7,800.
Other top-10 lots included a 1969 20-inch Sasha (Morgenthaler) studio doll, $5,100; a 14-inch French bisque bebe doll stamped ‘Depose Tete Jumeau Bte SGDG 5,’ $5,400; and an early Steiff 12-inch honey-color mohair teddy bear, $4,800 against an estimate of $1,200-$1,500.
Dan Morphy, CEO of Morphy Auctions, described the bidding activity as being “a nice chemistry with a very strong Internet presence.”
“We had a lot of new buyers at the gallery for the December 4th sale,” Morphy observed. “One man came in from Philadelphia with his wife, who had just moved here from Russia – just the nicest people in the world. She didn’t speak a word of English, but her husband told us she had always followed Morphy’s sales. I was very pleased to see that she had been successful in buying several nice dolls.”
According to Morphy, the excellent turnout for the sale was largely attributable to the fact that the dolls offered were very fresh and had not been seen in the marketplace since the 1960s or ’70s. “People get excited about that, no matter what the category,” Morphy said. “When those fresh collections come out, so do the buyers.”
To contact Morphy Auctions, call 717-335-3435 or e-mail serena@morphyauctions.com.
View the fully illustrated catalog from Morphy’s Dec. 4 Doll auction, complete with prices realized, at www.LiveAuctioneers.com.
Russian St. Anne medal, enamel, gold and diamonds, the red guilloche cross and openwork panels set with 106 rose cut diamonds, 18K gold hanging ring. Price realized: $59,000. Kaminski Auctions image.
BEVERLY, Mass. – Kaminski Auctions’ annual New Year’s Auction and DéCoR Auction premiere Dec. 29-30 were stunning successes. Over 2,300 registered online bidders from over 30 countries added their bids to the 200 placed by phone for the auction. A large audience filled the Kaminski gallery for the sale of a variety of impressive pieces, from jewelry, to fine art and furniture. LiveAuctioneers.com provided Internet live bidding.
A Russian St. Anne medal garnered particular interest on Day One. The head of the Imperial House of Russia bequeathed these medals of the Order of St. Anne to those who preformed outstanding civil or military service. Receiving this imperial gift constituted one of the highest honors, and conferred upon the recipient a title of nobility. Certainly sought after during the reign of the Czars, the fine medals continue to draw many admirers today. Within the past decade, two of these medals have appeared for auction in Europe. In 2005, Christie’s sold a St. Anne medal of the first class for $39,000 in London, and in 2008 the Galerie Numismatique in France sold a medal of the third class for a record $475,000. The sale of the St. Anne medal at Kaminski appears to set a new record for sales in the United States, replacing the previous record of $25,000 set in 2010 at Jackson’s Auction in Iowa. The beautiful piece, which features a painted enamel image of St. Anne at the center of a red guilloche cross, was the highest selling lot of the auction. With keen interest from five phone bidders and a large number of online bidders, the medal ultimately sold for $59,000.
A number of other small and beautifully designed pieces also appeared for auction on the first day. One exceptional piece was an elegant Cartier watch, made from 18K yellow gold and featuring a bold square face encircled by diamonds. The watch sold for $5,500. Also offered was a platinum ring set with a 3.00-carat round diamond and flanked with 12 smaller round brilliant cut diamonds, which sold for $12,000.
The first day of sale also presented an intricately carved jade pendant. The exquisite carving of the pendant articulates two fine layers of detailed patterning depicting a playing dragon among clouds with a bat and flower pattern. Originally estimated to bring between $300 and $400, the piece finally sold for $14,000.
The New Year’s Auction additionally presented a number of fine sterling silver and flatware lots as well, including three lots of Gorham sterling, which sold over both days of auction. A complete set of Gorham sterling flatware in the King Edward pattern was among the highest selling lots, reaching $4,000.
Day Two inaugurated the first ever DéCoR Auction at Kaminski Auctions. In keeping with the theme of the DéCoR blog, items offered on the second day exemplified the beauty and interest that antique furniture and decorative objects can bring to the modern home. A beautiful Sino Tabriz Oriental rug was one highlight of the auction, and sold for $14,000. Day two also offered a range of striking furnishings and artworks. The lots offered including a 19th century Chinese export Famille Rose garden seat for $4,500, as well as a painting attributed to the French Expressionist painter Bernard Buffet, which sold for $5,000.
A Lucius B. Bradley mantel clock commanded considerable interest. Presented in a mahogany case by the case maker Charles Platt, the clock carries the date 1810 in pencil and also retains the clock and case keys. Originally estimated to sell for between $400 and $500, the clock was eventually hammered down at $5,000. The auction also included smaller decorative items for the home, such as a clever sterling cocktail shaker. This shaker originally sold through Udall and Ballou, a premiere jewelry designer of the early 20th century. The shaker takes the shape of a golf bag with clubs and sold above the $4,000 estimate for $9,000.
To read more about distinctive items such as these, antiques in the modern home, and the DéCoR Auctions, visit the DéCoR blog at Kaminskiauctions.com.
View the fully illustrated catalog for Kaminski Auctions’ annual New Year’s Auction and DéCoR Auction premiere Dec. 29-30, complete with prices realized, at www.LiveAuctioneers.com.
Russian St. Anne medal, enamel, gold and diamonds, the red guilloche cross and openwork panels set with 106 rose cut diamonds, 18K gold hanging ring. Price realized: $59,000. Kaminski Auctions image.
Cartier watch, 18K yellow gold with 32 diamonds, working condition unknown. Price realized: $5,000. Kaminski Auctions image.
Platinum and diamond ring, 3.00-carat round center stone flanked by 12 smaller round brilliant cut diamonds. Price realized: $12,000. Kaminski Auctions image.
Lucius B. Bradley, Watertown Conn., mantel clock in carved mahogany case bearing label of Charles Platt (clock case maker), dated 1810, 28 3/4 inches high by 18 inches wide. Price realized: $5,000. Kaminski Auctions image.
A statue of Hades and Cerberus. Heraklion Archaeological Museum. Image by Aviad Bubil. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3-0 Unported license.
LOS ANGELES (AP) – The J. Paul Getty Museum said Thursday it plans to return to Sicily a terra-cotta head depicting the Greek god Hades after determining it was clandestinely excavated from an archaeological site in the 1970s
The museum took the initiative to investigate the piece’s origins after seeing fragments in a publication that could join to the head, which dates to about 300 or 400 B.C., according to Timothy Potts, the museum’s director.
The Getty acquired the piece in 1985, and Potts said it’s believed it was taken from the Morgantina Archaeological Park in Italy in the 1970s.
The original location of the head was the site of the sanctuary of Demeter, the Greek goddess of the harvest, whose daughter Persephone was married to Hades.
The Getty purchased the piece from New York collector Maurice Tempelsman. It is among more than 40 pieces the museum has returned to Greece and Italy in recent years.
The terra-cotta body of Hades is undergoing an extensive restoration at the Museo Archeologico in the Italian city of Aidone.
The head will be on view at the Getty Villa from April 3 to Aug. 19. It then travels to the Cleveland Museum of Art for display from fall until January 2014 before appearing in February at the Palazzo Ajutamicristo in Palermo, Italy.
Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
A statue of Hades and Cerberus. Heraklion Archaeological Museum. Image by Aviad Bubil. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3-0 Unported license.
1972-73 Dave Cowens Boston Celtics MVP Award. Sold for $156,000 by Grey Flannel Auctions.
WESTHAMPTON, N.Y. – Grey Flannel Auctions has announced the renewal of its exclusive partnership agreement with the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts. The agreement extends the mutually beneficial arrangement that has existed between the two entities since the early 1990s.
Under the terms of the partnership, Grey Flannel will continue to conduct its Annual Basketball Hall of Fame Induction Auction at the Hall each September. As part of the induction weekend’s activities, Grey Flannel will also keep up its tradition of hosting the annual Reunion Dinner for returning Hall of Famers, new inductees and their families. Additionally, Grey Flannel will maintain its long-held role as the Basketball Hall of Fame’s official appraisers and authenticators.
“We highly value the friendship and close working association that has developed between our company and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame over the past two decades,” said Grey Flannel Auctions’ president Richard E. Russek. “We are honored that the Hall chose to renew the arrangement that has worked so well for so many years.”
“With prices for authentic, game-worn professional basketball memorabilia skyrocketing, we foresee new world records in our annual Hall of Fame auctions,” Russek said. “Basketball has become a powerful international attraction, and its superstars and legends of the past are viewed as sports royalty everywhere on earth. When we can achieve prices like $156,000 for Dave Cowens’ Celtics MVP Award and $132,000 for one of Dr J’s All-Star uniforms, that tells you what basketball means to its fans.”
Grey Flannel’s 2013 Basketball Hall of Fame Induction Auction will be one of the key events featured within a slate of activities scheduled for Sept. 6-9 at the Hall. For additional information or to discuss consigning to the auction, contact Grey Flannel at 631-288-7800 or e-mail info@greyflannelauctions.com. www.greyflannelauctions.com.
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ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
1972-73 Dave Cowens Boston Celtics MVP Award. Sold for $156,000 by Grey Flannel Auctions.
The New Hampshire Capitol Building in downtown Concord. Smuttynoser at the English language Wikepedia, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publishes it under the following license: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Subject to disclaimers.
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – Broken bits of pottery and other artifacts unearthed during construction might be worthless to builders but tell a story to an archaeologist about New Hampshire’s history.
But New Hampshire has no law governing what happens to artifacts unearthed during commercial land developments, and many fear the chance to learn more about the past is slipping away.
State Sen. Nancy Stiles, a Hampton Republican, is hoping to change that by sponsoring legislation that would give communities a say in what happens to the artifacts. House Speaker Terie Norelli, a Portsmouth Democrat, is co-sponsoring the bill because she believes it will help preserve precious historical resources.
Stiles and Norelli say the bill won’t stop construction, but state Rep. Dan McGuire, an Epsom Republican, argues it could delay construction or increase costs.
“This bill is more likely to cause the destruction of archaeological treasures than to preserve them because it uses the stick instead of the carrot. If someone discovers an arrowhead on their property, will they inform others about it and risk the loss of property value, or will they hide it and destroy the evidence?” McGuire wrote in an email.
McGuire helped kill the same measure last year but doubts he has the votes to do so again now that the House is under Democratic control.
The bill would enable communities to establish a process to protect and preserve significant archaeological deposits or sites that qualify as historic resources. Planning boards would follow the regulations when reviewing subdivisions and commercial site plans. The planning boards could seek advice from historic or heritage commissions if they exist in the town in applying the regulations.
Cordell Johnston, government affairs counsel for the New Hampshire Municipal Association, said the association, which represents communities, has no position on the bill since it leaves it to each municipality to decide if it wishes to adopt regulations. Johnston said any artifacts found would belong to the property owner. He said the proposal would apply to commercial developments, not to individual homeowners.
“I can’t imagine (the proposed law) would authorize a planning board to require the property owner to give up their property,” he said.
Johnston said McGuire is correct that it could cost a developer money.
“But that is true of just about any kind of restrictions imposed through site plan and subdivision review,” he added.
A hearing on the bill is scheduled for Wednesday morning in the Senate Public and Municipal Affairs Committee.
Stiles filed the bill because Portsmouth had no say about possible archaeological deposits affected by the $95 million Portwalk development in a historic section of the city’s downtown.
In 2009, Cathartes Private Investments of Boston began a three-phase project that includes two hotels, luxury apartments, retail space and an underground garage. During the first phase, Parade Mall was demolished and a hotel was erected. No federal money was involved in the project, so a federal regulation requiring an archaeological evaluation was not triggered.
But federal funding was included in the financing of the second phase and the developer hired a local archaeological firm to evaluate the site and unearth artifacts. The same firm searched the site of the final phase in December. In both instances, old pottery and other artifacts were found – some possibly several hundred years old.
Cathartes spokesman Scott Tranchemontagne said the most interesting piece was a bottle belonging to Joshua Wentworth, a New Hampshire patriot in the colonial era. It was found in a privy, which is where people threw trash. Finding the bottle in the privy may mean Wentworth’s house was on the site in the 1770s, Tranchemontagne said.
He said the company followed all the rules in building on the site, but there was confusion about what needed to be done and who had jurisdiction. He noted that the area had been disturbed many times over the years by past developments.
“For us, the most important thing is to have a clear set of rules. We want to make sure it’s clear. Obviously, it hasn’t been over the past few years,” he said.
State Archaeologist Richard Boisvert said most of what archaeologists have found is not museum quality, but even mundane things can help tell the story of a time if pieced together and put into its proper context.
“If it doesn’t have meaning, it’s just a rock, just a piece of broken pottery,” he said.
Tranchemontagne said the Portwalk developers plan to display artifacts found at the construction site.
“We’re very open. We want these artifacts, particularly if they have historical significance, to be seen,” he said.
Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
The New Hampshire Capitol Building in downtown Concord. Smuttynoser at the English language Wikepedia, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publishes it under the following license: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Subject to disclaimers.
A 1920s postcard of Baker, Ore., home of the largest gold nugget found in the state. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
BAKER CITY, Ore. (AP) – Zella Sly is holding a stone that looks perfect for propping open a door that’s out of plumb.
Or you could use it to buy a new Ferrari.
This is, suffice it to say, not an ordinary rock.
To be geologically precise, it’s not even a rock at all.
It’s a chunk of nearly pure gold.
Specifically, the biggest, and most famous, gold nugget ever found in Oregon.
And it has a new home in Baker City.
Well, sort of new.
The Armstrong nugget, all 5 pounds of it, rests today where it has for more than half a century – in the U.S. Bank branch at 2000 Main St. in Baker City.
But the nugget, and the rest of the dazzling display of the precious metal that surrounds it, is shown off to better effect in a new wood-and-glass case.
The custom-built case not only looks nice, it incorporates much more sophisticated security features, said Sly, who manages the Baker City branch.
Despite the new precautions, though, the key to the old security system remains in place, Sly said.
“The gold is locked in the vault every night,” she said.
The gold collection was transferred to the new case on Friday morning, before the bank opened.
“We needed to up our game,” said Bob Kavanaugh, Eastern Oregon district manager for U.S. Bank. “This is a unique display, and very important to Baker County. We want the people of Baker County to understand that we take this very seriously.”
Kavanaugh credits Sly as the “driving force” behind the project to replace the display case for the gold collection.
Sly said she was surprised, when she took the job in Baker City about a year ago, by the popularity of the gold display and its centerpiece, the Armstrong nugget.
“I had no idea it was such a draw,” Sly said. “We have tour buses that stop just so people can see the display. We have school groups from Portland.”
A trio of Baker City Police officers supplied security while Tabor Clarke, who owns a Baker City jewelry store, weighed the collection.
His official figure for the Armstrong nugget was 80.33 ounces.
The rest of the collection, which includes smaller nuggets (the biggest weighs 14.1 ounces), flakes and dust, much of it given to the bank over the years, exceeds 150 ounces.
The actual value depends on the purity of each sample, Clarke said.
Due to its value as a unique collectible, Clarke said, unusually large pieces such as the Armstrong nugget might well fetch more than the market price of gold, which comes to $115,000 or so based on the nugget’s purity of about 87 percent and the current gold value of about $1,650 per ounce.
The Armstrong nugget was found, so the story goes, by a miner named George Armstrong in 1913 near Susanville, in Grant County.
The colorful – and, perhaps, apocryphal – tale has it that Armstrong was walking behind his son when he noticed the nugget in the muddy footprint left by his son’s boot.
Whether the story is precisely accurate or not, about the nugget there is no doubt.
You need only heft the thing – it’s as heavy as a normal stone three or four times its size – to understand that its pale yellow is no thin lacquer of paint.
Friday’s event at U.S. Bank included a guest of honor, Edna (Rogers) Harrell of Baker City.
“It’s a real honor to have Edna here,” Kavanaugh said.
Her father, John B. “Jack”’ Rogers, and her grandfather, John W. Stuchell, both served as leading officers in the First National Bank of Baker, the predecessor of today’s U.S. Bank (the Baker City bank merged with U.S. National Bank of Portland in 1959).
Stuchell bought the First National Bank of Baker in 1934 – the bank was founded in 1883 – and kept it operating throughout the Great Depression, said Harrell, who graduated from Baker High School in 1955 and from the University of Oregon in 1959.
Stuchell died on Sept. 22, 1947.
Harrell’s father, John B. Rogers, was elected as the bank’s president on Oct. 8, 1947. It was the largest independent bank in Eastern Oregon.
The Armstrong nugget had been on display at the bank since before the Depression, she said.
The late Jack Pittman, a former U.S. Bank official, said in a 2004 interview that George Armstrong stored his nugget at the bank for safekeeping, and borrowed hundreds of dollars using the nugget as collateral.
In 1955 Harrell was photographed standing next to the display case, along with Mary Ann Hansen, for a U.S. Bank postcard that touted the gold collection.
She also worked at the bank as a teller during her summer vacations.
She said her father had the idea to promote the collection, and in particular the Armstrong nugget, as a tourist attraction.
Harrell, 75, said her family’s link to Baker County’s mining legacy dates back one more generation. Her great-grandparents, J.B. and Mary Gardner, worked the French Diggins mine near Granite in the 19th century.
Every year for close to three decades, the couple would mine during the summer and bring their gold back to Baker by wagon in the fall.
“They were never once molested by bandits,” Harrell said. “Last year we went in on four-wheelers and found the place. I knew right where the buildings used to stand.”
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Information from: Baker City Herald, http://www.bakercityherald.com/
Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
A 1920s postcard of Baker, Ore., home of the largest gold nugget found in the state. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
American furniture and antiques expert Leigh Keno.
NEW YORK – For years you’ve seen his expert appraisals of American furniture on PBS Television’s Antiques Roadshow. Now you can listen and learn insider details about some of the finest early American productions through a series of videos titled “Leigh Likes.”
In preparation for Keno Auctions’ exciting Jan. 22 auction, which features important American furniture, paintings, folk art and decorative art, Leigh Keno critiques his personal favorites from the sale via informative “highlight” videos. No furniture buyer will want to miss his observations on what makes a piece special, or why a particular piece of furniture was constructed a certain way.
Double-click on any of the videos below to enjoy Leigh Keno’s informative series, and don’t forget to click on the link at the bottom to visit the LiveAuctioneers online catalog for Keno’s Jan. 22 sale:
This carved wood animated bottle stopper is 6 inches tall. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Martin Auction Co.
JANESVILLE, Wis. (AP) – The handcrafted genius of the vintage bottle stoppers for sale at a downtown consignment shop – All all 350 of them – enthralled Janesville businessman Jim Grafft.
The 5-inch bottle stoppers are whimsical and detailed woodcarvings depicting humans and animals that are set atop corks. Some have mechanical movements.
Joni Bozart, the owner of Carousel Consignments, was considering selling off the collection individually. Grafft convinced her it should stay together.
Now, the corks – each a tiny package of art – line Grafft’s downtown office in the display shelves the son of the collector had built for his dad.
“They’re all handcrafted,” said Grafft, describing why he likes the corks.
No two are exactly alike.
Grafft owns Wisconsin Wagon, a local company carrying on a tradition of hand built products, and he likened the wagons to his bottle stoppers.
“Someone had to deliberately look at every single piece and individually hand paint and carve them,” he told The Janesville Gazette.
“There’s an extreme amount of hand work in it to make them mechanical. Someone’s got to figure that out.”
The figures’ actions are prompted by a push or twist of a lever or pull of a string.
One little musician, for instance, saws away at a violin, while another works an accordion.
A couple raise their necks and share a kiss.
A ballerina dips and sways.
A housewife wearing a scarf wields a rug beater.
A cowboy tips his hat and raises his guns.
Bozart said Robert Hessling assembled the collection over most of his 91 years. He gained an appreciation of woodworking from his father, Thomas, a woodworker and carver employed at a Milwaukee furniture company.
Most of Grafft’s stoppers likely were created by workers for Anri, an Italian company established in 1912.
According to an online article, the earliest corks depicted both humans and animals – heads or full-figured – with detail and delicate coloring.
The article’s authors, Philly Rains and Donald Bull, wrote a book on Anri.
The older pieces have more value because they are superior in carving and painting. They depict a variety of subjects including monks, gunslingers and animals.
The earlier carvings were caricatures of the villagers who carved them, according to the article.
The stoppers cost less than a buck. Many were sold in gift shops after World War I and brought to America by those traveling abroad.
Thousands were produced. The cotton string used in the movements was over time replaced by sturdier stuff, such as fishing line.
“They were small and easy to pack, and they were good gifts because they were not only cute but they were useful,” the authors wrote.
The most common bottle stoppers include kissing couples, hat tippers and drinkers in varying stages of sobriety. Those depictions were created throughout production, which ended in 1976.
Through the years, carvings were attached to other household items such as corkscrews, nutcrackers and toothpick holders.
The quality, however, decreased as the popularity of the carvings increased.
The detailed carvings were replaced in the mid to late 1950s by common faces with few variations.
A decade later, the company was producing only a few dozen models and a few animals.
Today, the value of bottle stoppers range widely.
A search on eBay, the online auction service, shows final bids beginning at about $7 and the majority staying below $50. A carving of a monk recently sold for $52, a ballerina for $100 and a fully jointed violin player for $194. A rare stopper – a monkey that stands on its head – went for $258.
Grafft said he might have to put a cork in his own collection: He’s bought a few in the last couple years and now the little guys are beginning to double up in the racks.
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Information from: The Janesville Gazette, http://www.gazetteextra.com
Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-01-10-13 1608GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
This carved wood animated bottle stopper is 6 inches tall. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Martin Auction Co.
