Catherine Saunders-Watson, Author at Auction Central News

Craigslist lawyer surprised by eBay action

GEORGETOWN, Del. (AP) – Craigslist officials were caught off guard when told in 2007 that their minority shareholder, eBay, was going to compete directly with them in the online classifieds business in the U.S., an attorney for Craigslist said Wednesday. Ed Wes said he was equally troubled by eBay’s defiance in the face of Craigslist’s subsequent request that eBay divest or sell its 28 percent minority stake because Craigslist was no longer comfortable having the online auction giant as a shareholder.

Wes said eBay attorney Brian Levey warned him in a telephone call after Craigslist asked for divestiture that eBay CEO Meg Whitman’s response might be to tell Craigslist to go “pound sand.”

“It was as if he knew what the response would be even before Meg responded, even before she saw the e-mail,” Wes said. “It was a stunning moment for me.”

Wes was testifying in a lawsuit in which eBay is challenging antitakeover measures adopted by Craigslist founder Craig Newmark and CEO James Buckmaster in response to eBay’s launch of its Kijiji classifieds site and refusal to sell or divest its shares.

Craigslist contends that eBay was out to control Craigslist despite assurances that it was satisfied with a minority stake, and that it reneged on promises that Craigslist would be eBay’s exclusive vehicle in the online classifieds market in the U.S., and that eBay would help Craigslist expand internationally. Craigslist also claims that eBay misused confidential financial information provided by Craigslist to help develop Kijiji.

Wes testified that Buckmaster began expressing concerns about potential conflicts involving eBay as early as October 2004, two months after eBay bought its minority interest in Craigslist from a disgruntled shareholder. Shortly after closing the deal with Craigslist, eBay began acquiring several online classifieds sites overseas.

“I think Jim was just concerned about eBay having divided interests,” Wes said.

Despite eBay’s acquisition of the overseas sites and its launch overseas of Kijiji in 2005, Wes said Craigslist officials were nonetheless surprised when given 10 days notice of Kijiji’s impending U.S. launch in 2007.

“It was clear to me knowing the way eBay operated that this must have been in the works for some time, and I was surprised that eBay would not have disclosed this earlier,” he said.

Wes said eBay’s announcement that it would compete head-to-head with a company in which it held both a sizable stake and a board seat, combined with eBay’s assertion that its eventual acquisition of Craigslist was “inevitable,” caused Craigslist officials to re-evaluate the relationship and take steps to protect itself.

During the five months that it considered those protective measures, Craigslist did not inform eBay what it was doing, Wes said.

“We didn’t trust eBay, and we felt it was in the best interest of Craigslist not to provide that notice,” he said.

In his cross-examination, eBay attorney William Lafferty asked why Craigslist acted secretly to adopt the protective measures, even though there was no imminent threat of an eBay takeover.

“You never know when the takeover threat may occur,” Wes replied.

Asked why Craigslist never complained about competition until 2007, Wes said eBay had assured Craigslist officials that the overseas acquisitions and Kijiji operations would be contributed by eBay to an international partnership with Craigslist.

Efforts to develop that partnership failed however, due partly to antitrust concerns stemming from an investigation of eBay by the New York attorney general.

Lafferty said that when negotiating the deal with eBay, Wes knew eBay already had acquired a classified site in Germany, and that eBay had no contractual obligation not to compete with Craigslist, only what Wes considered a “moral commitment.”

“Not enforceable in a court of law, is it Mr. Wes?” Lafferty said.

“I don’t know if that’s the case,” replied Wes.

AP-CS-12-16-09 1835EST

Bank accuses high-profile auctioneer of loan misdeeds

AUBURN, Ind. – A Kansas bank has asked a judge to hold auto auctioneer Dean Kruse in contempt of court, alleging he violated terms of a loan on which he still owes $6.5 million.

Hillcrest Bank of Overland Park, Kan., says Kruse did not own three Nazi command vehicles when he used them as collateral for the loan, which is now in default.

The lawsuit, which is scheduled for a hearing Monday in DeKalb County, caps a trouble-filled year for Kruse and Kruse International. After months of complaints, the Auburn-based auction house now has the lowest possible Better Business Bureau rating.

A message seeking comment on the suit was left Thursday with Kruse’s Auburn office.

The auctioneer told The Journal Gazette in Fort Wayne in August that the recession has hurt his sales and caused him to fall behind on some payments.

The pending challenges facing Kruse and his companies include a federal judge’s move last month to order the seizure of Kruse’s 1985 Cessna jet after Kruse defaulted on the loan.

And in June, Kruse, whose primary residence is in Auburn, lost to foreclosure a Phoenix home on which he owed nearly $3.2 million, according to documents filed with the Maricopa County, Ariz., recorder’s office.

Kruse International also owes more than $52,000 in back taxes to the state of Arizona and nearly $37,000 to the city of Phoenix, according to documents from that state and city.

Arizona officials have also suspended Kruse’s license to operate in that state, where the company has held auctions for more than 30 years, following complaints from sellers.

Hillcrest Bank’s lawsuit was filed in August against Kruse, his wife, his auction company and several limited-liability companies he owns. It claims he defaulted on a 2007 loan originally for $13.6 million.

In addition to the Nazi command cars — three 1939 Mercedes-Benzes that Kruse failed to sell during a Labor Day auction — that loan’s collateral includes American Heritage Village, a site adjoining Kruse Auction Park that Kruse has hoped for years to develop.

Hillcrest asked last month that Kruse be held in contempt because an Arizona man, Tim Hurst, claims in an Internet advertisement that he owns the three Nazi command vehicles.

Kruse has argued in court documents that he still owns the vehicles.

Hurst’s attorney, E.J. Peskind, told The Journal Gazette that Hurst received a bill of sale for the vehicles in 2006 before the date when Kruse took out the loan from Hillcrest Bank in exchange for property in Arizona.

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Map found in $10 box at estate sale makes $23,400 at auction

Map of Virginia found in $10 box of books that went on to sell for $23,400 at a Dec. 3 sale at Quinn's & Waverly in Falls Church, Va. Image courtesy of Quinn's & Waverly.

FALLS CHURCH, Va. – A map that was purchased for $10 at a northern Virginia estate sale has guided its owner to a profitable destination at auction, where it sold to an anonymous bidder for $23,400.

The 1827 map of the State of Virginia, drawn by Herman Boye and engraved by H.S. Tanner and E.B. Dawson, had been tucked inside a box of 10 assorted books and offered at an estate sale for a group price of $10. The buyer, a Virginia attorney who dabbles in books, suspected the map might be valuable and took it to Quinn’s & Waverly Auction Galleries in Falls Church, where experts entered it in a Dec. 3 sale with an estimate of $2,500-$4,000.

“There was tremendous interest in it. Every phone line was occupied by a major book or ephemera dealer,” said Matthew Quinn, co-owner of Quinn’s & Waverly. “It was a challenge to settle on a presale estimate for the map because there hasn’t been another one available in the marketplace in the last 35 years. There’s barely even a reference to it on the Internet.”

Comprised of 40 sections, the map is one of only 800 printed for distribution to Virginia’s state senators in 1827, with each map representing one of nine geographic regions. The auctioned map depicts the state before the territorial split that resulted in the formation of a new state, West Virginia, and does not include Arlington County, which was still part of Washington, D.C. at the time of the map’s publication.

Based on an inscription inside the cover of its slipcase, the map was originally the property of John Randolph (1773-1833) of Roanoke, Va., who served seven terms in the Virginia House of Representatives.

Linen-backed and hand-colored, the map details the rivers, roads, towns, county seats, ferries and other natural and man-made points of interest of northwestern Virginia in the 1820s. A population table provides data from the first four U.S. Censuses and lists the number of whites, slaves and free blacks then living in Virginia. Its statistics indicate that at the time of the map’s publication, there were 36,889 freed blacks in the state – less than 10 percent of the number of slaves – out of a total population of 1,065,366 people.

“The map is like an illustrated time capsule of what life was like in Virginia in the 1820s,” said Quinn. “You can see from the symbols on the map how important churches and universities were to the people, and how the state’s fledgling industries were developing.”

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Pook & Pook offers hospitality to bidders traveling to Jan. 15-16 sale

DOWNINGTOWN, Pa. – With contents that span literally all aspects of American history, Pook & Pook Inc’s Jan. 15-16 auction catalog might well be mistaken for a major museum inventory. That’s not so unusual, since the Chester County auction house is located in the tenderloin of Pennsylvania’s museum region. Pook & Pook’s management is encouraging visitors to their mid-January sale to explore local institutions as part of a very special hospitality package that includes being wined, dined and put up in a local hotel, and you can read more about how to qualify later on in this article. First let’s talk about the auction itself.

All sessions will feature Internet live bidding through LiveAuctioneers.com. The opening session on Friday evening, Jan. 15, begins with the collection of furniture, Oriental rugs and paintings from the legendary Elinor Gordon’s home located in the tony Philadelphia suburb of Villanova. Ms. Gordon, who died in July, was renowned for helping to elevate the status of Chinese export porcelain and for her knack in acquiring important pieces on behalf of collectors and museums. Included in the Gordon estate offering are pair of rare New York chairs, a Philadelphia compass-seat chair, paintings by Tait, Bishop and Enneking; and an N.C. Wyeth landscape of the artist’s own farm.

A large collection of English ceramics from both a Pennsylvania educational institution and a private New York collection will follow. Historical blue china including an Arms of Pennsylvania platter, an Arms of Delaware platter, and an Arms of Virginia covered vegetable will be sold. Other items are a Harrison White House plate, a rare Tucker ice water pitcher, Liverpool pitchers, mocha, Gaudy Dutch and many other items that have been out of the public eye for many years.

Friday’s group of scrimshaw from the Cumberland County Historical Society includes two dated whale teeth and many other interesting items. This will be followed on Saturday by three newly discovered Nathaniel Finney scrimshaw walrus tusks. These fully carved pieces represent the epitome of this well-known San Francisco scrimshaw artists’ work.

A cache of letters of great historical interest will be sold Saturday. Correspondence to Colonial William Church, founder of the NRA, from presidents Buchanan, Johnson, McKinley, Taft, Tyler and Roosevelt are included. Especially interesting is a letter from Teddy Roosevelt written from San Juan complaining about the “slander” of reports that Rough Riders were killed by friendly fire. Other letters from Samuel Clemens, Edwin Booth, General Custer, Admiral Dewey, Peary, Sherman and others, along with Confederate ephemera, will be offered as part of this fascinating window into American culture at the turn of the 20th century.

A selection of fine pre-colonial American silver comes with provenance from a pioneer collector. A Newport tankard by Samuel Vernon will compete with a teapot by Potwine, a tea caddy by Van Voorhis & Schenk, an unusual child’s cann by Jacob Hurd, two caudle cups – one by Henricus Boelen – later pieces by the Richardsons of Philadelphia, and an extraordinary tureen by Hyde & Goodrich of New Orleans.

Saturday’s session will include two fully carved highboys, one a previously uncataloged cherry bonnet-top example with unusual relief bird carvings and signed “S. Henszey 1767.” The other is a wonderful Philadelphia example featuring shell-carved drawers.

Other remarkable pieces of Pennsylvania furniture in the sale include two wainscot chairs, a rare Pennsylvania hanging cupboard with exceptional hinges – from the collection of the late H. Richard Dietrich – a silver-face Philadelphia barometer by Fisher, and more than 20 tall-case clocks. One clock is the only known example by Abel Cottey, who died in 1711. This clock comes from the collection of Mrs. Joseph Carson. Other notable clock makers represented are Jos. Wills, Jacob Godshalk and Thomas Stretch. Additionally, there are two painted New England cases.

While there are many Chippendale and Federal pieces of furniture in the sale, those who appreciate folk art will appreciate several fine dower chests that have been cataloged, including a vibrant Soap Hollow example, a Center County chest with a rare blue background, a curly maple Dutch cupboard, redware plates, weathervanes and a fully furnished Victorian dollhouse.

Textile collectors will be well served by two vibrant Baltimore album quilts, a monumental Quaker sampler from New Jersey, and a dozen other needleworks, a 1775 bargello pocketbook, Boston mourning pictures and much more.

Last minute consignments not to be overlooked include a miniature portrait by Sully, a pair of watercolor-on-ivory miniature portraits of George and Martha Washington attributed to Trumbull, two elaborate French automata, and a collection of jewelry from a Philadelphia Main Line estate.

A fascinating slice of American history is the small collection of 10 Diamond Disc records made by Thomas A. Edison for his Florida neighbor, the industrialist Henry Ford.

Pook & Pook, Inc. will be celebrating their 25 years of success with a very special offer of free accommodations, food and admission to numerous area museums for those bidders who spend a minimum of $1,000. That’s not hard to do when the merchandise is as special as what is being offered in this sale.

In order to qualify, one must register before Jan. 15. Pook & Pook will pick up your tab (up to $100) at one of many participating local hotels or b&b’s for one night. Extra nights available at a special discounted rate.

Pook & Pook will wine and dine their special guest on Friday evening with top-shelf cocktails, fine wine and wonderful food. All will be encouraged to visit the many internationally acclaimed institutions in the area, including Winterthur, Brandywine River Museum, the Hagley Museum & Library, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Chester County Historical Society – all with admission paid by Pook & Pook.

Those participating in the special offer will also receive the $40 auction catalog absolutely free. Pook & Pook will dole out cash refunds after the $1,000 (hammer, before b.p. and sales tax) purchase requirement. For further information visit the company Web site at www.pookandpook.com or call 610-269-4040.

Visit the fully illustrated catalog and sign up to bid absentee or live via the Internet through www.LiveAuctioneers.com.

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ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE

France returns wall paintings sought by Egypt

General view of Luxor Temple, front end, from the Corniche. Photo taken by Hajor, Dec. 2002. Released under cc.by.sa and/or GFDL. Image acquired through Wikimedia Commons.

PARIS (AP) – Fragments of an ancient wall painting that caused a feud between Egypt and the Louvre Museum are heading home.

France returned the ancient artwork to Egyptian officials after President Hosni Mubarak inspected one of the fragments following a visit with his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy. The pockmarked slab in sepia and blue tones, from a 3,200-year-old tomb near the ancient temple city of Luxor, shows an offering from a nobleman to a servant.

Egypt’s antiquities czar Zahi Hawass cut ties with the Louvre in October, saying the famed Paris museum had refused to return the fragments. Egyptian officials said the artifacts had been stolen in the 1980s – chipped from the tomb’s walls.

French officials quickly agreed to hand over the fragments following a recommendation by scientific experts.

France said the works had been acquired by the Louvre “in good faith” in 2000 and 2003, but doubts emerged last year about whether the pieces had been taken from Egypt illegally years before.

French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand said in a statement that the handover “is testament to France’s desire to… fight against the illegal trafficking of cultural goods, which France is itself a victim of, as well as the excellence of French-Egyptian cooperation in the realm of archaeology.”

Christiane Ziegler, a former curator of the Louvre’s Egyptology department, said the spat could have been resolved with fewer fireworks.

“This was much ado about not very much,” said Ziegler, who was briefly barred from lecturing in Egypt during the feud.

Hawass, Egypt’s chief archaeologist, is leading aggressive efforts to reclaim what he says are antiquities stolen from the country and purchased by leading world museums. The move against the Louvre was one of the biggest moves yet in his efforts.

AP-CS-12-14-09 1203EST

Detroit museum now home to recently discovered 1930s Sloan painting

DETROIT (AP) – Hundreds of miles separate New York and Detroit, and in one unique case: decades.

A painting created by American artist John Sloan 75 years ago and missing for 65 of them now hangs on a wall inside the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Sloan painted Fourteenth Street at Sixth Avenue in 1934 for the Public Works of Art Project, which was created to employ artists during the Great Depression.

Four years later, it vanished.

Here is the story of how a well-regarded piece of art went missing and was found, according to the DIA.

Works created by artists on salary with the Public Works project were property of the federal government and meant to be displayed in public buildings.

Sloan created two paintings during his time with the project. One was “The Wigwam, Old Tammany Hall,” which also is from 1934. That piece is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

The other, Fourteenth Street at Sixth Avenue, hung in the office of U.S. Sen. Royal Copeland until the New York Democrat’s death in 1938. When Democratic Sen. James Byrnes of South Carolina took over Copeland’s office, the painting no longer was there.

In the early 1980s, congressional staffer Charles Terrill found the unframed painting in a pile of trash. Terrill was taken with it, but didn’t know of its importance.

He took it home and hung it on a wall. And there it stayed until Terrill’s death in 1987.

The painting then was given to his sister, who lives in Traverse City.

It wasn’t until another of Terrill’s relatives, a nephew, upon a visit to the DIA in the late 1990s, saw paintings by Sloan and made the connection that his uncle might have saved a special work of art.

The sister had the painting appraised a few years later and only then learned of its value.

The U.S. General Services Administration recovered the painting in 2003 and agreed to a long-term loan of the work to a museum designated by Terrill’s sister.

Cathie Terrill chose the DIA, which is showing it outside the exhibition titled “Government Support for the Arts: WPA Prints from the 1930s.” It runs through March 21.

“We are delighted to have this wonderful Sloan painting at the DIA,” museum director Graham W.J. Beal said in a statement. “The timing is especially fortunate in that it complements our current exhibition of WPA prints.”

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On the Net:

Detroit Institute of Arts: http://www.dia.org

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Italian police recover hoard of looted artifacts

ROME (AP) – Italian police have broken up a ring of looters who raided tombs for ancient artifacts and exported them illegally to countries including the United States, officials said Friday.

During more than a year of investigations, authorities recovered nearly 1,700 statues, vases and other artifacts dating from pre-Roman times to the heyday of the empire. Police flagged 19 people for possible investigation by prosecutors.

The artifacts were mainly dug out from tombs in the areas around Naples and Venice and included a bronze bust of the emperor Augustus, customs police in Rome said.

Part of the loot had been smuggled to the United States to be sold to collectors, they said.

The Italians said they worked with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in New Haven, Connecticut, to recover 47 ceramic and bronze statutes that had been looted from a tomb in southern Italy dating between the 6th and 5th centuries B.C.

Over the past decades, thousands of artifacts have been secretly dug out and smuggled out of Italy to be sold to museums and collectors worldwide.

In recent years the country launched an international search for its lost treasures, cracking down on the illegal antiquities market and seeking deals with museums for the return of looted artifacts.

AP-ES-12-11-09 1346EST

France to return ancient treasures to Egypt

PARIS (AP) – France plans to return five fragments of an ancient wall painting to Egypt next week, ending a feud over their ownership.

President Nicolas Sarkozy’s office says the pieces will be returned to Egypt on Monday, the same day the French leader hosts his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak for lunch. The announcement came Friday.

France’s culture minister agreed in October to return the treasures after Egypt cut ties with Paris’ Louvre Museum over the issue. The painted wall fragments come from a 3,200-year-old tomb near the ancient temple city of Luxor.

Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s chief archaeologist, is leading aggressive efforts to reclaim what he says are antiquities stolen from the country and purchased by leading world museums.

AP-CS-12-11-09 0717EST

Lawyer: NY man facing weapons charge is collector

CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (AP) – The attorney for a Long Island man arrested on weapons charges says his client is a collector and not a threat to the community.

Anthony Piromalli was released on $1,000 bail after pleading not guilty Friday to three misdemeanor weapons charges and one felony weapons count. Police arrested him Thursday after obtaining a search warrant for his Babylon, N.Y., home.

Suffolk County police say they seized 33 switchblades, eight handguns, three rifles, a shotgun and ammunition.

Lawyer Mitchell Hirsch says his client has been a collector of watches, antique knives and other items.

He estimated the value of the seized weapons, some of which he said were in their original packaging, at $20,000.

“He doesn’t use them,” the lawyer says. “He creates displays.”

AP-ES-12-11-09 1635EST

Court saga continues; Craigslist founder says eBay reneged on promises

GEORGETOWN, Del. (AP) – Internet auctioneer eBay Inc. began reneging on its promises to Craigslist shortly after taking a minority interest in the online classifieds site, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark testified Thursday.

Newmark said he began having concerns about eBay within months of inking a deal in August 2004 that gave eBay a 28 percent stake in Craigslist. He testified in a lawsuit in which eBay claims he and Craigslist CEO James Buckmaster improperly acted to dilute eBay’s minority interest after a falling out in 2007.

EBay executives, including then-CEO Meg Whitman, indicated that they would be happy with holding a minority stake for several years, and that Craigslist would be eBay’s exclusive play in the online classifieds market, Newmark said.

Instead, eBay soon began pressing for a bigger stake in Craigslist and acquiring other online classified sites overseas.

“EBay, specifically Meg Whitman, made commitments and broke them,” Newmark said.

Newmark said he considered eBay’s insistence on acquiring more than 28 percent to be a deal breaker for Craigslist, which also had received overtures from Google Inc. and private equity firm Warburg Pincus. He said talks with eBay had “cratered” before he and Buckmaster were called to a meeting with Whitman in July 2004.

Whitman, who is seeking the GOP gubernatorial nomination in California, assured Craigslist that she was happy with a 28 percent share while the two companies went through a three-year “courtship,” Newmark testified. Whitman said the relationship would end amicably if it didn’t work, and reiterated that Craigslist was “the” play in classifieds for eBay, according to Newmark.

“We decided that eBay could be trusted, and we proceeded with the deal,” he said, adding that eBay executives assured him that they shared Craigslist’s community-oriented values.

But Newmark said no one at eBay, which is based in San Jose, California, informed him that the company was working to acquire online classified sites in Europe and was developing its own classifieds project, named Kijiji, at the same time it was talking to Craigslist.

He also said no one told him that eBay employees working on other classifieds projects were sharing confidential Craigslist information.

“What would your reaction have been?” defense attorney Anne Foster asked Newmark.

“Deal breaker,” Newmark responded.

Newmark defended the poison pill and other corporate measures adopted by San Francisco-based Craigslist in January 2008 in response to eBay’s domestic launch of Kijiji in the United States.

“I was certain that they treat all shareholders fairly,” he said.

But eBay contends that the measures improperly diluted its stake in Craigslist and resulted in the loss of its Craigslist board seat.

“We feared that people might be nominated to the board who might not have the interest of the (Craigslist) community and the company at heart, so we wanted to make it harder for them to be on the board,” Newmark said.

Under cross-examination from eBay attorney Michael Rhodes, Newmark said he did not personally contact any eBay officials in late 2007 to let them know the corporate governance measures were being considered.

Rhodes also noted that while Newmark accused eBay officials of dishonesty, he misled members of Craigslist who asked if he had received any money from the August 2004 deal, or whether Craigslist had sold stock to eBay. In fact, Newmark received $9.5 million, and the deal was structured in a way in which Craigslist sold new stock to eBay, Rhodes said.

“You misled them time and again,” he told Newmark.

Newmark replied that he was acting in accordance with an agreement not to disclose details of the transaction.

Testimony resumed on Friday.

AP-CS-12-10-09 2051EST

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