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Stephanie Case enjoys handling the lion’s share of the business side of the auction house and making sure things run smoothly on the back end. Image courtesy of Case Antiques, Inc. Auctions & Appraisals.

Auction executive Stephanie Case: ‘No two days are alike’

Sheila Gibson Stoodley
Sheila Gibson Stoodley
Stephanie Case enjoys handling the lion’s share of the business side of the auction house and making sure things run smoothly on the back end. Image courtesy of Case Antiques, Inc. Auctions & Appraisals.
Stephanie Case enjoys handling the lion’s share of the business side of the auction house and making sure things run smoothly on the back end. Image courtesy of Case Antiques, Inc. Auctions & Appraisals.

NEW YORK – Second careers are now the norm. Stephanie Case, co-owner and vice president of operations at Case Antiques, Inc. Auctions & Appraisals in Knoxville, Tennessee, and her husband, John Case, are a fitting example of the phenomenon. Each had a different career before launching their auction business in 2005. His was in biomedical and biotechnical engineering, and hers was in retail management. Their auction house has grown to include three satellite offices in Tennessee, and online platforms such as LiveAuctioneers has expanded Case’s reach across the globe.

How did you get started in the auction world?
John and I have been together since college and are coming up on our 30th wedding anniversary, so I married into an antiques family as he had an antiques background. In college, we would go around buying things.

What was it like starting a second career?
When a lot of people start a second career, it may not be by choice. It wasn’t by choice for us, but this has been a really good learning opportunity. I grew up with two educators, and they instilled an early love for learning. It’s just amazing because I get to have a job where no two days are alike and I am always learning things — that’s a really fun part of this job.

How has online bidding transformed your business?
We strive to do really good photography and detailed descriptions, and because of the Internet and platforms like LiveAuctioneers, we have a huge reach. As long as we are able to bring in good quality items, we definitely have the buyers for them.

In keeping with its mission of promoting Southern art, Case Antiques has sold many sculptures by William Edmondson, including ‘The Preacher,’ which attained $450,000 plus the buyer’s premium in January 2020. Image courtesy of Case Antiques, Inc. Auctions & Appraisals and LiveAuctioneers.
In keeping with its mission of promoting Southern art, Case Antiques has sold many sculptures by William Edmondson, including ‘The Preacher,’ which attained $450,000 plus the buyer’s premium in January 2020. Image courtesy of Case Antiques, Inc. Auctions & Appraisals and LiveAuctioneers.

Your business is well known for decorative arts of the South, but do you personally collect it as well?
We collect a variety of things, but the three things we focus on are regional furniture, regional artists, and – I am from a small Native American tribe in North Carolina, the Lumbee tribe, so we collect Native American things, as well. I love the Native American material because it’s varied among the different tribes and different countries. We have Native American pottery in our home as well as baskets and art.

How do you and John split up your roles in the business?
John is definitely an extrovert. He loves talking to people and being out in the field. I am more of a detail person, so I handle all of the operations of the business.

Regional furniture routinely performs well at Case, such as this 18th-century Virginia Frye-Martin school bookcase on bureau that brought $80,000 in October 2012. Image courtesy of Case Antiques, Inc. Auctions & Appraisals and LiveAuctioneers.
Regional furniture performs well at Case, such as this 18th-century Virginia Frye-Martin school bookcase on bureau that brought $80,000 in October 2012. Image courtesy of Case Antiques, Inc. Auctions & Appraisals and LiveAuctioneers.

What is a typical day on the job like for you?
I handle a variety of things, being a small business owner. I manage the catalogers, so as we are getting things in, I make sure we get the objects cataloged and [manage] the general things that you need to make a business operate. We have an auction coming up, so today we have clients coming in and we have some employees out doing a pickup. [My day is] just managing the schedule and making sure we have everybody where we need.

An abstracted 1972 work by Beauford Delaney achieved $290,000 plus the buyer’s premium at Case in July 2021 – more than 1,000 times its appraised value. Image courtesy of Case Antiques, Inc. Auctions & Appraisals and LiveAuctioneers.
An abstracted 1972 work by Beauford Delaney achieved $290,000 plus the buyer’s premium at Case in July 2021 – more than 1,000 times its appraised value. Image courtesy of Case Antiques, Inc. Auctions & Appraisals and LiveAuctioneers.

What provides your greatest source of job satisfaction?
I love when an object comes in that is a complete surprise for our clients. We had a painting by Beauford Delaney, who was an African American artist from Knoxville. He died in Paris, so all these things were shipped back over here, and the painting sat at one of the offices of the lawyers handling his estate. It had been appraised by a New York appraiser as not being one of his paintings and given a $300 appraisal. We ended up selling it with the buyer’s premium for more than $300,000 in June 2021. When it came in, I looked at it and I just kept on digging and digging and I finally found a sister portrait of the same size in the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco. We then brought in one of the local museum people who had co-authored a book [on Delaney], so a $300 painting turned into a $300,000 painting.

Bought as part of a box lot for $25, this pair of 18th-century silver sauce boats by New York silversmith Lewis Fueter realized $37,000 plus the buyer’s premium at Case in January 2014. Image courtesy of Case Antiques, Inc. Auctions & Appraisals and LiveAuctioneers.
Bought as part of a box lot for $25, this pair of 18th-century silver sauce boats by New York silversmith Lewis Fueter realized $37,000 plus the buyer’s premium at Case in January 2014. Image courtesy of Case Antiques, Inc. Auctions & Appraisals and LiveAuctioneers.

Could you talk about another time when an auction item was a surprise?
We had a client who bought a big box lot of silver that had these two silver sauce boats in it. He bought the lot for $25 and the sauceboats ended up being made by a New York silversmith [Lewis Fueter] who was a contemporary of Paul Revere. He was on the wrong side of the Revolutionary War, however, and he ended up fleeing to Canada. The sauce boats ended up bringing more than $40,000. The client was in the audience the day that they went for auction [in January 2014] and I thought he was going to faint. Those are big examples, but we have a lot of examples where people come in and they don’t really know what they have because they have inherited it, so it gives me — and I think everyone here — a lot of satisfaction to see that we can make a difference for people.

Could you talk about how you have made a difference in your community?
Even though we are a small business, it’s fun that we bring in interns from the local university. They get an exposure to business. A lot of them, particularly in the art history field, they think they want to work in a museum. We’ve hired two people who have been interns because they come in and they see a different way to use their degree. Even though we don’t employ a lot of people, it’s satisfying to know that in your community, you’re making a difference. We’re making a difference in offering a service to people but also by being able to bring people in and help them figure out what they want to do as a career.

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To contact Stephanie Case or to discuss a future consignment to Case Antiques, Inc. Auctions & Appraisals, call 865-558-3033. Click to visit Case Antiques, Inc. Auctions & Appraisals online.