Rago Arts & Auctions recently updated and enhanced their website, offering a more complete catalog of available "passed lots" – items not sold at previous auctions – as well as memorable highlights from recent auctions. Some amazing stuff, there; kind of neat to see price records for really excellent examples.
The most recent Early 20th Auction was this past Friday, October 1 2010. Some highlights are pictured above.
Plenty of interesting furniture, metalwork, glass & more on Ebay this month, with more than the usual number of small gift items available:
Nina West writes at Artfact.com:
A rare Arts & Crafts chair made by Charles Rolhfs and rescued
from the trash made auction history last week. Expected to fetch around
$30,000, it sold for the record price of $198,000.Pulled from
the neighbor’s trash, the chair was given an insurance value of $25,000
by Sam Cottone, president of Cottone Auctions, outside of Rochester,
N.Y., 10 or 15 years ago. The auctioneer’s advice to the owner was to
take good care of it, since its value would appreciate significantly
over time. The owner, living in a trailer home, decided earlier this
year that it was time to sell the chair.Cottone advertised the
chair with the low estimate of $30,000 to $50,000 in hopes of creating
good auction buzz. The battle for the chair among 10 phone bidders and
multiple floor bidders was won by a Washington, D.C., antiques dealer.
It is unclear if he purchased the chair on behalf of a private client
or for his own store inventory.
This month, there are more knicknacks than you can shake even the fanciest stick at over on the mother of all online auction sites. The following aren’t necessarily excellent deals, but everything here is at least interesting.
As usual, I’m avoiding everything labeled misleadingly (i.e., "Roycroft era," "Stickley style," "maybe Stickley?," etc. … I’ll have plenty more up next week and the week after.
I’m trying to keep to my policy of only including items here that are listed honestly – i.e., not labeled "Stickley-era," "possibly Roycroft," etc.
These are mostly unsigned items, either underpriced or honestly priced in my opinion (although I did include a few interesting signed items, too). While there were plenty of other good deals this week, many were expiring today or tomorrow, so I didn’t include those.
furniture
ceramics
metal
Andrea Valluzzo, over at Antiques & The Arts Online, has the full story:
Holbrook, MA: It’s not every day a Stickley desk like this comes along.
On a recent house call to look at some collectibles, a
cannonball, a gun and similar merchandise, Kelley Auctions’ appraiser
Michael Lynch spotted the circa 1904 desk with original ebonized black
finish and rare Grecian urn inlay and asked the owner about consigning
it.The woman, who was selling some of her recently deceased
parents’ items to finance some needed car repairs, suggested he buy it
outright for a few hundred dollars.Instead, the specially made Stickley desk was consigned
to auction and after weeks of presale advertising and building
interest, it crossed the block on September 5, attaining $214,500,
including premium. The desk, now one of six known examples to exist,
was unknown prior to the auction. Each desk is numbered; this one is
marked #3.
There are plenty of interesting pieces of A&C furniture and ceramics on Ebay right now – almost 50% more than I usually see up there, with some neat Roycroft pieces and pretty tiles too. Maybe people are cleaning out their own collections this summer, or trying to cover the costs of their rising mortgages by selling off family treasures (I hope not!). Here are some items closing soon that caught my eye: