going once…going twice…sold! · huge range of items, most going, going, gone for under $500. in...
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24D September - October 2008
It’s a summer evening, and a crowdhas gathered at the Sandwich AuctionHouse for the weekly Wednesday sale.The windows and doors of the shed
building are open wide to catch whateverfresh air comes along, and some people fantheir faces as they pick through the nearly300 items to go on the block that night: aboxload of bulldog figurines; an oil paint-ing of dunes on Cape Cod; Hitchcock din-ing chairs; a few plastic Marilyn Monroedolls (still in their original packaging); anineteenth-century family Bible; some di-amond rings; a signed photograph of Tip
O’Neill; and a weathered tin sign forthe old Libby’s restaurant in Wellfleet.“They had a real mishmosh there,” saysSandy Rosenblith, J.D. ’70, who at-tended the auction with her mother,Judy Rosenblith, Ph.D. ’58, who livesnearby. “I like that diversity. I don’tneed antique things. I just prefer buyingsomething unique, something that doesn’tcome from a chain store.”
A longtime New England tradition, thelocal auction house is a communal gather-ing point, a commercial event that carriesa certain poignancy: whole households or,
one could say, lifetimes, are emptied out,their contents dispersed to new homes, tobe emptied some day in turn.
“We’re estate liquidators—there areonly one or two times in life that peoplewill need this service,” says Sandwich auc-tioneer Duncan Gray, who has been in the
Going Once…Going Twice…Sold!Ne w England’s auctions thrive • by Nell Porter Brown
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business since he was a teenager. “Mostpeople don’t have time to deal with entireestates by selling them on line, nor do theywant to.” Thus many smaller auctioneers,like Gray, hold general estate sales with ahuge range of items, most going, going,gone for under $500. In addition, he holds
“best of” auctions: he expected a Sal-vador Dali painting to bring in tens ofthousands of dollars. He says he grosses$1.5 million to $2 million annually.
Despite the advent of eBay, and the rel-ative newcomers Craigslist, iGavel, andArtnet, more than a hundred locally
owned auction houses flourish throughoutthe region. Around 1998 “when eBay reallycame in, attendance was slacking,” Grayallows. But he sees renewed interest “aspeople realize that, while the Internet maymake our lives easier, the method of saledepersonalizes the process. People know
what they don’t get on line: the social as-pects, and the history of an item—wherethe family purchased it, or how it came tobe at this particular auction. There is a lotof history—stories that drive interest inthe items, and only come with the point ofhuman contact in the exchange.” Theseauctions, says Nick Thorn, vice president
Harvard Magazine 24E
The SandwichAuction House hassomething foreveryone; half the
fun is pawing through items set for theblock. Bathers in the Maine Woods (above),by Ernest Hemingway’s friend Waldo Pierce,A.B. 1908, turned up at a ThomastonAuction House sale this summer, as did aminiature Russian kvosh (far left).
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of Litchfield County Auctions in Con-necticut, “are a form of entertainment.They’re free and fun, and you can see yourfriends. It’s sort of a Saturday night activ-ity in a small New England town.”
Indeed, because of the eclectic goods forsale and the engaging pace, it’s often hardto escape without buying something. Ros-enblith, an auction neophyte, unexpect-edly spent nearly $200 on three “souvenirs”of her experience: a mahogany wall mirror,a lithograph, and a Western mountainscene that reminded her of childhood vis-its to her grandparents in California.
She and her mother later Googled theartist, Raymond Ayers, and found that hehad been a prolific and celebrated commu-nity-arts promoter who sold his own workat a farmers’ market in Ventura county,Southern California. Their quest was notto find the work’s monetary value. “It wasimportant because someone created thispainting in a certain environment, and wascommunicating to me and everyone else,”Rosenblith says. “I wanted to understandwho was reaching me.”
She found the auction interesting onmany levels, mostly because it was “likebeing at a tennis match where suddenlyyou can hit the ball, you’re part of what’sgoing on in a direct way. I was intrigued bywho was going to win the item and howmuch it would cost. It was active. Thereare very few places anymore where thatkind of social experience happens.”
24F September - October 2008
A 1764 John Singleton Copley portrait ofMassachusetts politician Samuel PhillipsSavage was featured by NortheastAuctions in August.
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Most local sales are run by peoplelike Gray, who caught the bug as childrenand have never tired of the treasure hunt.Kaja Veilleux, a lifetime collector, runs theThomaston Place Auction House, inThomaston, Maine, which produces aglossy catalog and holds general orthemed auctions, including this summer’sunusual antique-doll event. “To me, it’sthe mystique of it all, not knowing exactlywhat you will see when you get there, theexcitement of finding something interest-
ing,” he says. “And it’s a mental challengeto see if you can have more knowledgeabout an object than everyone else andmake money against them.”
Local auctions attract a wide audience,ranging from obsessive pack rats, bargain-hunters, and dealers to investors, curators,and serious connoisseurs, all of whomtend to imbue things with more meaningthan other people do. “It’s why some peo-ple must have that piece; sometimes we callit the ‘collecting gene,’ ” says seasoned
American art and antique collectorRobert Shapiro ’72, J.D. ’78, of Cam-bridge. “Sometimes people find theyhave to curb their love, otherwise theyfind they have more love and lessmoney in their pockets.”
A trusts and estates attorney inBoston, Shapiro is also president of theboard of the Peabody Essex Museum(PEM) in Salem, Massachusetts. Someobjects hold particular resonance: at a
recent auction, he came across a book-plate that had belonged to Edward Augus-tus Holyoke, who, in his early nineties, be-came founding president of the EssexInstitute (which later became part ofPEM). “It has his signature and his coat ofarms, and now, on my desk, I have some-thing related to my sometime predecessor,who was president of the board almost200 years ago,” he says. Shapiro also hasand still uses the first item he ever boughtas a boy at an auction with his father: abrass trivet with a dragon design that costhim 75 cents. “Would that all my pur-chases were in that price range,” helaments. Some people “are just hooked onthe auction process,” says Veilleux. “Thereare people who fly into Maine on Lear jetsand sail in on 100-foot yachts and come toour big August sale.” Thanks to the Inter-net, where most auctions preview lots forforthcoming auctions with photographsand descriptions, people from all over theworld now buy from local dealers.
This spring, Veilleux took on a Maine
24H September - October 2008
Even grownups like to bid on toys.
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estate that included an enameled spoon-like object with floral designs and a fewgemstones that was being used as an ash-tray. “We knew it was pretty,” says hismarketing manager, Jessica Manbeck,“but when questions came in, some inter-national, and someone o≠ered to buy itoutright, we knew it must be good.” Itturned out to be a miniature Russiankvosh, a ladle/drinking vessel, made bymaster enamelist Feodor Rückert, whodied in 1917. It ultimately sold to a phonebidder for $82,250, and will probably bereturned to Russia.
The biggest auction houses in NewEngland are Skinner, in Boston, and North-east Auctions, in Portsmouth, New Hamp-shire. (Christie’s and Sotheby’s have re-gional o∞ces, but no sales.) Skinner hasmultiple specialties, including wines andtwentieth-century decorative art and fur-niture. Northeast’s core business is Amer-ican antique furniture, and in August itsold o≠ an important private collection ofShaker furniture, along with folk art and
early ceramics. A separatemarine and China-tradeauction, also in August—old-style, held outside un-der a tent—was for “bigboys with big wallets,”says client services direc-tor M. L. Coolidge, a self-described “auction junkie.”
Shapiro shops primarilyat Northeast, although henow has scant room fornew furniture, and hasnearly filled his walls with American art.He currently leans toward turn-of-the-century paintings from Boston and CapeAnn, but in recent years has delved intoNative American history, culture, and con-temporary art with annual trips to SantaFe. Collecting itself is a creative process,he asserts, involving “research and learn-ing and a whole cluster of aesthetic andintellectual and economic and historic in-terests that come together.”
At previews, he picks things up and
talks to scholarly auction experts. “It’s anapplied version of going to a museum,” hesays. “And it’s a comparative learning ex-perience; there is a dialogue and a sharingof one’s passions about works of art andantiques. That’s the connoisseurship as-pect.” And then there is the social piece:watching the drama unfold, the rhythm of
Harvard Magazine 24I
This pine canning table, circa 1840, fromthe North Family Mount Lebanon Shakersof New York, was offered at Northeast’sShaker furniture sale in August.
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the bids, the patter, the way certain itemsbuild anticipation. “I find the experienceof bidding just plain exciting,” Shapirosays. “Some people wave their paddlesfrantically, others are the proverbial wigglers of the left eyebrow—or of thepinkie finger that goes up half an inch and somehow the auctioneer sees it fromthe podium.” When people enter the race is also interesting: some bid early andsteadily, while others swoop in, taking the last chance to steal something awayfrom a competitor.
Auctioneering itself is “a tremendousart,” he adds. “You have to be very fast, de-
cisive, know when to be seri-ous, when to be humorous,when to wait for bids, when tomove things along. It’s thesame skill as a master teacher,a skill in engaging people.”Shapiro says that Northeast
Auctions’ owner, Ron Bourgeault, “playsthe audience like a fine instrument.”Northeast draws 600 to 800 people to itsfive major annual sales, and many morethrough 14 phone lines; six other “estateresidue” auctions (non-antique furniture,collectibles, and household goods) areheld in Dover, New Hampshire. “A bigpart of our success is the theater aspect,”agrees Coolidge. “We do well because Roncreates excitement in the room.”
That kind of performance and dramasimply cannot be replicated on line,Coolidge and others assert. Partly be-cause of that, Northeast does not engagein e-commerce auctions, although Skin-ner does. In the last four years, biddershave been able to access Skinner’s live
auctions in real-time through eBay(though that business component willclose at the end of December). That con-nection “has offered interesting exposurefor us; it’s led us to embrace the Internetmore, rather than less,” says Skinner vicepresident Kerry Shrives. She is weighingother on-line auction venues, but notiGavel, an Internet business that con-tracts with a few hundred auctionhouses, dealers, and appraisers to selltheir goods at continuous on-line auc-tions. “Part of this, for us, is making clearthat people are buying from Skinner,”Shrives explains, “and having people beconfident about who they are purchasingfrom. The on-line process should not be acompletely di≠erent process than if youwere in the room during the live. Itshould be an extension.” (Rob Shapiro,for his part, notes that “the reputation ofan auction house is everything.”)
On the other hand, Nick Thorn ofLitchfield County Auctions says iGavelhas been so helpful that his company no
24J September - October 2008
Still life with vegetables, anyone? SandwichAuction House’s Duncan Gray at work
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longer holds local, live auctions: iGavelyields hammer prices that are, typically,at least 20 to 30 percent higher than thoseat a traditional auction. “It’s a major partof our growth,” he notes. The first sign of that potential came when Sotheby’soperated a short-lived, on-line auctionventure in the early 2000s on whichLitchfield put up a Lalique glass vase. -Ordinarily, it would have fetched $400 to$600. On line, the price skyrocketed to$20,000. “The buyer was from Londonand we had competition from all over,”Thorn says. “It really opened our eyes tothe usefulness of having that interna-tional audience.”
The most successful iGavel associatesstill hold physical previews, as Litchfielddoes, which satisfies bidders’ needs toeyeball and touch merchandise. “The ex-hibition is still a necessary part of theprocess; it adds the human element,” saysThorn. “But now I think we have a goodbalance.” They also hold a tag sale offixed-price estate items that “is like therunning of bulls” once the doors open, hesays, o≠ering insight into a di≠erenthuman aspect of the marketplace. “Peoplewho come by and haven’t seen it before arejust shocked at what goes on.”
That social component, iGavel cofound-er Ben Turk Tolub points out, is not criti-cal to high-end collectors, who, in fact,strive for anonymity. Nor would suchclients go to eBay, where goods are notguaranteed and sellers are relatively un-credentialed. Tolub and his business part-ner, Lark E. Mason Jr., a respected Asianart expert, both used to work at Sotheby’sand they guarantee the authenticity andcondition of items. Thus, Tolub explains,iGavel fills a “specific middle-range niche,above eBay and below Sotheby’s.”
Shapiro assumes there are on-line dealsto be had, noting that plenty of collectorsdon’t bother with live venues, consideringthem too time-consuming, and do all oftheir acquiring via the Internet. In theend, it’s a personal choice.
“I’ve never wanted to buy on-line—it’sa di≠erent game that I haven’t learnedhow to play,” he says. “I love the theater ofthe auctions more than anything. Even if Idid not buy anything, I would still happilyattend, just to observe and learn. They’remuch better than going to the movies.”
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