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28-C Maine Antique Digest, April 2015
- AUCTION -
I
t’s the surprises at Pook & Pook auc-
tions that make them the best free enter-
tainment in Downingtown, Pennsylva-
nia. On January 17, it was not just the 1½"
high x 3" wide miniature Pennsylvania
stoneware cake crock with brushed cobalt
decoration and the base incised “C.S.” that
sold for $9000 (includes buyer’s premium),
nine times its high estimate. Nor was it
the two Adams County redware bowls,
one inscribed “Solomon Miller, Sept 14,
1887,” the other signed “Sol Miller 1872,”
that went to the same collector, who paid
$4320 (est. $400/600) for the first one and
$3600 (est. $1000/1500) for the second
one decorated with a repeating manganese
“S.” The following lot, an 11" high red-
ware pitcher with mottled green, orange,
and
brown
glaze,
with the rim and body
incised with bands of
potato stamp decoration
and sgraffito leaves and
flowers, sold for $7800
(est. $1500/2500), even
though no one could
say for sure where it was made.
The big gasps came when the Lancaster,
Pennsylvania, Federal mahogany musical
tall-case clock, circa 1815, its broken-arch
bonnet enclosing eight-day works with
11 bells playing seven tunes, sold for
$204,000 (est. $50,000/70,000) to a pri-
vate collector on the phone, underbid by
another collector on the phone. The face
is inscribed “Martin Shreiner, Lancaster,
No 250.” The clock is said to have been
made for the clockmaker’s personal use
and descended directly in his family until it
was purchased by the consignor. The orig-
inal winder has the matching number 250
on it and is dated 1815. “It was a $200,000
music box in a $4000 case,” quipped Ron
Pook after it sold.
Even louder gasps came when the sheet
copper butterfly weathervane, attributed
to J.W. Fiske & Co., New York, sold for
$90,000 (est. $4000/8000) to a collector
in the salesroom, underbid by dealer Oli-
ver Overlander of Marietta, Pennsylvania.
It is a very rare form, but according to
the condition report, the surface has been
repatinated.
And then there was prolonged bidding
for a fraktur of a bird and a blossom sprig,
measuring just 4" x 6½", in a chip-carved
brown frame, that sold in the salesroom for
$19,200 (est. $800/1200) to dealer Philip
Bradley of Downingtown, Pennsylvania,
underbid on the phone. It looked a lot
better in person than it did in the catalog,
and the fraktur shows at the Philadelphia
Museum of Art, the Free Library of Phil-
adelphia, and Winterthur have put a new
focus on fraktur.
There was plenty of bidding for the
four-cylinder 1912 Ford Model T Torpedo
car parked at the side of the salesroom.
Deaccessioned from the Sandy Spring
Museum in Sandy Spring, Maryland, it
sold for $43,200 (est. $10,000/15,000) to a
man in the salesroom who said he was a
car dealer, auctioneer, and now a collector!
Bidders on the phones and in the sales-
room competed for the Judson collection
of Tucker porcelain, a pioneer
collection sold by the next
generation. Because of con-
dition, prices were generally
on the low side for porcelain
fromAmerica’s most success-
ful early 19th-century porce-
lain manufacturer competing
with Paris porcelain.
Dealers who tried to bottom-fish for
furniture and smalls were often outbid by
private collectors, who seemed to enjoy
coming to Downingtown in the middle of
January and did not go on to New York,
where a few of the regulars were already
setting up for the Winter Antiques Show
and others were headed to preview the auc-
tions there. It is a different market.
Of the 496 lots offered, 481 sold, for a
respectable 97%, all on one snowless Sat-
urday beginning at 10 a.m. and ending after
3 p.m. The total was $1,244,940, topping
the presale estimates.
Deirdre Pook Magarelli said that
$67,825 was sold on Bidsquare, which was
on the low side considering that there were
a huge number of bidders on line (531)
and absentee bids on over 50% of the lots.
She said the catalog was viewed on line
143,315 times.
That explains why Pook &Pook is doing
more on-line-only sales. The on-line-only
sale of Americana held two days later on
Monday, January 19, brought $243,909
($198,300 hammer) for 764 of 769 lots
offered; that is 99% sold, and the total was
well over the estimates. It sold only on
Bidsquare, but it was available for view-
ing before and after the catalog sale in
Downingtown, Pennsylvania
Americana Surprises at Pook & Pook
by Lita Solis-Cohen
Photos courtesy Pook & Pook
Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Federal
mahogany tall-case musical clock,
circa 1815, the broken-arch bonnet
enclosing an eight-day works with
11 bells playing seven tunes, the face
inscribed “Martin Shreiner, Lan-
caster, No. 250.” The figured mahog-
any case has chamfered corners and
stands on French feet and is 94"
high. The clock is said to have been
made for the clockmaker’s personal
use and descended directly in his
family until it was purchased by the
consignor. The original winder has
the matching number 250 on it and
is dated 1815. It sold for $204,000
(est. $50,000/70,000). It was made of
nicely figured wood, but it was the
music box that brought competition
from five phones up to $95,000 and
two phone bidders competing to
$170,000.
Sheet copper butterfly weathervane, late 19th
century, attributed to J.W. Fiske & Co., New
York, 22¼" high x 25½" wide, sold for $90,000
(est. $4000/8000) to a collector in the salesroom,
underbid by Oliver Overlander. It’s a very rare
form, and according to the condition report, the
surface has been repatinated. At the Cheryl and
Paul Scott sale on August 12, 2012, at Skinner in
Marlborough, Massachusetts, another butterfly
vane sold for $41,475.
“It was a
$200,000
music box in a
$4000 case.”
Hiram Powers (1805-1873), carved marble
bust of Proserpine, signed on back, 24½" high,
from a private collection in Bryn Mawr, Penn-
sylvania, sold on the phone for $12,000 (est.
$15,000/25,000). Condition kept the price down.
Franklin Watkins (1894-1972), oil sketch
of C. Jared Ingersoll wearing a red jacket,
the reverse with a bust-length study, sold
for $570 (est. $200/400). Other oil sketches
by Watkins, once a well-known Philadel-
phia painter, sold for prices ranging from
$120 to $1353; the most expensive was a
self-portrait.
Pennsylvania or southern
painted poplar blanket chest,
25" x 46¼", circa 1800, the lid
with three tombstone panels
with tulips and similar deco-
ration on the front, hearts at
the corners, all on an ocher-
painted ground, bracket feet
painted black, from a collec-
tion in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
sold on the phone for $10,200
(est. $8000/12,000).
BenAustrian (1870-1921), oil on canvas of cats with
a spilled vase of flowers, signed lower right and
dated 1915, 20" x 26", sold for
$15,600 (est. $15,000/25,000).
Two Adams County redware bowls. One
inscribed “Solomon Miller, Sept 14,
1887,” with a mottled brown and orange
glaze, 2¾" high x 5¼" diameter, sold to a
collector in the salesroom for $4320 (est.
$400/600). The same collector paid $3600
(est. $1000/1500) for the one signed “Sol
Miller 1872” and decorated with a repeat-
ing manganese “S” decoration, also 2¾"
high x 5¼" in diameter. The collector said
she was glad to get them.