Maine Antique Digest April 2015

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36-E Maine Antique Digest, April 2015
- AUCTION -
You can’t say there is no variety in a Noel Bar-
rett sale. Barrett generally holds toy sales,
but he offers more than toys. In fact he called
his December 5 and 6, 2014, sale a “Fall Antiques
Auction” because it was not just full of toys, trains,
dollhouses, and miniatures—there were puppets,
skittles, advertising posters, carousel horses, rock-
ing horses, country store and holiday items, folk
art, and miscellany offered in 926 lots with a total
estimate of $654,550/925,700. More people
attended in person than had come to previous sales,
and all but 13 lots sold for $1,116,000 (with buyers’
premiums), close to the high estimate.
The total was swelled by $121,000 paid by a
phone bidder who outbid a New York collector in
the salesroom to buy the super rare Märklin Rocket
engine with cars. The British Stephenson’s Rocket
was built in 1829, and while not the first steam loco-
motive, it was the most advanced of its day. It was
in service through 1840 and influenced steam loco-
motive construction for 150 years. Märklin’s toy
Rocket is the only commercially
produced steam-powered ver-
sion of this famous train made
by a recognized toy train maker.
This one turned up in Germany
and was sent to Barrett for sale.
The locomotive with tender, two
cars with their roofs left off, and
a specially made open car made
from parts of Märklin’s open
tramway trailer was not a com-
mercial success, which makes it rare. “It came from
Germany and will go back to Germany,” said Barrett
after the sale.
Märklin trains have a worldwide following. A
Märklin gauge I hospital car, with a hinged roof that
opens to show a fully outfitted interior with seven
patients in their beds, a nurse seated at a desk, and
two doctors, sold on the phone for $14,520 (est.
$7000/8000). It also will be shipped to Europe.
There were some expensive cars in the sale, too.
A 1932 factory-built quarter-scale Hudson show
model, one of 12 made for the 1932 New York Auto
Show, was on display at the Ypsilanti Automotive
Heritage Museum for a number of years before it
came to auction. It sold to a West Coast collector
on the phone for $29,040 (est. $20,000/30,000), the
price of a full-size car. For camel transport, Barrett
offered a carousel camel, a rare jumper in old paint
that sold for $14,520 (est. $12,000/15,000).
To mesmerize his audience Barrett offered a col-
lection of Baranger mechanical marvels known
as Baranger Motions, animated window displays
that were rented to small jewelry stores across the
nation beginning in the 1920s. There were ten in all,
including a scene with Rip Van Winkle, a turtle tour-
ist bus, a tunnel of love, and a pirate ship, and they
all performed. All but one sold to a collector who
had driven from Tennessee to buy them. He had a
good bit of competition from seven phone bidders.
He paid about $10,000 to $19,000 apiece for them
and said he doubled the size of his collection. They
all came in their original shipping cases; he loaded
them onto his pickup truck, covered them with plas-
tic garbage bags on a rainy Saturday afternoon, and
headed south.
One always learns something at a Barrett sale. Not
only is Baranger Motions now part of the collecting
vocabulary, but before this auction did anyone know
the meaning of the words on two signs in the sale:
glacial cosmogony and odontunder? The “American
Institute of Glacial Cosmogony” sign that sold for
$1149.50 indentifies a pseudoscience that held that
the planets and the Milky Way were made of gigan-
tic blocks of ice, which affected the creation of the
earth. In the 1930s glacial cosmogony was part of
the Nazi philosophy of natural history. A giant “W.J.
Peebles D.D.S. Odontunder Dental Parlors” sign, 11'
long, that sold for $2057 (est. $2500/3500) adver-
tised odontunder, the patent formulation of cocaine
hydrochlorate that was used in painless dentistry in
the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The big sign
went to a museum of dentistry equipment.
There were some big prices paid for skittles and
candy containers, salesmen’s samples, and toys that
wind up and trains that run by electricity, some of
which are illustrated. Condition and rarity deter-
mined the prices.
For more information, call Noel Barrett at (215)
297-5109 or check the Web site .
com).
Noel Barrett, Carversville, Pennsylvania
Fall Toy Sale
by Lita Solis-Cohen
A phone bidder
outbid a New York
collector to buy
the super rare
Märklin Rocket
engine with cars.
This Märklin Rocket engine with train cars is a toy
version of Stephenson’s Rocket, which was not the
first steam locomotive but was the most advanced
of its day. It was in service through 1840 and
influenced steam locomotive construction for 150
years. Märklin’s Rocket is the only commer-
cially produced steam-powered version of this
famous train made by a recognized
toy train maker. This one turned up
in Germany and was sent to Barrett
for sale. Called the only historical
train Märklin made in its early years,
it includes a locomotive with tender, two
cars with their roofs left off, and a specially
made open car made from parts of the open tramway
trailer. It was not a commercial success and is very rare. It
was made only in gauge 1. The original set has an additional
car for animal carriage. This one is 25" long. It sold on the
phone for $121,000 (est. $25,000/35,000). “It will go back to
Germany,” said Barrett after the sale. The underbidder was
a disappointed New York collector in the salesroom.
Exceptional patriotic rabbit
candy container, dressed in
cloth, papier-mâché construc-
tion, the head comes off, scarce
in this large 24" high version,
paper shirting torn, sold for
$5747.50 (est. $2000/2500).
Large rabbit candy con-
tainer, German, painted
composition with gold
highlights, 14" tall x 17"
long, in excellent con-
dition, sold for $3327.50
(est. $300/400).
Animated Santa window display, litho-
graphed cardboard mounted on wood
box enclosing a clockwork mecha-
nism, sold for a strong $10,890 (est.
$1500/2000). Santa sits at a toy shop table
with a wide variety of toys. In action,
Santa moves his head and eyes back and
forth and moves his pointing hand while
the boy on the rocking horse rocks. It is
large—24" tall—and in good to excellent
condition.
Punch and Judy puppets and stage, 58" tall,
sold for $3327.50 (est. $2500/3500). Bar-
rett called it the “finest and most elaborate
toy puppet stage” he has ever seen. It has a
crank-operated curtain, colorful faux fab-
ric paperboard swags framing a proscenium
arch, a colorful scenic backdrop, and a stage
front composed of a faux marble base. There
are images of a dancer and musicians on the
lower panel, and molded papier-mâché gold-
painted embellishments frame the proscenium.
The top reads “Guignol,” the name of a French
puppet that morphed into Punch in the world
of English puppetry. The stage retains its cloth
sides and is outfitted with a group of ten cloth-
dressed, painted wood puppets including a
finely crafted alligator. Props include a casket
and hangman’s gibbet.
Anything made by Märklin brings
a premium. This Märklin
stroller, embossed and painted
tin, 7¼" high, in excellent
condition, came with a small
composition doll and sold for
$1936 (est. $1500/2000).
Punch and Judy puppets set, wood and gesso com-
position faces, hands, and lower legs, traditional
glove-form puppets, includes usual characters
such as Punch in his bent sugarloaf hat, Judy,
the constable, and the baby. Lesser-seen charac-
ters include Toby the dog, Hector the horse, and
Jim Crow; each puppet is 14" to 16" tall. There is
also a slapstick. In good condition, the set sold for
$3025 (est. $700/1000).
This smoking monkey automaton, a fur-covered
clockwork mechanism, lowers his head and lifts
a wood cigarette holder to his opening mouth
while his upper lip curls and eyelids lower. He is
15" tall and sold for $3327.50 (est. $1500/2000).
Steiff cat skittles, eight velvet tiger-striped cats with shoe-but-
ton eyes and bells on red ribbons around their necks, on wooden
bases, in excellent condition, sold for $5747.50 (est. $3000/4000).
Photos courtesy Noel Barrett