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to Pook & Pook to look it over on Friday, and on Satur-
day he bought it on the phone.
Pook had consignments from several private
collections. The Friday evening sale began with the
“entire collection” of the late Louis and Shirley Hecht
of Baltimore. Rarities were not overlooked. An unusual
York County fraktur birth certificate, dated 1835,
with its design either stenciled or stamped, sold for
$1440 (est. $300/500). With a few exceptions, fraktur
generally sold within modest estimates.
There was good competition for rare spatter. Two
rare spatter sugar bowls each brought $3120. One is
decorated with a fort and the other with a rare variant of
a bird; both had rainbow spatter rims. A miniature blue
spatter cup and saucer with a yellow tulip painted in
the center of the saucer and on the side of the cup also
sold for $3120 (est. $200/400). Five bidders competed
for a miniature blue and purple rainbow spatter cup and
saucer, and it sold for $2040 (est. $200/400); the same
price was paid for a full-size red spatter cup and saucer
with a yellow bull’s-eye in the center of the saucer
and in the center of the cup. A rare red, green, blue,
and black rainbow spatter cup and saucer, estimated at
$1000/2000, sold for $1020. If the yellows on the cup
exactly matched the yellow on the saucer, it would have
brought more. Plenty of spatterware and feather-edge
peafowl tea wares sold for less, some of it online and
much of it in the salesroom to Robesonia, Pennsylvania,
dealer Greg Kramer, who seems to try to own every
good piece of spatter and redware that comes on the
market.
Buyers looked things over carefully. Printed condition
reports were available at the preview, and absent bidders
could read condition reports on Bidsquare. Pieces with
chips or hairlines sold at the low end of estimates.
There were bargains in furniture. A circa 1770
Pennsylvania high chest with trifid feet, 75" high and
cataloged as with original brasses, sold for $2880 (est.
$4000/7000) to a young collector.
Painted furniture provoked competition, especially
it if was painted blue. A Berks
County, Pennsylvania, painted
walnut stretcher-base tavern table
with a central drawer flanked by two
small drawers, all on baluster turned legs
with a blue-painted base and a scrubbed
top, sold on the phone to the trade for
$16,800 (est. $12,000/15,000). Three
phone bidders competed for a small
Shenandoah County, Virginia, hard
pine sugar chest painted electric blue
and inscribed on its lid “James C. Foltz,
Lantz Mill, Shenandoah C.V.” The fall
front is inscribed “Charles Fodley.” It
sold for $15,600 (est. $6000/10,000). A
Pennsylvania painted hard pine Dutch
cupboard with later blue paint but with
carving on its doors and drawers sold
for $10,200 (est. $4000/8000) to Diana
Bittel for her client furnishing a house. A
Connecticut painted pine schoolmaster’s
desk with light blue paint sold
for $7800 (est. $2000/3000).
till with two smaller tills inside. It had been owned by
some discerning collectors—George Horace Lorimer, a
pioneer collector and legendary editor of the
Saturday
Evening Post
and president of Curtis Publishing Com-
pany, and Julie and Sandy Palley, whose collection was
sold at Sotheby’s in January 2002. The chest had sold
at the Palley sale for $170,750. This time, estimated
at $90,000/120,000, it brought $108,000 (includes buy-
er’s premium) from Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, dealer
Diana Bittel in the salesroom, bidding for a client.
Another painted and dated dower chest, decorated
with two painted panels with pots of flowers and the
date 1786 on the front and a lion painted on each end,
sold to West Chester, Pennsylvania, dealer Skip Chal-
fant in the salesroom, for $19,200 (est. $8000/12,000),
underbid by Bittel and a phone bidder.
A similar chest is posted for sale on the website of
Olde Hope Antiques, New Hope, Pennsylvania, with a
lion painted on one end and a bird on the other and
remains of painted panels on its lid and replaced bun
feet. Olde Hope’s chest was first published in Fabian’s
pioneer book
The Pennsylvania-German Decorated
Chest
in 1978. Fabian suggested that it was decorated
by fraktur artists, perhaps Henrich Otto and someone
who was influenced by him. The chest at Pook has
been fitted with an old period base. The chest with Olde
Hope is not dated, but the two chests probably were
painted by the same decorator at about the same time.
ANew England painted pine sailor’s game board sold
on the phone for $48,000 (est. $20,000/30,000). It is
inscribed “Presented to B.A. Merrill by his Father July
12th, 1857” and painted with a central checkerboard
flanked by American flags, and on the back there is a
relief-carved ship. It has an auction history. When it had
sold at Sotheby’s in January 1997, it brought $25,300
from collector Virginia Pope Cave. At Cave’s sale at
Northeast Auctions on August 5, 2000, it had sold for
$46,000. The underbidder at Northeast Auctions came
This English painted fruitwood tea caddy in the form of a
gourd or pumpkin, early 19th century, is 5" high and sold
for $5166 (est. $300/400). Most tea caddies were shaped as
apples or pears. This rare form was not overlooked and
brought a premium price.
Six bidders wanted this miniature red and blue spatter
cup and saucer. The lot sold on the phone for $2040 (est.
$200/400).
There was a lot of bidding for this miniature blue spatter
cup and saucer with yellow tulip decoration, and it sold
in the salesroom to Pennsylvania dealer John Querry for
$3120 (est. $200/400).
Few had ever see this red and yellow rainbow spatter bull’s-
eye cup and saucer, and it sold for $2040 (est. $400/800) to
Robesonia, Pennsylvania, dealer Greg Kramer, a major
buyer at the sale.
This Boston Queen Anne burl walnut
veneer dressing table, circa 1760, with
a shell-carved drawer and cabriole legs
terminating in pad feet, 29½" x 33¾",
ex-Israel Sack, sold to a phone bidder for
$11,400 (est. $4000/8000).
An unusual red, green,
and blue sponge spatter
covered sugar, 19th century,
with fort decoration sold
for $3120 (est. $400/600)
to dealer Greg Kramer of
Robesonia, Pennsylvania,
who seems to want to own
every significant piece of
spatterware. He battled
with dealer John Querry for
another covered sugar bowl
(not shown) with a red and
blue rainbow spatter rim
and painted with a variant
of a bird on the body; it
went to Querry for $3120.
A Connecticut
Chippendale cherry
secretary, circa 1775,
the upper section
with a broken arch
above raised-panel
doors flanked by
fluted pilasters and
quarter columns,
enclosing a fitted
interior with a
fall-front writing
surface, over a
three-drawer base
supported by ogee
bracket feet, 81" x
39", ex-Joe Kindig
& Son, sold on the
phone for $9000
(est. $3000/5000).
This blue spatterware pitcher with
schoolhouse decoration, 9
⅜
" high,
sold for $3600 (est. $400/800).