Playboy limos to vintage minnows to firearms never fired
It is going to be a bacchanal bash on New Year's Eve for the auction goer who placed the final bid at Christie's sale of selections from the archives of Playboy magazine.
The $77,675 paid at this month's auction for Hugh Hefner's 1988 Mercedes-Benz 560 SEL stretch limousine entitled the purchaser to two tickets to the legendary party held each New Year's Eve at the Playboy mansion.
The sum was the fourth highest price in the "Playboy at 50" auction that saw bidders in the saleroom and on the telephones competing for works by artists and writers who graced the pages of Playboy magazine throughout the last 50 years.
Tying for the top price of $107,550 were LeRoy Neiman's 1969 "Le Mans" and Tom Wesselmann's 1966 "Study for the Great American Nude." The auction's more than 300 lots grossed $2,750,173.
. . .
A look back on auction year 2003 shows that top quality items brought top prices with records set for rare pieces like the Louis XV Chinese gilt lacquer commode and a Philadelphia Queen chair.
The $3,031,500 paid at Christie's for the commode by 18th-century French cabinetmaker Bernard II Van Risenburgh set a record for a lacquer commode, while the $679,500 paid for the Waln-Ryerss family Queen Anne carved mahogany side chair, also sold at Christie's, set a record for a Queen Anne side chair. It was one of six pieces of American furniture deaccessioned from Stratford Hall Plantation in Virginia, the birthplace of Robert E. Lee.
. . .
Other record prices at the fall auctions were as varied as the $41,125 paid for an imperiale of Chateau Latour, 1961 vintage, to the $101,200 paid for a "Giant" Haskell lure, the highest price ever paid at auction for any fishing tackle item. The oversized lure, which measured 10 inches overall, was sold at Lang's 807-lot auction Nov. 8 in Boxborough that grossed $365,882.
It was another Haskell lure, a 4-inch-long Haskell Minnow, that brought the top price of $16,500 at Lang's Oct. 17 auction in Allentown, Pa., featuring the antique fishing tackle collection of the late "Doc" Herr, a Pennsylvania dentist. The 490-lot auction realized $164,253.
Lang's first auction of 2004 will be Saturday at 3 p.m. at the Holiday Inn in Boxborough. It features "one of the most desirable and important American fly rod collections ever assembled," say John and Debbie Ganung, who purchased Lang's Sporting Collectables last year from Bob Lang of Raymond, Maine.
Estimates range from $14,500-$19,000 for the lightest known fly rod in existence, a 6-foot H.S. Gillum, to $50-$75 for a Hardy "Rough Fish" 7-foot-1-inch rod.
The 428-lot auction also features a group of fly reels, including a raised pillar fly reel, described in the auction catalog as "the most valuable American fly reel." Expected to bring $16,000-$20,000, the handmade reel is stamped "Philbrook & Paine, Maker -- Pat. Apld. For," which implies that the reel was made by Philbrook and Paine, two Maine machinists, before their granting of the 1877 patent to the H.L. Leonard Rod Co. in Central Valley, N.Y.
. . .
The 2004 auction season also will be launched Saturday by Outer Cape Auctions with a sale of some 160 works of art at the Provincetown Town Hall, starting at 4 p.m.
Highlights include an oil painting of a storm scene by Anne Packard, a watercolor dune scene by Philip Malicoat, a wharf scene by Gerrit Hondius, a snowy street scene by Joseph Biel, a signed print by Salvatore Dali, cubist works by Remo Farruggio, and a signed stone lithograph by Joan Miro.
. . .
An incredible auction record was the one set for a maritime model when a Navy Board warship model sold for $1,120,039 last month at Christie's in England. It was a 1:48 scale, 40-gun model of an unrigged English two-deck Fifth Rate circa 1710-24.
. . .
Although they didn't set records, there were many noteworthy fall auctions whose results should be reported, including James D. Julia's three-day firearms auction in Portsmouth, N.H., that grossed $3.3 million.
The top seller of the 1,177 lots was what is considered the finest pair of Nimschke engraved gold and nickel single-action Army Colt revolvers in existence. The unfired pair of revolvers was purchased by a phone bidder for $276,000.
. . .
The top seller at Frank Kaminski's Thanksgiving weekend auction in Lynnfield was a 5.12- carat emerald-cut diamond ring from a Swampscott family that sold for $27,600.
Other top prices included a signed three-color Grueby vase that fetched $14,375; a Pairpoint Puffy lamp ($11,500); a Marblehead two-color pottery vase ($9,660); a North Shore Queen Anne highboy ($9,200); and an English telescope and a circa 1800 Federal inlaid secretary, each of which brought $8,050.
A 9-foot-4-inch by 11-foot-10-inch antique Heriz Oriental carpet, which had been purchased at a tag sale a month earlier for $60, sold for $3,565.
. . .
A 19th-century English mahogany bookcase-breakfront and an early 20th-century French Louis XVI style gilt bronze mounted mahogany vitrine (a glass-fronted cabinet) brought the two top prices at Skinner's auction of European furniture and decorative arts. The William IV bookcase-breakfront sold for $11,163 against a $3,000-$5,000 estimate and the vitrine for $9,106 against a $1,500-$2,000 estimate.
"Smalls" brought some surprising prices, like the $4,113 paid for an Italian paperweight with a $500-$700 estimate; the $3,819 for a 3-inch French musical snuff box with a $300-$500 estimate; and the $3,055 for an 8-inch Viennese musical jewel box with a $500-$700 estimate.
Virginia Bohlin can be reached at globeantiques@globe.com.
