Contributors
Rising Value of Unrestored Cars
By Malcolm Welford, Vintage Car Specialist
Archive for March, 2011
Sotheby’s Begins Spring Hong Kong Sales
March 31, 2011Watches, wine, art, jewelry, Chinese ceramics, and porcelain – they’ll all be featured as Sotheby’s begins its series of Asia Week auctions tomorrow in Hong Kong. There will even be a sale devoted to Rhinocerus Horn Carvings. Kicking off the series will be a wine auction, The Classic Cellar from a Great American Collector, featuring 69 lots of Mouton Rothschild, for which Hong Kong buyers have demonstrated a notable thirst. Included are 6 Jeroboams and 6 Imperials, estimated to sell for as much as $18,000 each.
Read more...Rare Freud Comes To Market
March 31, 2011Lucian Freud completed just one portrait, “Woman Smiling,” of his former wife (and student) Suzy Boyt, with whom he had five children. Completed in 1958-59, it’s considered a landmark — a turning point in his career toward the expressionist style for which he’s best known. Christie’s will offer the painting in June at its Post-War and Contemporary Art Auction, where it’s expected to sell for $5.6-$7.2m.
Read more...Chinese Scroll Brings $30.8 Million
March 30, 2011An anonymous Hong Kong bidder has paid over $30m for a 18th century Chinese scroll at an auction in Toulouse, France. After a bidding war with seven others, the gavel finally came down at $30.8m, the latest example of the soaring Asian art market. It was the highest price ever achieved for a Chinese work in France.
Read more...$468,000 For Bruce Springsteen’s Chevy
March 30, 2011When Bruce Springsteen bought the 1957 Chevy Bel Air Convertible in 1972, as we reported earlier, he paid just $2,000. Yesterday the yellow-flamed classic sold for a bit more, bringing $468,000 –well above its $400,000 high estimate –at an online auction of rock memorabilia by Gotta Have It Collectibles.
Read more...Christie’s Will Sell Jeffrey Archer’s Art
March 30, 2011Jeffrey Archer has been a man of many parts: best-selling author, member of British Parliament, lifetime peer, convicted felon. And art collector. Now that he’s turned 70, Archer said he’s winnowing his collection, from which Christie’s London will offer 150 works, expected to bring in some $8 million.
Read more...Record $153,600 Paid For Keats Letter
March 29, 2011An anonymous American buyer paid $153,600 for a love letter from poet John Keats (1795-1821) to his neighbor Fanny Brawne. In the poignant document, as we reported earlier, the dying Keats expresses his anguish at the separation caused by his illness. Few Keats letters exist, and it was a record price for one sold at auction. It wasn’t, however, the highest priced item at the Bonhams auction in London. That was the $163,000 paid for an autographed manuscript by Sir Isaac Newton.
Read more...Stat For Aaron Jersey: $200K
March 29, 2011The signed 1954 rookie jersey worn by Hank Aaron, the non-steroid home run king, in his first season with the Milwaukee Braves will be sold during a two-day auction April 21-22, the same week he hit his first big league home run 57-years ago.
Read more...Christie’s Record Asia Week
March 28, 2011Asian collectors hurled their millions at heritage artworks, with Chinese Ceramics drawing the lion’s share. Chinese works alone contributed $76.75 million. When Christie’s Asian Art Week in New York was over, fully $117 million had changed hands. It was Christie’s highest total ever for a series of Chinese art sales and almost $40 million more than the previous record.
Read more...“Brass Era” Cars At Bonhams
March 28, 2011For some collectors of vintage automobiles, “brass era” cars are the ne plus ultra. Locomobile, Stutz, Pierce, Tourist and Lamberts are some of marques representing American’s earliest automotive design and manufacture. Bonhams will sell an outstanding collection of these cars in May near Seattle, where some of the highlights will be a 1907 Tourist Model K Touring car, a 1912 Lambert Model 66 and a rare 1922 Lincoln, made before the marque was acquired by Ford.
Read more...$5M Expected for “Singing Bird Pistol” Watches
March 25, 2011For two centuries, the Chinese and their Emperors have had a passion for ornate, enamel backed, Swiss pocket watches of the kind to be offered at a Christie’s May 30th auction in Hong Kong. But the show stopping stars of the sale will be a matching pair of “singing bird pistols” with the timepieces nestled in the bejewelled handles.
Read more...$7.9m Chinese Vase At Christie’s
March 25, 2011Asia buyers once again turned out in force at Christie’s auction of Chinese art in New York yesterday. Seven of the top ten lots from the Morton and Grace Gordon collection went to private collectors from Asia. A Qianlong celadon-glazed carved baluster vase (1736-1795) sold for $7.9m, doubling its $2-$4m estimate. “Today,”said dealer Qing Shuai Wang, “the Chinese are desperate for Qianlong period porcelain.”
Read more...Shark Jaws Nine Feet Tall
March 24, 2011Once, the prehistoric Megalodon shark ruled the oceans, dining on whale and other sharks. The late fossil hunter Vito Bertucci spent decades gathering and connecting the jaws of a specimen estimated to have been ninety feet long. Eleven feet across and almost nine feet high, they’re the largest shark jaws ever assembled. Heritage will sell them at its Natural History auction in June, when they’re expected to brings in more than $700,000.
Read more...Heritage Enters Wine Auction Business
March 24, 2011Heritage Auctions, the third largest auction company, announced it is getting into live auctions of fine wine–a growing business, particularly in Asia. Heritage’s first live event will be held April 2, at its salesroom in Beverly Hills.
Read more...Toy Soldiers To Find New HQ
March 23, 2011A vast collection of toy soldiers numbering more than the real armies of many countries will be sold at auction by Bonham’s. A Dutch collector’s 30,000 soldiers go on the block in London, April 5.
Read more...World Record For Irma Stern
March 23, 2011The $3.8 million paid last October for Irma Stern’s “Bahora Girl” was a world record, but it didn’t last long. At Bonhams’ sale of “South African Masterpieces” in London earlier today, a bidder paid $4.94 million for Stern’s “Arab Priest,” well above its $3.2 million high estimate. Two other works by Stern sold for over $1 million, as did Alexis Preller’s “Garden of Eden,” which fetched $1.2 million, another new artist record. A third was established for Gerard Sekoto, whose “Yellow Houses, District Six” brought in almost $970,000.
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