Florida - We always hear about the "pros" fabulous stories and valuations over the years, but every once in a while even the Antiques Roadshow can have a rather embarrassing (and somewhat major) hiccup. When an episode of the long-running show was filming in Spokane, Washington, dedicated thrifter and estate sale attendee Alvin Barr came to the show's pre-approval desk with a glazed redware jug standing at just under twelve-inches tall, and embossed with a series of decorated faces on the rounded surface. Barr had apparently come across the unusual jug while at an estate sale in Eugene, Oregon, "It was covered with dirt and straw, and some chicken droppings," said Barr. After a little brush-off, I suddenly realized, "I simply had to have it,” and forked over $300 to the sales owner. "It somehow spoke to me,” he later said. To Barr's surprise, he was bumped up to Roadshow appraiser, Stephen Fletcher (who seemed similarly enthused), and gave the piece of redware pottery a date that placed it sometime in the 19th century. Fletcher was so enamored with the piece, he even commented that, "...you could even see a little bit of, like, Pablo Picasso going on here.” With remarkable assuredness, Fletcher went on to put the jug's retail value in the neighborhood of between $30,000 to $50,000. The problem was, it wasn't worth that at all. Nor did the jug come from any period in the Victorian era either. The grotesque face jug, as it became known on the set, was in fact not centuries old, but rather made in 1973 by a young woman attending a high school ceramics class. While watching the show, a friend recognized the piece, and contacted the Roadshow to let them know that the artist in question, was one Betsy Soule, a horse trainer from Oregon. Soule claimed she just made whatever popped into her head in those days, "You know, It was high school..." When contacted about the piece by other media outlets, Soule went on to express surprise, and stated, "I thought Alvin Barr paid too much for it at $300." PBS immediately corrected the "error" on the station's website, once the jug's creative source became clear. As for appraisal expert Fletcher, he sheepishly admitted that the whole incident would have to be written up as a learning experience. “Obviously, I was mistaken as to its age by 60 to 80 years. I feel the value at auction, based on its quality and artistic merit, is in the $3,000-$5,000 range. Still not bad for a high schooler in Oregon.” That's quite possibly true, but for the uninitiated hoping to make a career out of potting (or collecting and selling antiques), perhaps that assessment should be taken with a grain of salt too... - A.I.A. Writer's Staff NOTE: For readers seeking more information about the Asheford Institute Of Antiques distance-learning program on professional-level appraising, the study of antiques, collectibles, vintage and mid-century modern items, please click here to visit the school's Home Page. Should you have additional questions about the Asheford program, you can also write to the school at: [email protected] or call the Registrar's Office toll-free at: 1-877-444-4508. Florida - It may be one of the last known letters to have been written on the Titanic, and it just sold at auction for a record price. The Titanic stationary along with the hand-written letter from American businessman and Titanic passenger, Oscar Holverson is the only known headed-letter to have gone down with the Titanic, and yet somehow managed to survive the ravages of the Atlantic. When the hammer finally fell, the salt-stained letter fetched $166,000 at British auction house, Henry Aldridge & Son. The auction house had originally predicted the item would sell for between $75,000 to $105,000. The identity of the final bidder remained anonymous, but auctioneer Aldridge described him as someone known for, "Collecting iconic items from history." The letter written by Mr Holverson, was intended for his mother as he and his wife were traveling on the ship back to New York from Southhampton. The letter eerily contains the foreboding line, "If all goes well we will arrive in New York Wednesday A.M." Part of the reason for the letters extreme desirability from collectors is due to the fact that it was written one day prior to the ships sinking, along with some of Holverson's anecdotal recollections of his time aboard the liner - including descriptions of the ship's palatial accoutrements, and coming into contact with the world's richest man at the time, John Jacob Astor. Both men died in the sinking. The previous record for Titanic related paper-memorabilia was set in 2014, when a surviving passenger's letter fetched $157,000 at the same auction house. - A.I.A. Staff Writers NOTE: For readers seeking more information about the Asheford Institute Of Antiques distance-learning program on professional-level appraising, the study of antiques, collectibles, vintage and mid-century modern items, please click here to visit the school's Home Page. Should you have additional questions about the Asheford program, you can also write to the school at: [email protected] or call the Registrar's Office toll-free at: 1-877-444-4508. Florida - It's one thing for a rare painting to fetch a few million, but when the bowl you washed your bushes in sells for almost 38 million dollars, well... you might begin to wonder. Well, wonder no more, for that's exactly what happened in Hong Kong this past week at a Sotheby's International auction. A 900-year-old "paint-brush" bowl from China's Song Dynasty sold at auction for $37.7 million on Tuesday, breaking Sotheby's all-time record for Chinese porcelain sales. The small, blue-green item, which dates from somewhere between 960 to 1127, smashed the previous record of a five-hundred year old imperial chicken cup from the Ming dynasty Chenghua period, that previously sold for $36 million at Sotheby's in 2014 to a Shanghai taxi-driver turned investment billionaire. The bidding was anticipated to be brisk, according to a Sotheby's spokesperson, and started at $10 million, with the auction lasting over 20 minutes before the top offer came in from an undisclosed phone bidder. The pint-sized bowl only measures five inches across, and was used to wash brushes. Made in China's central Henan province at the famed Song dynasty's kilns in Ruzhou, the Ru guanyao wares are almost instantly recognizable by their bright bluish-green glaze and crackle like pattern. The kilns at Henan fired for only twenty years, making objects from this era an extreme rarity in today's marketplace - only 4 are known to exist in the hands of private collectors. As with almost all Chinese antiques these days, it's the locals doing the buying. Fueled by the creation of an exploding class of mega-millionaires, the Chinese have finally decided to buy back their heritage, and are doing so on an unprecedented scale of volume and price; while leaving the rest of us in the real world somewhat dumbfounded, and wondering just how much further these stratospheric prices might rise. - A.I.A. Staff Writers NOTE: For readers seeking more information about the Asheford Institute Of Antiques distance-learning program on professional-level appraising, the study of antiques, collectibles, vintage and mid-century modern items, please click here to visit the school's Home Page. Should you have additional questions about the Asheford program, you can also write to the school at: [email protected] or call the Registrar's Office toll-free at: 1-877-444-4508. |
A.I.A. Staff
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December 2019
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