Rarity and good condition were among the desirable factors of this Hagenbeck’s Menagerie transport train wagon by Märklin that won top-lot honors at $33,750 ($10/15,000).

Review by Madelia Hickman Ring

DOWNINGTOWN, PENN — The team at Pook & Pook had its hands full August 20-21, offering about 1,650 lots in an Online Only Toys & Decorative Arts auction that firm president Deirdre Pook Magarelli said was 95 percent sold by lot and realized just over $600,000 against an aggregate low/high estimate spread of $338,790/538,250.

Toys started off the first session, with trains among the sale’s highest flyers: eight of the top 12 lots on the first day were from that category. Rolling into first position with a realized price of $33,750 was a rare Hagenbeck’s Menagerie transport train wagon by Märklin. Noted to be “extremely rare,” the 8½-inch-long single compartment gondola car had a lid that opened to reveal two associated composition lions.

More Märklin lots followed, with the very next lot in the sale — a group of two painted tin Royal Blue Limited train cars, each 10 inches long — achieving $10,000. A Märklin 4-4-0 clockwork locomotive and tender ($4,000), a group of three Märklin painted tin Congressional Limited train cars ($10,000), a single Märklin painted tin clockwork engine and tender ($2,500) and a single Märklin painted tin Congressional Limited combination car ($5,250) were knocked down in quick succession.

This lot of two Märklin painted tin Royal Blue Limited train cars rode to a new home for $10,000 ($5/7,000).

Holiday antiques on the first day were capped at $4,000 by a circa 1900 terracotta candy container in the form of Santa Claus sitting on a log. Other notable results in the category were $1,500 for three pulp Halloween lanterns and a 13½-inch Belsnickel Santa Claus candy container ($1,125).

Selling on both days, the decorative arts category reached its apex on the first day at $3,000 with a late Eighteenth Century painted dower chest from Centre County, Penn., that featured rampant unicorns, birds and flowers and had provenance from the York, Penn., collection of Jo and Jim Adams. A Reed & Barton sterling silver flatware service, in the Francis I pattern, finished at $6,000 on the second day.

A circa 1900 oversized portfolio titled The Emperors of Germany: From Frederick IV to William II: A remarkable and extremely important collection of 44 historical letters and documents signed by the Emperors of Germany shattered its $300/400 estimate to reach $16,250, the highest price on the second day. Also beating its estimate by quite a bit was a group of 18 gilt-embossed red leather-bound books that included The Second World War (volumes I-VI) and Marlborough His Life and Times (volumes I-IV); the group was knocked down for $5,000.

This primitive watercolor view, 12¼ by 15-1/8 inches, was the top-selling fine art lot of the sale; it made $3,750, nearly 10 times its high estimate ($200/400).

Fine art was also sold on both days. On the first day, a reverse mezzotint on glass of Major Robert Rogers, also from the Adams collection, finished at $2,125 while a primitive watercolor view of “A Canadian Bark Canoe entering on Lake Ontario and a little American preparing a boat to take over to Fort Niagara,” dating to the mid Nineteenth Century, sailed to $3,750 on the second day.

Pook & Pook will sell Americana on three days, October 1-3.

Prices quoted include the buyer’s premium as reported by the auction house. For information, 610-269-4040 or www.pookandpook.com.