On May 16 and 17, Green Valley Auctions, Inc, held its eighth annual spring auction of glass and lighting. The two-session sale featured many longtime collections and was conducted at Green Valley’s facility with telephone, absentee and online bidding.
The jewel of Friday’s session was a 17-inch-high Boston and Sandwich Glass Co. cut double-overlay Moorish windows banquet lamp, with matching font and stem in cobalt blue cut to white cut to colorless. The circa 1860‱880 banquet lamp sold to the phone for $6,780.
Immediately following this lot were two more cut overlay lamps. Selling for $3,600 to an Internet bidder was a 16-inch Boston and Sandwich cobalt blue cut to colorless quatrefoil and punty banquet lamp in outstanding undamaged condition. Bringing $3,390 was a 14-inch-tall, rose cut to white cut to colorless checkerboard and punty banquet lamp.
A deep rose cut to white cut to colorless overlay stand lamp from the Powell collection brought $2,599; the winner of this lamp was also successful in buying, the following day, an extremely rare 1870‱887 Sandwich dahlia paperweight for $3,672.
Another Friday highlight occurred when a determined in-house bidder helped a Sandwich Glass Onion/Eaton stand lamp in translucent soft blue with a slight lavender tint sell for $6,215. A related match tray in an identical color was offered during Saturday’s session; after the match tray sold for $1,073, the two pieces were carefully packed up for the journey home by their delighted new owner.
Saturday’s session began promptly at 9:30 am when a Sandwich Glass tulip vase †brilliant medium emerald green †sold to a phone bidder for $14,690, far surpassing the $6,000 high estimate and earning the auction’s top honors, as well as setting a new record price for this form and color.
From the Lyons collection came a pattern-molded checkered diamond pattern footed salt in an unusual swirled purple blue. An Internet bidder eased the salt up to $3,000 before three phone bidders pushed it to $10,170.
A circa 1830‱840 Midwestern 55/8-inch-tall lacy covered casket, probably from a Pittsburgh-area glass house and one of only three or four recorded examples, opened at $6,500. Then two determined phone bidders managed to take it up to $11,300.
Also bringing $11,300 from the phone was an important “J.&.C. Ritchie” marked lacy glass windowpane in proof condition, except for a minute flake and a hint of mold roughness.
From the Powell collection, a Sandwich Glass Lee/Rose 619-A in near proof condition, which was cataloged as “extremely rare,” citing only six recorded by Bilane, sold for $3,955.
Several other salts also managed to bring impressive results. In near proof condition were an extremely rare Sandwich Glass CD-3 covered lyre pressed salt from 1835‱845 and an OG-3 oblong open pressed salt in unlisted emerald green, probably manufactured in the Pittsburgh area between 1835 and 1850, which sold for $2,147 each.
Early glass lighting in the form of whale oil/fluid lamps and candlesticks included a circa 1850 sapphire blue Sandwich loop (aka leaf) lamp, fitted with a double-tube fluid burner, which tied up five phone lines until it reached $4,802.
Selling for $5,650 was a pair of 10½-inch-high, probably Pittsburgh, pillar-molded candlesticks made around 1825‱850. The sticks, which were in exceptional undamaged condition, sold to Ohio dealer David L. Good, who is well known for handling high-end American glass.
Saturday highlights also included a mid-Nineteenth Century pair of 10-inch-high amethyst Sandwich tulip vases deaccessioned from the Sandwich Glass Museum. One was in excellent, one was in proof condition. They sold as a pair for $6,780; a 10½-inch-high overall engraved light-baluster wine glass with cover, possibly engraved by Jacob Sang (1720‱786), that was inscribed with a Dutch friendship poem, and realized $6,780.
All prices listed include the buyer’s premium.
For more information, 540-434-4260 or www.greenvalleyauctions.com .
