The sale’s highest-achieving lot, this cast iron Watling Manufacturing Co., five-cent slot-style gum vending machine from the early Twentieth Century, 23 inches high by 16 inches wide by 13 inches deep, hit the jackpot and earned $27,600 ($1/2,000).
Review by Carly Timpson
POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. — Hyde Park Country Auctions’ latest sale was on September 15. Conducted in three sessions — country primitives, Mission, Victorian, estate artwork, collectibles and sporting; Walter Addison artwork; and books and ephemera — the auction presented more than 700 lots from the collection of Thomas & Gail Rockwell, the Walter Addison estate and various other estates and collections. According to owner Dominick Navarra, there were “a few people in-house, 50 absentee and phone bids and about 1,000 online bidders.” He also noted that, thanks to the Rockwell collection, this was the most books he had ever sold in one sale and many of them were sold to book dealers.
Hitting the jackpot to become the sale’s highest-priced lot was a cast iron slot-machine style Watling Manufacturing Co., gum vending machine. The Twentieth Century tabletop machine, which weighed nearly 150 pounds, shot past its $1/2,000 estimate to achieve $27,600. Navarra said, “It was consigned by a local gentleman who purchased it from his college roommate in West Virginia in the 1970s — he warned me after he left ‘I don’t want it back — if it doesn’t sell, throw it in the dump.’ He told me it was found on his college roommate’s property in a chicken coop where it resided for many years before it was purchased by him.” Despite it being jammed with 1950s-era nickels at the time of the auction, the slot machine-style vending machine was meant to operate for five cents, with a memo at the top reading “For 5c you get a package of gum, and the number of premium checks indicated above.” The quantities of those “gum checks” ranged from two to 20 depending on the luck of the operator’s pull. Navarra also told us that the man who bought the machine “said it was very rare — only the third known made of all cast iron, likely because they were all melted down during the wars.”
This rare first edition book of President George Washington’s speeches, printed in Boston in 1796, topped the Rockwell collection, achieving $5,750 ($4/8,000).
Many of the books and ephemera offered in this sale came from the collection of Thomas Rockwell, author of How To Eat Fried Worms, bookseller and brother of artist Norman Rockwell. Achieving the second-highest price overall was a July 1796 first-edition copy of President George Washington’s speeches. The book, A Collection of the Speeches of the President of the United States to Both Houses of Congress, at the Opening of Every Session, with their Answers…, was printed by Manning and Loring of Boston for Solomon Cotton, bookseller. These Congressional speeches were claimed by a LiveAuctioneers buyer for $5,750.
Another rare book from the collection, The Constitutions Of The United States, According To The Latest Amendments: To which Are Annexed, The Declaration of Independence; and The Federal Constitution; With The Amendments Thereto., found a buyer for $2,125. Published by Cary, Stewart and Co., Philadelphia, in 1791, this edition contains the constitutions of each of the 13 original states as well as “The Constitution Of Vermont, Not In Any Former One,” as noted on the title page.
The third-best performance from Rockwell’s library was awarded to a copy of A New Description of Merryland. The book, a collection of erotic fiction, takes its name and motifs from a Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century English genre in which women’s bodies were described through topographical metaphors. This peculiar book, a fourth edition, was published in London in 1741, and sold to an online buyer for $1,625. Navarra said this book sold to an online buyer and he really wasn’t sure why it did as well as it did.
This fourth edition of A New Description of Merryland. Containing A Topographical, Geographical, and Natural History of That Country, London, 1741, enticed bidders who bid the book to $1,625 ($100/500).
Bids rolled in for a 14K gold cigarette case from the early to mid Twentieth Century. With an impressed geometric pattern on the cover, the case was in “very good condition” and it sold to an antiques dealer bidding over the phone for $4,600.
Other precious metals also found favor, with a sterling silver flatware set in the Old Colonial pattern bringing $2,500 from an online trade buyer. The auction catalog noted that the 111-piece set had various hallmarks, some appearing to be for Towle Silversmiths. Housed in a wooden chest, the set weighed 101 troy ounces, excluding the 12 dinner knives.
Coming from a Rochester, N.Y., estate was an Arts & Crafts style hammered copper trinket box by Massachusetts/Connecticut artist Frank Gardner Hale. The small box featured a stylized iridescent enameled fish illustration on its hinged lid. Signed “F.G. Hale” on the base, which had small feet, the early Twentieth Century box exceeded its $1,200 high estimate to earn $1,725. Navarra said this little box garnered a lot of attention but ultimately a phone bidder prevailed.
Rounding out the top eight lots was a “Speaking Dog” mechanical bank. The child and dog bank was impressed with patent dates of 1885 and 1875. “It was broken, but it had really beautiful, all original paint on it. I found it in the basement of a local home,” Navarra said of the bank. The Nineteenth Century example was in good condition, though the iron activation lever on the front and the coin cover on its bottom were missing. It spoke to bidders, fetching $1,625.
Prices quoted include the buyer’s premium as reported by the auction house. The firm’s next Country Americana sale will be in December. For information, www.hpcountryauctions.com or 845-471-5660.
