Gustav Stickley sideboard, $38,000.

Rolled arm sofa, $1,700

AMHERST, MASS. – Pioneer Auction began 2001 with a Gustav Stickley sideboard selling for $38,000 at their 38th annual New Year’s Day sale.

Bruce Smebakken, the gallery’s owner, stated that the crowd was standing room only and the phone banks full for several rdf_Descriptions, with most interest on the sideboard, possibly due to its early design, circa 1904. Bidding for that lot came entirely from the phones.

A J.J. LaValley oil on canvas or roses, along with a 1905 catalog listing the same, sold for $3,400; a LaValley oil on canvas of strawberries, with some paint flaking, went for $1,700; and two last minute additions, LaValley landscapes, brought $1,400 each.

A watercolor of Constantinople signed Preziosi, 1857, brought $4,200 from a European buyer; a portrait on wooden panel of Capt William Sigourney, of Oxford, Mass., circa 1820, realized $3,000; and a restored English School large portrait of two young girls sold for $1,400.

A swellfront graduated chest with dentil carved top, 36-inches wide, in original condition with problems with the back brackets, went for $5,000; a six-drawer chest with chestnut secondary wood, with some drawer questions, brought $2,800; and a French Art Deco bedroom set, with abstract and floral carving, brought $1,475, while an associated three-drawer burled bureau from the same period realized more than the entire bedroom service at $1,500.

A drop leaf Sheraton style sewing cabinet, with wooden basket and acanthus carved legs, sold for $1,000; a micro-mosaic 21-inch table top brought $6,100; and a rolled arm sofa with cornucopia carving sold for $1,700.

Accessories and china included a Sandwich teal colored vase which sold for $1,650; a 165-piece set of Meissen “Blue Onion” dinnerware, which brought $2,600; and a polychromed folk art moose (from a barbershop) which reached $1,300.

An oversized decorated sled took $400; an oversized trencher in blue-green paint (36-inches) sold at $325; a polychromed dometop box with bird and floral decoration reached $625; an unadvertised copper horse weathervane sold for $650; a 36-inch metal statuary of two children brought $500; a bronze of child with ivory face and hands, signed S. Omerth, closed at $1,050; a Flow Blue “Scinde” pitcher and bowl,with damage, sold for $650; a Hampshire pottery vase, with water lilies and minor lines, brought $380; and a lot of 14 wooden cookie molds sold at $525.

Native American rdf_Descriptions of note included a pipe tomahawk from the late Nineteenth Century, which sold for $650; an Apache leather shirt, which reached $600; a “buffalo” shirt, which fetched $450; and a 12-inch Hopi cylindrical pot, which sold for $775.

Five hundred and fifty seven rdf_Descriptions sold in six hours. Prices quoted do not include a ten percent buyer’s premium.