“It’s the nature of the business; it’s what we all face these days,” said John Pappas, owner of Knotty Pine Auction Service, lamenting the reported theft during preview of a hunting license once issued to Hall of Famer and former Red Sox baseball player Ted Williams. The unique piece of ephemera was to be offered in the firm’s May 30 sale of Part II of the living estate of Dolores Wettach Williams †former high-fashion model, actress and third wife of baseball legend Williams.
“We believe it was taken during Thursday’s [May 28] preview between 3 and 5 pm,” said Pappas. “There were between six and eight people in the gallery then, and our employees were distracted by a TV crew that was here interviewing. A local dealer who was interested in it noticed that it was missing.”
The license, issued to Theodore Williams in 1970 by the state of New Hampshire, was included with a hat to which it was attached and various notes Williams had made concerning fishing spots and friends’ phone numbers. Whoever took the license †encased in an aluminum pinback carrier †and the notes left the hat and various other fisherman’s flair, such as pins and tied flies, behind. The presale estimate on the lot was $300/500. Pappas said he reported the theft to the Swanzey Police Department the following day, because he wanted to make sure the items had not just migrated to another grouping of ephemera within the gallery.
The sale featured personal effects, ephemera, photos, correspondence and memorabilia items relating to the couple, their family life and the storied careers of both Dolores and Ted Williams. About 150 lots related to Williams’ wife †designer clothing and accessories from her modeling career, items from her movie career and other personal effects, etc †while about 250 lots centered on the famous baseballer.
“Once we moved into the Ted Williams items, it [the sale] was a whole new ballgame,” said Pappas, who said that 98 percent of the merchandise sold, and 20′5 percent sold above estimate.
The sale drew a good-sized crowd to the gallery, about 125 in attendance, with 70 registered bidders and 100′5 participating via the Internet. To be sure, there were some lots specific to Williams’ active baseball career, including balls and bats signed by him and other Hall of Fame players, a Red Sox team-signed baseball from the late 1960s; jackets, shirts and hats. Pappas explained, however, that many of the lots focused more on Williams’ post-active career, such as a trove of publicity photos, many showing Williams and other major sports figures of the day, some of them signed; and other items.
A handwritten letter from President Richard Nixon congratulating Williams on being named manager of the Washington Senators in 1969, for example, brought $1,093. Among the top lots in the sale was Williams’ personal jacket from the Ted Williams Baseball Camp in Lakeville, Mass., which sold for $1,840.
⁗.A. Demers
