The first of two lots to bring the top price of the day — $7,813 to an American buyer — was this oil on tin advertisement for cigarettes that had a baseball motif ($400/600).
Review by Madelia Hickman Ring; Photos Courtesy Copake Auction
COPAKE, N.Y. — “It got the year off to a great start, no doubt,” Seth Fallon enthused after Copake Auction’s 44th Annual New Year’s Day auction. “It was a super active sale; we couldn’t ask for more. We had tons of left bids and a couple hundred phone bids.” To further make the point, only about a dozen of the approximately 750 lots did not sell on the day and he quoted an overall tally of nearly $500,000.
The top price of the day — $7,813 — was claimed by two lots that could hardly have been more disparate to each other. Making the money first was an oil on tin advertisement for cigarettes that had a baseball motif. It was lettered “Illustrations Taken from Baseball Album…Old Judge and Dogs Head Cigarettes Good Win & Co New York London.”
About 150 lots later in the sale, the high price was again met with an Oriental rug that measured nearly 15 by 11 feet. Fallon confirmed that both lots sold to buyers in the United States. Additionally, he noted that the buyer of the cigarette trade sign also purchased an oil on panel whaling scene for $5,625.
The second of two lots at the apex of the sale was this 14-foot-7-inch-by-10-foot-10-inch Oriental rug that sold to a buyer in the United States for $7,813 ($200/300).
Weathervanes are a perennial favorite at Copake; most sales have at least a small selection to choose from and this sale offered two dozen examples. A menagerie of forms were in the lineup but it was two stag weathervanes that led the category, each leaping to $6,300, to different US buyers. The first to do so had a base while the other did not and, additionally, needed repairs to its arrow directional.
Two lots also shared the third highest price of the day: $6,000. A portrait of Joseph Cinque, who led a revolt in 1839 on board the slave ship Amistad, was painted in oil on panel and sold to a European buyer. A local buyer paid the same price for a Salmson 10 HP poster by Rene Vincent (French, 1879-1936).
The poster was one of nearly 70 lots from the Salisbury, Conn., estate of actor Edward Hermann (1943-2014) — of Gilmore Girls fame — that were sprinkled through the sale. Fallon said the selection of mostly fine art with a few lots of furniture and objects was just a selection of what the house would be selling in a few upcoming sales but that it had a good reception.
Another European bidder pushed a portrait of a male athlete that was also from the Hermann estate to $5,938, nearly 10 times its high estimate. It had been painted in oil on board by Jacob Nobbe (Denmark, 1850-1919).
Copake Auction will conduct its next sale on February 10.
Prices quoted include the buyer’s premium as reported by the auction house. For information, www.copakeauction.com or 518-641-1935.
