yikes-
with all good intention i withstood the stifling unairconditioned auction house floor, picking through both the wonderfully displayed offerings and the neatly organized catalog. the sale was very well conducted by the owner mark neely, and his low key and matter of fact approach made waiting between items go by painlessly. at first a 3/4 filled gallery, and then by the time i left 2/3 of the way through, the crowd had dwindled to less than half the room which counted about fifty or so seats (i'm not that good at estimating that, so please don't hold me to it). most of the auction's action was happening via phone or internet bids, as neely is associated with 'live auctioneers', so most 'back bids' were done without the benefit of seeing your competition. thats not so unusual these days, but i did find it curious that there was very little bidding from the floor. in fact, of the five items i bid on, two of which had only one other 'bid' it was via the phone or internet. i am not sure if its connected, but amongst the pieces i bid on and won the auction, i got what i thought was and what was definitely represented as a 'second casting' of a beautiful wilhelm lehmbruck bronze bust. i'd have enough, and knew my wife was going to kill me that i was buying thousands worth of decorative pieces for a house we are gut renovating and already have a full auction house worth of great items to get rid of...
i asked as i was checking out, if i could sell one $500 item to the phone buyer back bidder, of which i would have accepted a reasonable restocking or commission charge for my flippant purchase, of which, when i added up all the booty, was completely superfluous. they politely accepted the challenge of contacting the potential new winner without a fuss. after all, that was 10% of my other purchases.
now comes the INTERESTING part, if you are not asleep already. i had my art appraiser check in earlier today to check the value of the beautiful WH bronze and sure enough, she discovered that it wasn't a first, wasn't a second and no proof that it was a third casting and that in all likelihood, was a cheap reproduction. having been impressed with the gallery employees as well as personally having a very good feeling about the auctioneer owner, neely, i called just now to ask about the appraisal i was beginning to get. the phone rang a couple times and a familiar male voice answered. i asked Mark (DELIBERATELY in a non accusatory and polite manner), if he might be able to help get me paperwork on the bronze sculpture. the air came quickly out to the room, as if the respondent was expecting the conversation ( 25 hours after we had completed the purchase transaction, my credit card, mysteriously was not charged yet). mark said to me without missing a beat, 'steve, how about i don't charge you for anything you bought yesterday, and YOU ARE BANNED FROM THE AUCTION FOREVER'. to which of course i agreed withouut hesitation, as if a totally untrustworthy auction would be a future destination, anyway...
i leave only this: the place is a pro operation. they get interesting items, or at least this one auction did, but its definitely a buyer beware type of business. some auction houses are just this way. do all your homework on the items before the auction starts, and you won't get caught, like i almost did, with a $2200 untraceable doorstop.
other than that, enjoy! read more