Credit E-mail with an assist as The Cobbs Auctioneers of Peterborough, New Hampshire, hammered down a framed oil painting of a peasant woman, signed by American artist George Hitchcock (1850-1913), at $154,000 (including buyer's premium) on October 24. The winning bidder was on the phone from New York City. The under bidder was a California collector, also bidding by phone, who had requested a digital photo of the painting to be sent via E-mail.

George Hitchcock studied in Paris, exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1887, and was fond of painting people and places in the Netherlands. The Hitchcock image in the Cobb sale was that of a young lady standing in a field of purple flowers. Charlie Cobb told us that another Hitchcock, a larger example, had sold at auction recently at a rarefied price, so intense interest in the piece was not unexpected.

Another painting of local interest was signed by William P. Phelps  (1848-1923), who was born in New Hampshire, started his career as an itinerant sign painter, and later, after studying abroad, exhibited his works at the National Academy in New York in 1878. The Phelps painting, a bucolic scene of cattle grazing with Mt. Monadnock in the background, was bid to $8250. The Cobbs' estate auction at the Peterborough Country Club featured 334 lots and grossed over $350,000, their most successful auction to date.  Charlie Cobb said his auction business has doubled each of the last two years, and he plans to hold as many as two important auctions each month.           
© 1998 by Maine Antique Digest

Antiquarian books and rare coins sparked spirited bidding at The Cobbs coin and book auction at the Town House in Peterborough, New Hampshire, on December 15, 1998. It was, however, a treasure trove of significant Civil War mementos from a Peterborough area estate that riveted the crowd's attention.

A little over an hour into the sale, auctioneer Charlie Cobb entertained bids for a letter to a surgeon at Harewood Hospital in Washington, D.C., written and signed by President Abraham Lincoln on "Executive Mansion" stationery. Dealers in the hall bowed out of the action early, but after a prolonged duel on the phones, prominent dealer Daniel Weinberg of the Abraham Lincoln Book Shop in Chicago prevailed at $9900 (includes buyer's premium). The area dealers we talked to felt the letter had gone strong, definitely a retail figure.

The "A. Lincoln" scrawl "is the most valuable in American history," according to Lincoln expert Harold Holzer. Even a cut signature (clipped from some document or letter) of Lincoln has been known to bring $5000 to $6000 at auction.

From the consignor of the Lincoln letter also came the evening's most fervently pursued entry, a Civil War album of Dr. Reid Brockway Boutecou, an Army surgeon, containing over 90 cartes de visite of Union military leaders and doctors.

A cluster of Peterborough area dealers in the hall seemed to roll their eyes in disbelief after the bidding segued past the $10,000 mark. At crunch time, no less than four phone bidders were still heavily into the fray, as the album made its final surge to 
(continued in next column)

 checked our sources and believe the M. to signify Maj. James Barnes who was appointed U.S. Surgeon General in 1864.)

Jonathan Mann, publisher of The Rail Splitter, a journal for the Lincoln collector, believes that the real keeper in the album was an unsigned Brady Studio image of Lincoln's eight-year-old son Willie, who succumbed to typhoid fever a few months after the February 1862 photo session. That image alone would command $4000 to $5000 if sold separately, according to Mann.

Another entry from the same consignor was the personal wallet of Dr. Boutecou. The wallet's rather gruesome contents included a sewing needle plus several carefully wrapped coins with a scrawled notation that they'd been removed from an unfortunate Yank's groin after a minié ball or bullet fragment had propelled the coins from his pocket, embedding them in his flesh. A left bid of $220 captured this grim memento.

The Cobb sale also yielded other significant entries. The coin market, after bottoming out a few short years ago, is seemingly on the rebound. Among some 50 coin lots, most brought strong prices, topped by a superb U.S. album of 1950-1958 Proof Sets for $935.

A final price of $550 landed a fine edition of Phair's 1937 Atlantic Salmon Fishing by the prestigious Derrydale Press, following intense bidding by three dealers all lined up in the same row in the hall. The royals still have their loyal subjects as evidenced by an imposing photo collection of images of the British royal family that tallied $962.50.  © 1999 by Maine Antique Digest