On July 1 Charlie and Dudley Cobb of Peterborough, New Hampshire, had the kind of lead-off-the-month sale every auction house desires. Their 358-lot sale was uniformly strong across the board, but the real star was lot 110.

That lot consisted of a group of New England ephemera, including a scrapbook containing a number of stampless pre-1845 letters, drawings, awards of merit, and other material relating to the Perkins, Butler, Moss, and Lowe families of Ipswich, Massachusetts, and Amherst, New Hampshire.

The gems of the lot were three (two shown) ink and watercolor family records that were discovered rolled up in a tube. The family members' names   were recorded within apples growing on a tree. All were fragile but eminently framable.

There were phone and left bids, but the real battle was between two dealers seated in the audience, Bill Samaha of Massachusetts and Ohio and  Barbara and Frank Pollack of Illinois and New Hampshire. Samaha was the winner. It cost him, with the 15% buyer's premium, $59,800.  
 © 2000 by Maine Antique Digest

Auctioneer Charles Cobb drew a full house to the firm's June 30th and July 1st sale in Peterborough, New Hampshire, and got great prices for the major items.

The lead lot was a group of ephemera relating to the Perkins, Butler, and Lowe families of Ipswich, Massachusetts, and Amherst, New Hampshire. The stars of that group were three 18th-century ink and watercolor family records that had been stored rolled up in a tube. The names of the family members were contained within apples hanging from tree limbs, which is a quite unusual and very literal interpretation of the term family tree.

It was difficult to estimate what the lot would bring. The records didn't have the studied composition of the family records of Vermont and Massachusetts artist Almira Edson, and they didn't depict people and animals, like the two watercolors in a trunk sold at Skinner's three weeks earlier for $23,000.

Still, the paintings were absolutely fresh to the market, the format was unusual, they were large (about 12 inches wide x 21½ inches to 23 inches long), and there was the other material in the lot, which included a scrapbook with a number of rewards of merit and another frame able ink drawing. We thought they might bring somewhere between $12,000 and $20,000; New Hampshire dealer Danny Wahl guessed they could bring as much as $60,000. We were very wrong, and he was almost dead on the mark. (continued in next column)

Illinois and Sunapee, New Hampshire, dealers Frank and Barbara Pollack wanted the lot, but so did Massachusetts and Ohio dealer Bill Samaha. When the smoke cleared, it was Samaha's for $59,800 (including buyer's premium).

Another much-desired piece was a Rochester, New Hampshire, cast-iron rooster weathervane. The surface was yellow underpaint and rust, and one talon was missing from a foot, but it's summer, this is New England, and there are many hungry dealers out there. The weathervane went to a New Hampshire dealer at $17,250.

The lead furniture lot was a period English Hepplewhite mahogany bowfront sideboard with spade feet that brought $13,800. A 47 inches high gilded convex mirror surmounted with an eagle went to a phone bidder at $11,500.

The top-priced work of art was a 1943 portrait of Danny James by Dublin, New Hampshire, artist Alexander James (1890-1946). Titled Merchant Marine, it had been featured in a loan exhibit at Keene, New Hampshire's Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery last year. It was bought here for $9200 and will join Thorne-Sagendorph's permanent collection.
 © 2000 by Maine Antique Digest