Ike's Jacket Leads Three-Day Auction

Sanford Alderfer Auction & Appraisal, Hatfield, Pennsylvania

by Lita Solis-Cohen

Photos courtesy Alderfer

The parking lot was full, and a standing-room-only crowd was assembled, but there were fewer surprises than usual at the September 9-11 sale at Alderfer Auction & Appraisal in Hatfield, Pennsylvania. There was active bidding in the salesroom, on the phones, from absentee bidders who left bids with the auctioneer, and on the Internet with Artfact. The sale totaled $899,000 for 1027 lots of decorations, furniture, rugs, jewelry, and fine art.

The highest price of the three days, $43,875 (includes buyer's premium), was paid by a phone bidder for General Dwight D. Eisenhower's jacket. It was part of the World War II collection of James Mountain of Massachusetts offered in a separate U.S. military auction catalog on September 9. The military auction had the highest-priced lot and the greatest number of passed lots.

At the sale of decorative accessories, furniture, and rugs on Thursday a 1909 automobile trophy plaque made by J.E. Caldwell and won by Louis Hoyt's Stanley Steamer brought $7312.50 (est. $800/1200). A sterling silver lot consisting of a pair of large square rococo shoe buckles with the mark of Philadelphia silversmith Daniel DuBois and a button hook with a repoussé handle sold for $643.50 (est. $200/400). A collector paid $14,040 for a 14k gold trophy plate with the Jockey Club insignia inscribed "Niagara Stakes, Fort Erie, September 5, 1964 won by Will I Rule owned by F.E. Dixon, Jr."

Breinigsville, Pennsylvania, dealer Thurston Nichols spent more than anyone else at the Thursday furniture and decorative arts session. He paid $10,237.50 for a lot of 18 pairs of wood carved and painted Noah's ark animals, including elephants, giraffes, alligators, boars, camels, and hippos. He was the underbidder on a group of 28 carved and painted animals with some damage and loss that sold to Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania, dealer Donald Stump for $4680. Nichols then spent $10,530 for a lot of 16 wooden carved and painted birds for a bird tree, average size 5" long, and had to go to $25,740 to get another lot of 27 carved and painted birds for a bird tree, average size 4" long.

There seems to be a ready market for KPM porcelain plaques. A large (16" x 12") plaque depicting a seated nymph in a gilt frame (est. $5000/7000) sold for $18,000. A plaque signed Seler with portraits of women around the rim and a large portrait of a woman with flowing hair and bare breasts in the center sold for $7500 (est. $5000/7000).

A lot of two miniature Cartier clocks, one with white enamel bands, 3" tall, and the other with a ribbed surface and a pen rest, 4½" tall, with chipped glass, sold for $17,550 (est. $300/500). They were part of a downsizing consignment from a local resident.

A walnut demilune Philadelphia mahogany games table with tapered reeded legs (est. $800/1200), the kind of table made in Jonathan Gostelowe's shop, fetched only $292.50 because the feet had been cut. A pair of attractive marble-top mahogany Chippendale-style tables, each 53" wide, sold for $8190 (est. $1500/2500) to Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, dealer Joe Manley, who probably had decorators lined up to buy them. A married secretary, the top earlier than the base, sold for $3042 (est. $2000/3000). A Pennsylvania chest of drawers with a rich patina and a very strange top with plugged holes sold for $4563 (est. $1200/1800). An ocher-painted two-door milk cupboard went at $1170 (est. $1200/1800).

Alderfer's sale provided a barometer for the state of the antique furniture market in Pennsylvania in September 2009. Dealers in the back of the salesroom said they thought they had enough furniture in stock and did not need to compete for problem pieces not easily salable.

Two Rolex watches and two diamond rings brought more than most of the lots of jewelry. A four-carat diamond ring in a platinum setting (est. $10,000/15,000) sold for $18,720, and a ring with three diamonds set in platinum sold for $4095. A woman's Rolex watch went at $4920, and a man's Rolex in an 18k gold case made $4095.

There were not a lot of expensive paintings in the sale. Most sold for reasonable prices. An 18th-century portrait of a gentleman cataloged as Connecticut that most thought was British sold for $1920 (est. $2000/4000). William Lathrop's The Quarry Road (est. $20,000/30,000) failed to find a buyer. Small Walter Baum Pennsylvania landscapes sold for $3393 and $2106, and a larger one (20" x 24") brought $4680.

For more information, contact Alderfer at (215) 393-3023 or visit (www.alderferauction.com).

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