Bunch Sells Raccoon Creek Inventory
June 30th, 2015
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Rufino Tamayo (Mexican, 1899-1991), oil on canvas, Abstract Portrait, signed and dated “’71” lower left and signed on the back, 18¾" x 22½", sold on LiveAuctioneers for $35,090 (est. $20,000/40,000)—that is $29,000 hammer plus 21% premium. According to the consignor, he had purchased it from an estate sale in St. Augustine, Florida. He donated 5% of the hammer price of the paintings he consigned to the Wounded Warrior Project, but fewer than half of the paintings sold, and many of them went for $100 hammer.
John Scheeler (1925-1987) of Mays Landing, New Jersey, carved and painted this 14" long canvasback drake duck decoy. Signed and dated “John S. Scheeler 10/21/72,” it sold on the phone for $1840 (est. $200/400).
The cast-iron fireback with arched top is decorated with the sun over arched panels with hearts and tulips and dated 1764. Made by Colebrookdale Furnace, the 28" x 21" fireback sold on the phone for $2875 (est. $400/800). Raccoon Creek.
This poplar and pine single-door dish cupboard with a six-panel door has its original red paint. The dovetailed case has spoon slots on the top shelf and plate rails on all shelves. It sold on the phone for $5462.50 (est. $1500/2500) to the buyer of a green bed and a hutch table. Raccoon Creek.
This “cannonball” rope bed with turned and carved parts and a raised panel and carved headboard, all in green paint, is 56" x 48" between the rails and 70" long. It was a favorite at the preview and sold on the phone for $2530 (est. $400/800). Not shown, a red-painted bed with less flamboyant turnings sold for $258.75 (est. $400/800), a surprisingly low price after Eve Kahn wrote about painted beds in the New York Times the previous Sunday, noting that Nancy Goyne Evans had written about painted beds in the 2015 Chipstone Foundation’s journal American Furniture. Raccoon Creek. |
William H. Bunch Auctions, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania
Photos courtesy William H. Bunch Auctions
The sale at William H. Bunch Auctions in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, on June 30 attracted a standing-room-only crowd to bid on more than 700 lots of paintings and Americana that included 355 lots from the inventory of George Allen and Gordon Wyckoff, who called their now bankrupt business Raccoon Creek, LLC. Allen and Wyckoff declared bankruptcy to avoid a sheriff’s sale after they were arrested for failing to pay consignors for antiques they sold and for failing to pay back loans to a Reading bank and to a friend who had loaned them money.
Bankruptcy trustee Robert Holber said he took bids from five auctioneers before choosing Bill Bunch to handle the sale. Bunch had held a sale for Raccoon Creek in 2006, when Allen and Wyckoff sold the inventory of their New Jersey shop before they moved to Oley, Pennsylvania. In Oley they restored a historical 18th-century fieldstone house built for the iron master at Oley Forge, and they built a shop.
The Bunch sale on June 30 of the 355 lots of Americana from the Raccoon Creek inventory brought a hammer price of just $161,170, a sum that will cover only a small amount of Raccoon Creek’s liabilities, which total around $800,000.
Dealers and collectors came to the sale and competed with phone bidders and bidders on the Internet. Bunch used three bidding platforms—LiveAuctioneers, Bidsquare, and Invaluable—charging successful bidders a 21% buyer’s premium for purchases on LiveAuctioneers and Bidsquare and 23% for successful bids on Invaluable. Bunch’s premium for in-house bids and phone bidders is 15% if paid by check or 18% by credit card. Bunch reports hammer prices on its website, so the prices quoted here are figured with the proper percentages added. All the online platforms were busy during the sale. The sale began at 11 a.m. and was not over until nearly 8 p.m. Telephone bidding and online bidding moved right along and did not slow the auction. The hammer total for the entire sale of 719 lots, of which all but 91 sold, was $344,450, a respectable 87% sold rate. The Raccoon Creek part of the sale was unreserved, and only a few lots of Elsmore & Forster Morning Glory pattern ironstone china failed to sell because no one wanted them.
Although half of the 150 lots of paintings from a New England collection, offered at the beginning of the sale, failed to find buyers, one painting from this consignment, an Abstract Portrait by Rufino Tamayo (Mexican, 1899-1991) sold on LiveAuctioneers for $35,090, the highest price of the sale. Various-owner consignments were mixed in throughout the sale. A Walter Baum oil painting of a Pennsylvania Dutch town, 30" x 25", fresh to market, sold for $6765, and a carousel horse by Parker sold on the phone for $2415.
A tall-case clock with a brass face, signed by Samuel Shourds of Bordentown and in need of restoration, sold on the phone to a clock specialist for $9775.
The highest price paid for any lot from the Raccoon Creek consignment was $13,800 (est. $6000/12,000) paid for a Daniel Otto taufschein fraktur with a rare alligator design. This birth certificate for Sussanna Dinges, daughter of Johannes and Sara (Schwarz) Dinges, born in 1821 in Haines Township, Pennsylvania, was once in the collection of Edgar and Bernice (Chrysler) Garbisch and is similar to a fraktur in the collection of the Free Library of Philadelphia.
A collector in the salesroom paid $10,350 (est. $1500/2500) for a pair of painted carvings of compotes of fruit, 16½" x 15", which were found in New York state. A phone bidder paid $9200 for a chair-table painted red with black spots and with a large well-scrubbed round top. Two baskets sold for more than $1000 each; one in yellow paint was bought by a collector for $1840, and a tray basket with a rich patina sold for $1150.
Most lots sold for far less than Raccoon Creek had been asking for them. A faux-marbleized shelf, carrying a price tag of $3450, sold for $517.50, for example. Also, a set of six red-painted plank-seated chairs had a price tag of $5850, but the six chairs sold for $1725 to the dealer who said he had sold them to Raccoon Creek for $2500 at the Oley show a year ago.
Allen and Wyckoff were known for their good taste and enthusiasm for American country furniture, baskets, pottery, quilts, samplers, fraktur, and Christmas decorations, and for their high prices. From court records we know that much of their inventory was on consignment or never paid for. Two pieces of furniture were claimed by Raccoon Creek consignors during the presale exhibition but remained in the sale, sold on behalf of their owners. A corner cupboard sold for $977.50 (est. $1200/1800), and a paint-grained Dutch cupboard sold for $747.50 (est. $1400/2400), both disappointing prices.
“George and Gordon were very helpful,” said Bunch. “They spent three days here helping me catalog. It is too bad that they took on their project of restoring Oley Forge at the time the antiques market was retracting. They didn’t count on the downturn that led to this tragedy.”
Robert H. Holber, the Chapter 7 trustee overseeing the Raccoon Creek bankruptcy, attended the sale. He said he was pleased with the results. As reported in M.A.D. (July, p. 24-A), Metro Bank, the only secured creditor, “carved out” 30% of the proceeds of the sale to be used for administrative costs and payments to the allowed unsecured creditors, an ever changing number. One third of $161,170 is just about $53,723, which would give each of the unsecured creditors far less than they are owed. For instance, one of them is owed $36,962.50, another $17,585.87, and another $16,883.63. Metro Bank is owed at least $367,486.33. The bank has a lien on the house and property at Oley Forge. On September 1 Bunch announced that he would be selling approximately 200 more lots from the Raccoon Creek inventory as part of a two-day antiques and fine art auction on September 28 and 29. “There will be baskets, Christmas items, and some furniture,” Bunch said.
For more information, contact William H. Bunch Auctions at (610) 558-1800 or check the website (www.williambunchauctions.com).
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A walnut double wall pocket in oxidized salmon red, this is signed with an illegible signature and “Lebanon Co / 1860” on the back. The 
Found in Maine, the 19th-century bucket bench with three open shelves has an unusual top shelf with a scalloped backsplash. In light salmon-color paint, the 51¾" x 55" x 11½" bucket bench sold in the salesroom for $4025 (est. $1500/2500). Raccoon Creek.
A painted miniature (5¼" x 9" x 5¼") pine bench found in Maine with rosewood grain and gold decoration sold via LiveAuctioneers for $1694 (est. $400/800). Raccoon Creek.
This pine chimney cupboard has chrome-yellow paint and a scrubbed interior with four shelves and a raised panel door with mortised through construction. It is early to mid-19th century; later names, initials, and dates “7/15/1888” and “July 15, 1889” are evident. The 71¾" x 28¾" x 12" cupboard sold to collectors in the salesroom for $2300 (est. $600/1200). Raccoon Creek.
A circa 1880 Pennsylvania wall cupboard with faux-grained surface paint applied with fingertips and fingernails, ex-Ruth Bryson, Quarryville, sold to a collector in the salesroom for $5750 (est. $800/1600). He outbid competitors online and on the phones. Raccoon Creek.
A 13" x 16" taufschein with a rare alligator design by Daniel Otto for Sussanna Dinges, daughter of Johannes and Sara (Schwarz) Dinges, born in 1821 in Haines Township, Pennsylvania, sold on the phone for $13,800 (est. $6000/12,000). The paper has the watermark of the Clark and Sharpless paper mill in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. The taufschein was once in the collection of Edgar and Bernice (Chrysler) Garbisch. It had sold at the Garbisch sale on May 9, 1974 for $2750. A companion piece by the same artist is in the collection of the Free Library of Philadelphia. Raccoon Creek.
A 7" x 7½" drawing on laid paper of soldier on a horse, signed by Martin R. Brubacker, 1816, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, sold via LiveAuctioneers for $1694 (est. $600/1200). It had sold at Northeast Auctions in a different frame in March 2014 for $780. Raccoon Creek.
Circa 1910 Virginia oak splint rectangular gathering basket in chrome yellow and with a splint handle. The 12" x 21" x 13" basket sold in the salesroom to a Florida collector for $1840 (est. $200/400). Raccoon Creek. 
An oak splint rectangular basket, 2¾" x 9½" x 12½" and with a rich patina, from the mid-19th century, sold in the salesroom for $1150 (est. $400/450). Raccoon Creek.
Found in Maine, a 4¾" x 14½" x 14" New England Native American maple fish-shaped bowl with repairs sold to a collector in the room for $1610 (est. $400/800). Raccoon Creek.
This pair of carved and painted pine wall sculptures of fruit in a compote was found in New York state. From the early 19th century, each is 16½" x 15", and the pair sold to collectors in the salesroom for $10,350 (est. $1500/2500). Raccoon Creek.Originally published in the October 2015 issue of Maine Antique Digest. © 2015 Maine Antique Digest
