Friday at Auction Finds is readers’ questions day. I try to guide readers to resources for them to determine the value of their items. I’m not able to appraise their treasures, but I can do some preliminary research to get them started. So, these are market values based on prices I find on the web, not appraisal for insurance purposes that I suggest for items that have been determined to be of great value.
Today’s questions are about a Warrington Colescott etching and how to use a numbers book.
Question:
How much is a painting by Warrington worth? I have one of the death of Dillinger signed and dated by him in 1965.
Answer:
The reader was writing in reference to a blog post I wrote two years ago about an etching that I bought at auction called “Dillinger: The Break Out From The Indiana Pen” by Warrington Colescott. I was familiar with the name Colescott because a famous African American artist named Robert Colescott (who died in 2009) owned it. I learned that Warrington was his brother.
Warrington Colescott created a series of prints – beginning with the death of the famous bank robber John Dillinger – during the 1960s. He saw Dillinger as a folk hero and used his exploits to explore the “environment of violence,” he said in a 1968 Time magazine interview.
Etchings like mine are in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Milwaukee Art Museum. The reader didn’t mention which print he owned from the series.
I have no definitive answer for this reader, unfortunately, because a work of art is worth what someone is willing to pay for it at a given time. I did some research and found some of the Dillinger etchings – along with others of Colescott’s works – that were for sale and had been sold. The prices were all over the place depending on the print.
An etching like mine – with some foxing (age spots and browning), soiling and staining – sold for $80 at an auction. I could not find another one that had sold. An art gallery was asking $2,500 for the print on its site (which was last updated in August).
Another from the Dillinger series – “Dillinger: Attack and Defense of Little Bohemia (1966)” – was selling on one site (and on eBay; it may have been the same print) for $1,750.
Other works by Colescott had asking prices of $300 to $2,500. The print “Social Realism” sold for $475 on eBay. A print from the “A Wild West” series – titled “A Wild West: High Noon for Hoot Gibson (1969)” – was selling for $1,650 on one site (two others of his pieces had been sold). Another from the series, a lithograph titled “Dodge City (1969),” is up for auction in Chicago tomorrow, with a starting bid of $25.
As you can see, it’s hard for me to put a price on your print – especially since I don’t know which one it is. I would advise that you do a bit more research or get it appraised. You didn’t mention if you were interested in selling. If you are, I’d suggest checking a reputable gallery near you or an auction house like Swann Auction Galleries in New York, which has established itself as a major seller of African American art.
Question:
My wife has one of these books but doesn’t understand how to read the numbers.
Answer:
I have gotten a lot of comments and questions about the dream book after my first blog post three years ago about Prof. Uriah Konje’s “The H.P. Dream Book.” This was the first about how to use the book.
I don’t play instant games or the daily numbers (only the Powerball and Mega Millions when the payoff is in the high millions, and I allow the machine to pick), so I don’t have much need for the dream book.
I figured you’d take an image from your dream, find the word for it in the book and play the number. So, if I dream about a leaky pipe in my basement, I’d look up the word, find the corresponding number – 562 – and play the daily number.
But this reader got me to wondering what to do if I wanted to play a lotto game that required more than three numbers, such as the Pennsylvania Big 4 or Cash 5?
So I asked an expert, my sister Christine, who uses one of these books religiously and regularly. “You just add the last number to it and hope it will come,” she said. I suppose you just pull a fourth or fifth number out of the air.
“People usually play it for three days straight,” she continued, schooling me. “Most times it comes within three days of your dream.” But not always. “Numbers don’t come like they used to,” she said nostalgically. “I don’t play (as much as) I used to.”
She says most folks use the dream book for local lotto games like Cash 3 or Cash 4. Some even play the numbers on the Chinese cookies they get with food.
I guess it’s no more foolproof than letting the machine do the choosing or consulting Prof. Konje.
