Did you see the confessional? the co-owner of the auction house asked me as I stood there talking to another auction-goer. The auctioneer conducting the bidding had looked for me when it came up, he…
Category: furniture
Save money by buying at auctions
Posted in Auction Tips/Find an Auction, dishware, furniture, and Home
I’m always astonished at not only what turns up on the auction tables but also at how little it sells for. I’ve watched many times as dinnerware sets go for 5 or 10 bucks, or practically…
As I browsed before an auction recently, I was struck by the unusual colors and designs of several chairs in the furniture room. A Lucite chair with a Mount Rushmore image on its cushion. A lime-green plastic…
I was making my way among the tables of beautiful high-grade colored glassware when I decided to check out the equally high-grade furniture at the auction house. This was one of its Modern Design sales,…
A safari chair like Hemingway’s
Posted in furniture
When I think of safaris, Ernest Hemingway and his short story “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” come to mind. Macomber was the less-than-courageous big-game hunter – the antithesis of Hemingway, an image of…
Gumball machine with lamp
Posted in collectibles, furniture, and Home
As soon as I saw the gumball machine with the white globe, I thought it’d look nifty on my windowed front porch. It stood out among the indoor and outdoor furniture set up on the pavement…
Furniture with hand-painted designs
Posted in furniture
I was walking through the furniture room at one of my favorite auction houses recently when I noticed something: Several pieces of furniture – seemingly more than usual – were showing off the work of a…
Sometimes when I’m at an auction, I’m struck by the sheer volume of a particular item. Usually it’s someone’s collection, those precious manys of something they’ve bought over the years and couldn’t stop. Every now…
The bids kept going higher and higher – past $5,000, then $6,000 and way past $10,000. I stretched my neck to take an even closer look at this item that was demanding so much money and causing…
Show me a beautiful pair of shoes, and I become putty. Like that pair of Casadei wedges that came up for auction a few weeks ago. But it’s hard to get excited about an S-shaped…