A $50 yard sale find was well rewarded at MV Auctions’ March 24, 2007, sale when two partial prototype gramophones, one with a horn, one without, made by the Berliner Co. of Philadelphia sold for $24,725. They were accompanied by their original stamped cases. Auctioneer Ed Tessier described them as little more than spare parts and had estimated them in the low hundreds. A lot of 20 7¼-inch records, some with labels and some without, made for the Berliner gramophones from the same source realized $2,138 from the same New York collector.
The 325-lot sale drew from Cape and Islands estates and offered some eclectic choices for collectors and dealers faced with an array of auction choices on that day.
An unsigned 18-inch Victorian marble bust of George Washington realized $4,140.
A mid-Nineteenth Century two-part country cupboard in old red paint had raised panel doors and seemed to be made of maple. It sold for $3,450. A circa 1810 four-drawer bow front Hepplewhite chest had been refinished and realized $3,220. A Chinese Export camphorwood two-part desk from about 1830 had a brass bound fall front, brass bails and bun feet, and fetched $3,450.
Among a selection of Indian material, a lot of arrowheads sold for $1,380. Two lots of pre-Columbian artifacts drew $920 and $518.
An 1893 oil on canvas ship portrait by W.F. Bisbee with silkwork sails by T. Willis depicting the New York vessel Edward Cushing realized $3,450. A mid-Nineteenth Century ship’s portrait of the three-masted English bark Cathaya, whose master was William Morgan, sold for $2,875. An 1874 watercolor view of “The Rescue of London” by William Robinson was signed indistinctly and sold for $2,415.
A pair of English oil on board marine pictures by William Mitchell was dated March 1890 and included a scene of the vessel Florence aiding the foundering bark Gimello in a gale and another of the Florence rescuing 14 men from the Estrella de Chili . The pair realized $2,415.
A large (24 by 36 inches) watercolor of a rocky field with grazing sheep by Nova Scotia-born Massachusetts artist Melbourne Havelock Hardwick realized $2,300. A Nineteenth Century French oil on canvas on board, “Fishmongers in the Marketplace,” was unsigned and realized $1,840.
A single Sandwich glass dolphin candlestick with a clambroth base and dolphin and a blue candleholder was a respectable $920.
A 4-inch early Nineteenth Century English tea caddy in the form of an apple went for $1,380. A mid-Nineteenth Century 48-inch four-draw telescope on stand by Benjamin King Hagger and Son of Baltimore. Md., realized $2,473.
All prices quoted reflect the 15 percent buyer’s premium. For information, www.mvauctions.net or 508-771-1722.
