LONE JACK, MO. — On February 15, Soulis Auctions offered a single-owner collection of fine and decorative art — a true 50-plus-year collection of examples with provenance to the old names of Kansas City and St Joseph, plus acquisitions the collector made while working in China in the 1980s.
Taking note of a $36,000 hammer sleeper result in the sale, Antiques and The Arts Weekly followed up with auctioneer Dirk Soulis to get information on the apparent top lot, a pair of Chinese famille rose floor vases on stands, each 35 by 13 inches exclusive of the stands, circa Nineteenth Century.
Soulis replied, “Well, the winning bidder, a Chinese man from Illinois, claimed he misunderstood the amount and left without paying for the lot. He thought it was $3,600, not $36,000…Welcome to the auction business.”
When asked if he’ll be re-offering the vases in a future sale or if he would make the sale to the underbidder, Soulis responded, “We are entertaining offers. They [the pair of Chinese famille rose floor vases] opened at $11,000 and had bidders in the room and online up to and over $20,000. Somewhere mid-20s it narrowed to what appeared to be two or more online bidders and a gentleman in the room. He held his card up and the bidding progressed. The lot was knocked down to him and I pressed the button for our canned applause response, which cracked up the crowd and they joined in the applause. The auction proceeded and, though I was auctioneer, I kept my eye on him. But then he disappeared.
“Sometimes there’s a perfectly good explanation for this. After a bit I summoned my cashier and had her pull his invoice. Then, in between lots, I asked her to call him. She stood a little hunched over with one ear covered and an anguished look on her face until I finally asked what was going on. She said, ‘He can hardly speak English.’ He said he was ‘very, very sorry,’ something along the lines of, ‘My English is not good. I made a terrible mistake.’ He said he was sorry. I announced this to the crowd, followed by, ‘Not nearly as sorry as I am!’
“The gentleman from Illinois then emailed twice, apologizing, to say that his friends had told him to bid $4,000. Admittedly, our estimate was $2,000 to $3,000, the same amount an online appraisal service had suggested as their auction value, insurance $5,000.
“We will entertain offers and then decide. No decision yet as to re-offer or accept a good offer.”
Soulis Auction is at 529 W Lone Jack-Lee’s Summit Road. To reach them, 816-697-3830 or www.dirksoulisauctions.com.
