It takes a whole team to run these auctions and focus on providing excellent customer service, Langdell said. Seated in center is Harold French, surrounded by the Langdell Homestead Auction Barn team save one key member, Janet Langdell, as she was taking the photo.
Review by Andrea Valluzzo
WILTON, N.H. — Despite the prevalence and ease of online bidding today, old-fashioned country auctions continue to exist and thrive. While the merchandise found at the Langdell Homestead Auction Barn is typically not in the five- and six-figure price range, there is a wide variety of interesting and quality material to be had. Partnering up a few times a year to host live auctions, auctioneers Harold French and Janet Langdell typically attract a good crowd to their sales.
Langdell Homestead Auction Barn’s August 8 sale featured a wide variety of items new to the market and attracted their usual mix of collectors, dealers and auction buffs, many of whom come for the entertainment. Offerings ran the gamut from vintage electronics like ham radio transmitters, Radiotron vacuum tubes, a US Navy Signal Generator and early Apple computers, to pieces of Salmon Falls Stoneware, fine art, jewelry and a selection of sterling and coin silver.
“We were very pleased with the outcome,” French said. “Overall, it was a strong sale with good participation. We had a good crowd, and we do live sales without online presence, so this is a good old-fashioned country auction.”
More owing to their precious metals base rather than artistic value, gold and sterling silver performed well all day, he said. A collection of Salmon Falls Stoneware, which came in from an estate French is handling, also did well.
Sold sterling silver included this Paul Revere bowl, $500 (left); pierced-cover centerpiece bowl, $1,400 (center rear); creamer, sugar and salt cellar, $375 (center), shaker, $115 (front right) and weighted candlesticks, $75 (rear right).
Salmon Falls is a name well known in New Hampshire and attracted collectors near and far. The salt-glazed stoneware with folky cobalt blue decoration after popular Nineteenth Century designs are highly collectible today. While common pieces can go for under $100 each, more desirable are large, unusual or statement pieces, particularly those signed by the pottery’s artists like Helen Berg, who served as the Dover, N.H., company’s art director and chief decorator. The company began in 1986 and sold off its final inventory earlier this year after its founder retired. “For stuff that we used to pick up at yard sales for $6, now that Salmon Falls is closed down, the collectors are scrambling for it,” French reported.
Echoing his comments, Langdell noted in separate phone conversation that the pottery was very interesting. “It ranged from the very common stuff that were $10, $20 and $30 lots up to a few hundred dollars for some of the more unusual or scarcer examples. It’s still a very hot market around here among collectors and the rarer, the more desirable,” she stated, noting a simple orange juicer brought $250 and is going to a collector in Maine. A Salmon Falls flared mug, made in 2005, with a bunny and a snowman, went to a collector in Pennsylvania for $70, she added.
Asked her impressions of the sale, she said, “It was a great sale and I think everyone had a good time. We love doing nice old-fashioned auctions up here in the wilds of Wilton Center, N.H. I know our collectors were happy, our dealers were happy and our consignors were happy, so it’s a win-win all around.”
Among paintings was this Mabel J. Williams watercolor she painted at her studio in Jackson, N.H. that realized $100.
“While this was not one of our more robust sales where we have sold, for instance, aesthetic period boudoir tables for $7,500, miniature portraits on ivory for $2,200 or a collection of Civil War letters for $16,000, it is still another example of ‘you never know what’s tucked away in a box, in a closet or under a bed,’” she added, noting that the allure is in the hunt and discovering a hidden gem. “That’s where the fun comes into this business, along with meeting new people among both our consignors and buyers.”
The collaboration between the two auctioneers, who run separate auctions also, extends back one generation. The Langdell family has been in the auction business since 1908 thanks to Luther Mark Langdell and then his son Theodore Roosevelt Langdell. T.R. helped Harold’s father John French become an auctioneer in the early 1960s, Janet Langdell said. Harold and Janet have worked together at auctions since they were in their early teen years and today they continue the collaboration started by their parents offering the public a traditional in-person country auction experience. Looking ahead to the future, Harold’s grandson, Dustin, is now an integral member of the auction runners team. Dustin has been attending sales at the Langdell Homestead Auction Barn since he was two years old and is now working them as a strapping young lad of 16.
Prices quoted include the buyer’s premium as reported by the auction house. Their next auction is planned for October 24. For information, 603-848-8588 or [email protected].
