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Sold.
There's a man in Manhattan. A wicked, scotch drinking man who between bouts of backgammon and chain-smoking Marlboro Reds, he shared an insider's secret. Never buy retail; bound from his mouth full of piss, vinegar and scotch covered bile. Never buy retail. Off the truck, I thought. But I don't need a DVD player, a super stereo or the new i-Phone. My sockets would smoke in super speed if hi-fi, wi-fi, HD or plasma anything shot its currents through tightly coiled cables. I like my walls and I don't want to see them up in smoke. What do you mean, I ask. Sheepishly covered in cigarette smoke. You can furnish your house - inside and out at Estate Auctions. He pushes his chair back from the table, grinding the hardwood, towards his desk where he punches the keyboard on a laptop with paperback size fingerprints. He lifts the computer as if lifting a leaf from the concrete and shows me the homepage of Bonhams and Butterfields San Francisco "SoMA" Estate auction. Stuff, all your stuff in the style of George III, Edward, Anne, Victoria, Louis, America, frickin' French and bric-a-brac. It's all here, including the Persian needlepoint. Eighteenth Century, Twentieth Century and that most popular period in between. All to be had by the high bid or only bid. Freeze frame images in black and white of the kid in the center aisle paddle up like a crossing guard holding the stop sign outside the schoolhouse. Cash registers clinking, credit cards swiping. A smile spanning the Panama Canal. Victory and the agony of losing to a bigger bank account. Sign me up. Buyer's commission, California state sales tax and all. I got in the SUV, back seats down, and sped across the Golden Gate fuming fast cash from the exhaust. I spent two hours or more circling the preview sale. Sitting on sofas that were as uncomfortable as solitary confinement at Alcatraz. I turned end tables upside down. Pulled tea tables between armchairs. Pulled framed works of art off the wall, looking for distinguishing marks beyond the catalog's provenance and estimates. And dragged my finger, slow, across layers of hundred year old dust. My strategy was simple. Furnish the house. Fill it with fastidious antiquities in the style of George, Edward, Anne, Victoria and Louis. Find the pieces that make a house a home and fit within the budget. Don't look at it like an outlay. See it as an investment. The man behind the backgammon board told me. If you move, if you outgrow, if you down right dislike any of it. Call the auction house and load up the hauler. Sell the shit right back. To the next high bidder at the next auction, a month, a year, ten years from now. Appreciation is the name of the game. Emotional and financial. I ended my day, with a laundry list of items. All of which on high estimate would seal my fate on the soup line. Good morning. Welcome to the realm of general rules and regulations memorized by the chiffon wearing chardonnay drinkers of noon day hours. I sized up the crowd as the auctioneer rambled on in the microphone. One hundred lots an hour the hammer comes down. I twirled paddle number 9-3-3 in my fingertips. I tested the waters on items I had no real affinity for, but would steal at a low price point. I bailed out before the bidding blistered the tight grip I had on my money. Time was flying, filled with money. Paintings, Prints, Photographs and the Decorative Arts were about to close. And there was one item, near the end, in which I fancied. It is an etching printed on Japanese paper with hand coloring in an edition of 95 and bearing the signature and stamp of Salvator Dali. It is called, "Le Pecheur" (The Fisherman) from the book "Les Amours de Cassandre." I always wanted to own a fake something. And Dali fakes are as ubiquitous as ants at a picnic. But let us not tie the cement shoes to his memory. It was his manager who mass-printed his work in the back of bar rooms and stamped the Surrealist genius signature to it. Sold it right out in front of the market, under Dali's up pointed nose and handlebar mustache. The room sighed when the mention of the lot number hit the airwaves. This was my chance to sneak in under the whispering word, fake. So, I did. And took it down for hundreds below estimate. What did I know that they didn't, sat in the minds behind the chuckle beneath their breath. The book (The Loves of Cassandra) was written by the 16th century poet Pierre Ronsard. And illustrated by Dali in 1968. Agreed. On the open market, the print was valueless, fake or not, but the narrative in my mind was worth the winning it. The room moved on. Dealers were waving in hot ticket items. The kind of decorative art and furniture that fills showrooms with oohs and aahs and "ain't that to die for" kind of phraseology. My first lot on a long list of "I need" furniture was approaching fast. A Queen Anne walnut, drop-leaf breakfast table. Circular. According to the auction catalog, the table is partially composed of 'antique elements' - to be examined more closely when it comes home and sits in my kitchen underneath a replica Dragonfly Tiffany hanging lamp pre-installed in the house. I make eye contact with the podium. The book read estimate is $700-$800. Before the bidding opens, the man in the gray flannel suit stares back at me and knows that I am in it. We'll do business on this, we silently communicate. He opens with a shockingly low start to the bidding - $350. Twenty-five dollars jumps and the table is at $425 before the man can mumble the bid is on the floor at $425. A sudden stop, he takes a breath. He fears the table is near its selling price, below estimate but above reserve. He looks in my direction. I nod and raise my hand holding the paddle. $450, center aisle. The previous high bidder reluctantly moves the money by another $25. I follow at $500 and the hammer comes down. Two hundred below estimate. Never buy retail. I begin to understand, said table sells for $2,500 on at ABC (care to leave your credit card under the) Carpet on Broadway and 19th Street, New York City. The table needs chairs. And the chairs in question follow in form and lot number. Four Queen Anne dining chairs. Two arm and two side chairs. Sturdy and comfortable chairs, I had written in my notes. The chairs are a honey-wood color with tannish-brown upholstery. The claw feet on the chairs will follow me home, a small allocation above the estimate. The long hours filled with lots upon lots of furniture for sale. I was a buyer now and the rotation of auctioneers acknowledged my presence as they stepped to the microphone. An early 20th Century 'oak parquetry' refectory table in the style of Louis XVI. To define, parquetry = parquet, like the flooring. Refectory = religious communal dining room. It is an extension table, the middle piece floats on the two side extensions, and it is about 7' when fully laid out. Monks and nuns, priests and Bishops padded themselves beneath their robes from this table. And so will I. Four French Provincial style ladder-back side chairs. Provincial = very (French) countryside. I was told that my house was/is a summer home. Hence no heat throughout. And when it reaches 100 F this summer, I will be wishing for cold winter mornings once again. The house was the main cottage of a bunch of cottages that lined the creek running through my back yard. The dilapidated second house on the property was the servants' station and cooking quarters for the cottages. That junk house needs a re-build, because it has an extension over the creek, and there is no better image than taking coffee there in the morning with the bubbling and babbling of water below the old wooden bridge that connects the sides of the creek but is no longer in service for horse and buggy, because it is broken down and dangerous. The property was called Sunny Brook Farms, or something of that ilk. And these chairs are small in stature but deceptively strong. Made by a farm hand or the hands of a large man as they are many years old but the wrapped straw cane or something, is still wound tight and surprising comfortable. They will go well with the table. More chairing ensued. There were two more lots, these in the "I want" category. A George III style mahogany armchair from the first half of the 20th Century. Another comfortable chair that will reside in either the living room or master bedroom, a place to sit when I tie my shoes. The wood is dark and dull and the chair has great arm rails with a 'paw-like' finish on the end and claw feet on the legs. The back of the chair is open, with the supports fanning upwards from the seat. Two more chairs. A pair of Edwardian, inlaid, walnut armchairs. From the first quarter of the 20th Century. The upholstery is a burnt orange/salmon color. Dull with age, not with wear. The upholstery covers the seat and the back, which is buttoned. The inlay design is fanciful and fierce. There is cornucopia reflected on the inner sides at the pit of the armrest. And serpents with lion heads on the top of the chairs. I withheld bidding on a George III style mahogany tea table that I wanted to separate the two chairs in the corner of my living room because the table went well above auction estimate. All in all a good day, but I got killed on the buyer's premium - 19.5% and sales tax, another 8.25%. And delivery. So, to fight against the extra expenditures, I have recently turned to San Francisco's native Craig's List. And for the cost, in cash for less than one of the tables above, I have secured a black with gold trimmed, antique roll-top desk; two French provincial side tables with heavy marble tops; and a dresser with mirror that looks like it belongs in a Tennessee Williams novella or a John Steinback novel. Stop by for a visit and let me know what you think. The next SoMA auction is scheduled for February 11th. Post - January'07 Back to home...
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