Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 1, 1995 TAG: 9506020027
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRISTOPHER HENSON SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE LENGTH: Long
With that, Bennie Long, an antiques collector and dealer from New Market, buys a 200-year-old Chippendale walnut bachelor's chest for $44,850.
And feels good about it.
"I knew Henry," Long says. "I sold him several of the pieces here. I thought I might come down and buy a few of them back."
Dr. Henry Deyerle, of Harrisonburg, began collecting pieces of America's history with his sister in 1951. He searched throughout Ohio, Pennsylvania and the Virginias.
By the time of his death last year, Dr. Deyerle had amassed the largest and most historically significant collection of folk art and furniture in Virginia. For this he is purported to have spent several hundred thousand dollars.
At the Boar's Head Inn in Charlottesville last weekend, the collection of some 800 pieces sold at auction for more than $4.6 million. Sotheby's, the New York auction house, executed what it called the largest estate sale in 15 years.
For two days, people came from across the country to bid on some astonishing antiques. Forty-four years' worth of collecting and painstaking documentation, by a man renowned for his humanitarianism as well as his passion for our history, sat waiting for the highest bidders.
By the end of it all, several magnificent items would earn record-breaking prices. Time and again, the high drama of all-out bidding wars would hush a crowd of 600 people. Part spectator sport, part history lesson, this was the sale of the Deyerle Collection of Important Americana.
Mammoth tent sale
There are geese galore on the pond, protecting fluffy goslings with a hiss to pedestrians, swooping in from some corner of UVa's nearby campus, honking like Edsels in a traffic jam of webbed feet and stretched wings.
Nearby stands a huge white tent where dollars climb over a PA system and the gavel smacks a stately podium more than 800 times in two days.
Smack. A leather key basket, no bigger than your hand, sells for $41,400.
Smack. A pine chest of drawers for $211,500.
Smack. A painted dower chest for $343,500.
Thumbing through the hundreds of pieces of earthenware and glass in the auction's catalog, one might overlook a Staffordshire ``Rainbow'' teapot dated 1840. The Sotheby's estimated sale price is around $1,800.
However, bidding interest is heavy. The price rises to $10,000, $11,000.
"Will you say 12, sir?" calls auctioneer Carlton Rochell. A man nods his head slightly. "Twelve it is. To the gentleman on the aisle." And turning to the other bidder, "Will you say 13?"
There is a murmur in the crowd. "Fair warning, then, at 12," he says raising his gavel. Another nod stops him, and the stakes are raised by a thousand dollars. And again, and again.
David Good, an antiquities dealer from Ohio, puts it all in perspective. "The piece is flawless," he says. "It's magnificent." Good does not bid on it.
"Sixteen thousand dollars is your bid," says Rochell finally. And then he fixes his eyes on the bidder, an antique dealer from New York. "Do you hear me now ... sixteen thousand dollars."
A century-and-a-half of tea leaves in infinite swirls could not tell that brilliantly painted teapot its own fortune.
Smack. With the buyer's premium of 10 percent to 15 percent added to the price, it is purchased for $18,400.
"That seems like a lot now," says Good. "But, I'd say that gentleman is going to be glad he paid it in a few years."
Feverish bidding
German painter Edward Beyer came to America around 1848. In years following he produced a great many works depicting scenes of mid-century Virginia, several of which are on the auction block at the Boar's Head Inn.
One painting is a four-foot-wide panorama of a placid village resting between farms and mountains beneath an azure sky. It is titled "Churches, Blacksmith Shop and College: A View of Salem of Virginia in 1855." The details are remarkable, here a church spire, there two gentlemen on horseback. Grand white columns anchor the eye to the work's center.
After some feverish bidding the gavel falls at $118,000. There is applause. The Mayo Gallery in Richmond has bid on behalf of a private client who wishes to donate the work to the Virginia Historical Society.
"We sat down and talked about limits," says Robert Mayo of a meeting with the buyer. "They told me to use my judgment if the bidding got too tight."
The society is building a collection of Virginia paintings and painters for a future exhibition, according to Mayo. Did he consider the final bidding "tight"?
"It was GETTING tight," he says with a smile. "But, I had a few pops left in me."
A word of caution
On Friday morning the last viewers shuffle through the exhibition of the Deyerle Collection in a ballroom at the Boar's Head.
A William and Mary drop-leaf table is flipped on its top. "These screws must have been used to replace some of the original nails," says one of five people examining the table's underside.
Elsewhere, drawers over a century old are held up to the light, scrutinized for the tiniest blemish. Some use flashlights, others consult worn reference books for clues as to a piece's worth.
At the auction tent's entrance, people from as far away as Texas sign up for bidding paddles.
For those buyers unfamiliar to Sotheby's, a credit check is often performed via computer. The number on each paddle will become the identity of each bidder.
Other prospective buyers have already mailed or faxed in early bids.
Still others have requested Sotheby's associates to phone them when a certain piece comes up for bids.
Battle by phone
When a 165-year-old paint-decorated chest from Mahantongo Valley, Pa., sells to a phone bidder for over $200,000, everyone wants to know who is on the other end of the line.
"I can't tell you who got that piece," Sotheby's spokesperson Kate Drury says. "Just say it's an 'American collector.'"
She points to three operators who are sitting at a bank of phones near the podium. "They're talking to people all over," she says. "I overheard one of them ask their bidder, 'How long are going to be in Puerto Rico?'"
On several occasions, two anonymous bidders battle by phone. For these moments the crowd maintains absolute silence, perhaps trying to hear a faint and famous voice crackle from the receiver.
The auction's second session begins mid-afternoon on Friday. The sun is high, beating down against the tent. Despite large fans blowing "cool" air across the growing crowd, the air is sultry. Clothing clings to desperate perspiration.
"Ladies and gentleman: a word of warning," admonishes auctioneer William Stahl Jr. "Do not use your paddle to fan yourself!"
True enough, 20 or so bidders suddenly stop waving the paddles against their flushed faces, now aware they'd been inadvertently signaling bids to the man at the podium.
Big-dollar drama
On Saturday, there is one last session of sales. Nearly 400 pieces are bid on, and sold, in under five hours. The quick pace is managed by three auctioneers seasoned in spotting paddles in the crowd. They take turns at the podium.
In the front row June Stout of Green County, Pa., scores a Chippendale "High-boy" chest of drawers for $20,700. "I've got eight buildings back home full of this stuff," she says. She is quick to point out she is not hoarding knickknacks. "Hell yeah, I sell 'em," she says. "I'm putting my kids through school. My son is in a community theater back home. They have the most gorgeous sets, every piece on stage is mine. And I get my name in the program."
Sumpter Priddy, an antiques dealer from Richmond, is at the Boar's Head to buy some Deyerle pieces of regional interest. Priddy is bidding on behalf of Colonial Williamsburg. The group has targeted several pricey pieces.
Early on, a cast-iron fireback, circa 1730, causes a stir when its price soars to nine times its estimate. Priddy is bidding on it, holding his paddle close to his chest. With each thousand dollars he looks to his companions. They encourage him to continue. But when the price hits $64,000 he shakes his head, frowns...and lets it go. Robert Hicklin, a bidder in the back of the tent, claims it for the Virginia Historical Society.
Fifteen minutes later, the bidding is on a glazed redware figure of a goat, stamped Anthony Baecher of Winchester, circa 1880. One of the horns is cracked. Its estimated worth is $18,000. Priddy follows the bidding into the stratosphere and finally loses it to a phone buyer for $82,250.
He and his party are clearly frustrated.
At close to three o'clock, a pine chest becomes the center of attention. It is labeled "an important paint-decorated pine dower chest, attributed to Johannes Spitler, Shenandoah County, circa 1800." The Sotheby's estimate is between $40,000 and $60,000.
"I think you will be surprised at what the Spitler brings," says David Good. "The regional pieces are being hotly contested."
This red, white and blue chest, with painted fleur-de-lis, pin-wheels and quarter fans, is a treasure. The treasure. The gold at the end of this two-day rainbow.
Bidding starts at $20,000 and moves quickly to $100,000. There are buyers on the phones. Paddles wave at the ends of several eager arms.
But when the price reaches $200,000, all drop out but two, Sumpter Priddy and a private collector two rows behind him. Priddy turns to acknowledge the competition. He is frowning when he turns back around.
Priddy raises his paddle. $210,000.
The paddle pops up behind him. Another $10,000.
Priddy answers. And again, and again.
It is like watching an incredibly expensive game of Ping Pong. The blue paddles flash. Between them bounces a 200-year-old ball made of painted pine.
Two-hundred ninety thousand dollars. Priddy's bid causes his opponent to hesitate. No one is breathing inside the tent.
There is no air. On the pond the geese are going crazy.
The opposing paddle is raised. Six-hundred people gasp at once.
Three hundred thousand dollars.
This is it. Priddy smiles wide and raises his paddle, laying it on his chest. $310,000.
"Fair warning," is the call from the podium.
Smack.
Including the buyer's premium, the piece will cost Colonial Williamsburg $343,500, - the most money ever paid for a piece of painted furniture. The crowd explodes with applause. Priddy stands and takes a bow.
"I knew the price would go that high," he says later. Is it worth it?
"It's a beautiful thing," he says. "Worth every penny."
In the auction's catalog, Wendell Garrett offers this introduction to Dr. Henry Deyerle: "He recognized antiques as evidence of an American cultural tradition. Throughout his long and useful life, his faith in the old virtues and his love of early American handicraft never flagged. Although he devoted his regular working hours to medicine, his heart seems to have lain in the past."
In 44 years he collected the very love and labor of America's artisans. And while $4.6 million may seem an astounding figure, the fact is that history has been passed on - real and touchable and in excellent condition.
"It's only money, right?"
Indeed, not even that.
by CNB