THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, April 27, 1996 TAG: 9604270330
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KRYS STEFANSKY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium: 97 lines
Berry spoons.
That's all she wanted. Two little English spoons appraised at $40 to $80.
Linda Dyer sat in a metal folding chair embossed with the word Sotheby's. She crossed her fingers, heart, everything she had. She hoped for one of the buys of the century, flatware from Jackie Kennedy Onassis' silverware drawer.
``Honey, just let me put those spoons in my pocketbook and get back on the plane,'' muttered Dyer. The Virginia Beach resident was in Manhattan Thursday afternoon. She walked through the white-tented entrance past the metal detectors into one of the coveted seats at Sotheby's, the Upper Eastside auction house where, for this week only, pieces of Camelot have been for sale.
She joined the crowd of other well-heeled hopefuls - women wearing diamonds as big as lima beans on their fingers, Chanel bags dangling from shoulder chains and a few ridiculous hats.
``My little spoons,'' moaned Dyer, smoothing the skirt of her fuchsia suit and looking at people who all seemed to be measuring up each other and each other's pocketbooks. ``They couldn't possibly mean as much to these people as they mean to me.''
Up the gray, marble staircase face to face with the bigger-than-life photo of Jackie in her riding helmet, past the mahogany Payment counter and the Property Pickup station Dyer got her bidding paddle. No. 1048.
Then for two hours she was part of the craze. This odyssey she had called ``surreal'' the night before started at 5 a.m. A car to D.C., a plane to New York and a cab to Sotheby's by noon. Watching the auction hype this week, she was afraid her spoons might go home with somebody else.
So far, the daily sale of the former first lady's worldly goods had been a wild ride. Buyers feverishly outbid each other in person, by phone, by fax, paying exorbitant prices that rocketed light years past the estimated value of almost every item.
A watercolor of an owl valued at $2,000 sold for $27,000. A Louis XVI clock valued at $7,000 brought $40,000. Little Caroline's rocking horse appraised at $2,000, sold for $85,000.
The fervor caught some by surprise. Not Dyer. ``I'm a Jackie junkie,'' she said. ``I'm sure there's a support group for us somewhere.''
Like many other baby boomers, Dyer, 41, was raised on the Jackie mystique that began as soon as the elegant young woman with the bouffant hairdo entered the White House on the arm of her dashing husband. Then, the beloved first lady, the almost royal Jackie, became a tragic heroine fascinating young girls like Dyer in the '60s and '70s. A second marriage, being widowed again, and finally professional success only added to Jackie's allure.
Today, Dyer, a former model and actress, is author of two books and president of Pretty Me Inc., a finishing school for girls that she operates in Belk and Leggett department stores in eight states on the East Coast. In her closet, she has a collection of pillbox hats she inherited from her mother and Aunt Liz. In her dresser, kid and doeskin gloves a la Jackie. And in her heart, a nostalgia for everything Kennedy.
Two years ago, Dyer wept when she heard that her heroine had died. ``I sat right over there on the rug and cried,'' she said, pointing to a place on her bedroom floor. ``It was like another chapter of your childhood . . .'' she paused and chopped one hand into the palm of the other, ``gone.''
The news clippings of Onassis' death she added to her ``Jackie stuff'' of books and magazines collected over the years. She even videotaped the funeral.
So buying the auction catalog a few weeks ago felt natural.
``All I have to hear is `Jackie' and I hyperventilate,'' Dyer said.
She was one of 3,000 people who won tickets in a drawing. The rest were snatched up by regular Sotheby's clients.
Watching the first two days of the four-day auction on live TV, Dyer knew her chances of bringing home Jackie's berry spoons were slim to none. On Tuesday, a threadbare mahogany footstool little Caroline had used - a footstool appraised at $150 - went for $29,000. Wednesday the madness went further. A jade pendant worth $200 sold for $11,500. Thursday afternoon, the pair of 9-inch spoons were on the auction block for no more than the price of a good pair of shoes. ``Do-able,'' Dyer said while still home in Virginia Beach.
As Sotheby's giant gray carpeted turntable spun to show each item, Dyer flashed her paddle to bid on the affordable stuff. Salt cellars, ash trays, a candy dish.
They all went for thousands.
Behind her, Kathleen Herbein, a homemaker from Reading, Pa., snagged an illustration for a Persian manuscript for just $4,000. To win it, she had to beat back a bidding war with an invisible telephone buyer.
Despite applause from the audience after her victory, the inflated prices annoyed her.
``Some things became a theater of the absurd,'' said Herbein. ``Twenty-six thousand dollars for a candy dish is just unreasonable.''
So was the price of the berry spoons.
Sold. To the highest bidder. For $8,500.
It was not Dyer.
``But I was there,'' she said, smiling outside Sotheby's and hailing a cab for home. MEMO: Editor's note: This story is being rerun due to technical problems in
yesterday's editions. by CNB