Date: Fri 27-Feb-1998

Publication: Ant

Author: JUDIR

Quick Words:

Copak

Full Text:

Attendance Crush At Copake

By Rita Easton

COPAKE, N.Y. -- Arriving at Copake Auction at 11:30 am for the New Year's Day

noon auction, many attendees thought they had misread the starting time. A

steady stream of people were leaving the auction hall, heading for their cars.

Was it over?

Inside, the overflowing crush of people made it impossible to move more than

inches at a time. Getting a bidding number took 15 minutes in line, where the

rumor circulated that there was a $10 charge for a seat, but that the seating

was all sold out anyway. Auctioneer Mike Fallon was announcing the location of

fire exits, and requesting the removal of a vehicle that was blocking another

in the parking lot. Everyone talked at once. Chaos reigned ... and from the

chaos came the best auction the gallery has ever had.

This 18th annual event offered 800 lots, spiced with a few humorous asides, at

the rate of 115 an hour (kudos to Mr Fallon), to 399 registered bidders, an

additional 116 absentees, and over 425 phone bids. The resulting $360,000

gross was the best ever for the auction house.

Garnering the highest bid of $29,700, a circa 1740 walnut Rhode Island

porringer top tea table with pad feet went to a dealer.

An inlaid Hepplewhite Eighteenth Century Southern sideboard, with replaced

brasses, in mahogany, sold to a dealer at $12,650; a set of six sabre leg

Federal New York chairs in mahogany reached $7,700; a pair of acanthus carved

dropleaf tables brought $4,400 from a dealer; a Nineteenth Century New

Hampshire Sheraton bowfront chest was purchased at $4,950; and an unadvertised

Nineteenth Century Pennsylvania hutch table reached $4,400.

A Nineteenth Century double Gothic mahogany bed, with an imposingly high

headboard surmounted with a carved crest, achieved $4,625; an Eighteenth

Century slantlid Salem desk in mahogany, standing on ogee bracket feet,

brought $5,500; an early Hudson River armchair reached $2,650, while a second

sold at $2,035; and a folky hooked rug, measuring approximately six by four

feet, with many domestic and wild animals and birds surrounding a church,

having a leaf border, went out at $4,400.

A gray painted Civil War drum realized $2,530; a three-piece set consisting of

a massive partners' desk and two matching kas style cabinets sold at $10,175

to a dealer; an unadvertised Eighteenth Century Queen Anne highboy in maple

reached $6,600; a 12 inch long folk art bicycle with rider, with a small

"cycling 1879" signed mounted on the platform, from the Roger Johnson

collection, rang up $4,200 from a Texas collector; and a tramp art collection

of 30 pieces ranged from $200 to $1,325.

Prices quoted include a required 10 percent premium.