Date: Fri 30-Oct-1998

Publication: Ant

Author: SHIRLE

Quick Words:

Wiedreseim

Full Text:

Wiedreseim Historical Highlights

w/3 cuts

By Rita Easton

CHESTER SPRINGS, PENN. -- Following a two-hour preview, Wiederseim Associates,

Inc. held an auction offering more than 400 lots at the Montgomery School.

More than 250 registered bidders competed for property consigned from estates

and collections from Chester County, the Main Line, and Lancaster County,

including the Slaymaker home of "White Chimneys" in Gap, Penn. The historic

home has been occupied by eight generations of the same family, and was known

for a second-floor museum that was open to the public. A gross of $220,000 was

realized.

The starring lot was the Civil War uniform of Lieutenant Jacob Jones Storer of

the New Hampshire 13th Volunteer Regiment, which brought $18,700. The lot

included a frock coat bearing Lt Storer's name sewn in on the inner arm, two

brass buckles, a mess kit, a silverplate cup, and a knife and fork monogrammed

with the owner's initials. It was purchased by a phone bidder.

A palace-sized Lilihan rug with overall floral design reached $3,850; a room

sized Kashan realized $2,420; a room sized Heriz with center medallion on a

red field achieved $6,600; and a Ferahan runner, 12 foot nine inches by three

foot seven inches, fell within the $1,5/2,000 estimate at $1,760.

A pillar and scroll mantel clock by Seth Thomas achieved $1,980; a Baltimore

card table sold at $2,640; and an inlaid mahogany dressing box made aboard

"Old Ironsides" in 1832 by the ship's carver, Joseph Cox, for the

Constitution's executive officer, George Washington Storer, went to a phone

buyer at $4,125.

Following his services on the Constitution, Storer went on to become an

admiral in the US Navy. The buyer of the lot also purchased the auction's top

lot.

A set of seven Windsor side chairs in maple and pine, having been slightly

reduced, with one leg somewhat chewed by the family dog, sent out at $990; a

Moravian school silkwork mourning scene made by Eliza H. Dulton, who attended

the Bethlehem Female Semenary in 1812, estimated at $600/900, was purchased at

$1,650, and a Navajo Hopi kachina doll, circa 1930, retaining its original

polychrome decoration, sold at $1,430.

A primitive painting of a horse and sulky, "Dan Patch," signed Druke Miller,

reached $1,320; a rare daybook kept by Chester County clockmaker John Boyd,

dated 1829, listing an inventory of local clocks to be worked on, went to a

Chester City museum at $950; and from the Slaymaker museum, a collection of 60

Taft campaign buttons realized $2,750, sold as a single lot, and 30 Theodore

Roosevelt buttons fetched $2,420.

Coming from a local home, a consignment of Lionel trains brought out the toy

collectors. A Lionel Transit set, including #18 and #19, a parlor car, and

observation car #190, brought $990; a rare Lionel steam locomotive with tender

reached $4,400; an Ives #3217 with red locomotive and freight station went out

at $990; and a tin lithographed trolley, circa 1915, eight inches long, #810,

was purchased at $1,540.

Ted Wiederseim noted that "private collectors outbid dealers" by far.

Prices quoted reflect a required ten percent buyers premium.