Wednesday, July 31, 2002
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Wednesday, July 31, 2002 |
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Auctioneer 'hammers' out 'Gone with the Wind' items By CAROLYN CARY
When I met Herb Bridges and his "Gone With The Wind" collection over three decades ago, it never entered either of our minds that it would one day bring us to Christie's in Manhattan, in the heart of New York City. Like Topsy, the collection just grew and grew. Bridges has tried for several years to find a home for the 5,000 items in Georgia, where it could stay intact. Unfortunately, corporate heads are no longer from the South and have no understanding nor appreciation for this unique memorabilia. He has known that his three children have other interests, and so the only thing left was to hand it all over to Christie's. He had served as their source of authentication on like items for some time. Last fall the famous auction house began sending its various experts to Sharpsburg to inventory the books, posters, dolls, etc. Everything was put into lots 348 of them in all. Promptly at 10 a.m. last Wednesday, the auction was open and the audience of approximately 120 people, plus those dozen or so that were calling in, began the bidding process. The morning session, from 10 a.m. to noon, covered the first 181 lots and the afternoon session, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., saw the hammer fall on all of them. The morning auctioneer was a delightful person, probably in his mid-30s, and kept the audience relaxed and glad to be there. A large video screen sat high up on a wall facing the audience, and each lot was shown until the hammer fell on the final bid. A large board on the other side of that wall reflected the bidding price as it was progressing, not only in U. S. dollars, but in British pounds, Hong Kong dollars, Euro dollars, Japanese yen and Swiss francs. Lot #15, for instance, was an American poster, selling for $3,000 U.S., but was 348,690 in Japanese yen. I noted that bids starting out in the hundreds of dollars were increased by $50 at a time. Bids that got up into the thousands were increased by a hundred dollars or more at a time. One man, probably in his early 70s, bought three posters. After the hammer fell on his third purchase, he got up to leave. The auctioneer commented he could stay longer and the reply came, "I got three kids and three posters, and I'm leaving." I learned that there are two prices per lot, the hammer price and the premium price. The hammer price is the highest amount bid in the room. However, when the party actually paid for it, a premium fee going to Christie's was added, plus 8.5 percent New York tax. A sweater worn by "Melanie" went for a hammer price of $14,000, but the premium price was $16,730. All in all, it was an awesome experience at 20 Rockefeller Plaza.
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