Morphy Auctions' March 30-31, April 1 Spring Sale Morphy’s 2200-lot no-reserve Spring auction features rare antique toys and banks from the Bob Brady collection and part II of the Gary Selmonsky comic character collection. Illustrated catalog online.
Norman – I’d come prepared to buy. I didn’t have the resources to participate in the Ed Mosler tag sale back in the 1970s, but when the Perelman Museum was liquidated, I sold an apartment just to get through the door – you had to commit to spending $50,000 to get in, and within 30 seconds they sold $4 million in goods. It was worth it. That’s where I got the Secor Brudder Bones and a few of my best mechanicals.”
Brady’s mechanical banks are highlighted by a Horse Race bank from the Covert and Gertrude Hegarty collection, a Shepard Hardware Picture Gallery formerly in the Curt Katzlof collection, and a Kyser & Rex Circus bank previously in the Oliver Clark collection. The Kenton Mama Katzenjammer, in all-original condition, came from the Alan Joy collection. Other mechanicals include a Stevens Paddy & the Pig, a purple Mosque bank (“the only purple variation I know of – they’re usually green or japanned”), First- and Second-Degree variations of the Initiating bank, and a “beautiful example” of Stevens’ Boy Robbing a Bird’s Nest.
Brady also consigned a rare pattern for the Boy & Bulldog bank, a few cap shooters and a number of doorstops and paperweights, which will be included in Saturday’s session immediately after the banks. Dan Morphy said the Spring sale contains “probably the largest assortment of figural cast iron ever to hit the market at auction.” The selection includes more than 150 doorstops from the Jan and Watt White collection, more than 40 figural bottle openers, 50+ sets of cast-iron doorknockers and more than 150 additional pieces of figural, collectible cast iron. Morphy estimates a good 95 percent of the pieces to be in near-mint-plus condition.
Doorstops include many rare types by Hubley, Littco and other desirable American manufacturers, with the premier lot being a colorful Uncle Sam in striped trousers. “This whole section of the sale is as good as it gets, condition wise,” said Morphy. “There are some unbelievable paperweights and doorknockers, mint in their boxes and just as they came from the Hubley factory.”
Sale details:
Diamond International Galleries-owned Morphy Auctions will hold its Spring 2006 sale March 30-31 and April 1 in the saleroom area of the Adamstown Antique Gallery, 2000 N. Reading Rd., Denver, PA 17517 (on the Adamstown antique strip). Auction sessions commence at 12 noon on Thursday, March 30 and Friday, March 31; and 10 a.m. on Saturday, April 1. The entire inventory may be previewed from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. any day leading up to the sale except Wednesdays, which are by appointment only. An exception to note: the gallery will be open for previewing on Wednesday, March 29, the day before the sale’s opening session. On all three days of the auction, the preview will begin at 8 a.m.
Bid in person, by phone (please arrange in advance), by fax, absentee or live via the Internet as the auction is taking place through eBay Live Auctions. An electronic version of
