Big sales planned for Mar. 28-29, Apr. 4 by Philip Weiss An astounding 2,000 lots, mostly fresh-to-the-market merchandise in a broad range of categories, will be sold at multi-estate sales planned for March 28-29 and April 4 by Philip Weiss Auctions.
News-Antique.com - Mar 06,2009 - (Oceanside, N.Y.) - An astounding 2,000 lots – mostly fresh-to-the-market merchandise from prominent estates and collections – will be sold at auctions planned for Mar. 28-29 and Apr. 4 by Philip Weiss Auctions. The sales will be conducted at the firm's spacious gallery, located at #1 Neil Court in Oceanside, N.Y. Bids will also be fielded absentee, by phone and online (via Proxibid and iCollector).
“Despite the economic woes our country is now facing, we're looking forward to a great four-part sale over the course of three days, on back-to-back weekends,” said Philip Weiss. “The key to our success is securing fresh-to-the-market, quality items that have never been on the market before. Some auction houses are content to recycle the same items over and over. Not us. Fresher is always better.”
The weekend of Mar. 28-29 will comprise three sessions – two on Saturday and one on Sunday. The first Saturday session, beginning at 10 a.m., will feature an impressive collection of medical and scientific instruments. Included will be medical and dental items; a collection of calculators and slide rules; office items (early check punches and registers); and pre-1950 spy and surveillance equipment.
Highlights will include a previously unrecorded 19th-century Kwik Calculator; Pascaline Calculator; McFarlane's Calculating Cylinder; Higgins Patent (mechanical) Calculating Triangle; Wheilon Calculometer; Bair-Fulton American Calculator; and numerous 19th- and 20th-century slide rules, including some special-purpose rules for artillery, brewing and other, more esoteric applications.
The office machine portion will include an Abbott Automatic Check Perforator, Lightning Check Punch and United States Check Punch; an early mechanical envelope sealer; and rare, vintage pencil sharpeners, to include a Perfect Pencil Pointer and a Jupiter Pencil Mechanical Sharpener.
Medical lots will include Civil War-era amputation sets; a scarce cased Ammoniaphone; rare ophthalmic items (including a Dr. Culbertson's Prisoptometer); many unusual quack devices; porcelain enemas; anesthesia collectibles; ENT (ear-nose-throat) items; urological instruments; and more.
Finally, the surveillance equipment section will contain an FBI “black bag” and a cased U.S. Army 1944 Signal Corps listening device. Session I will also feature a large collection of Red Cross material, to include posters, pins, medical books and an impressive grouping of World War II posters in near-mint condition. Many had been acquired at the time of their printing and neatly stored ever since.
The second session, beginning at 4 p.m., will feature two large estates, loaded with fresh-to-the-market merchandise. A few major lots include a monumental Sevres urn; a pair of Chippendale wing chairs (Philadelphia, circa 1750-1775); a period American Sheraton sofa (circa 1800); an American walnut slant-front desk (circa 1720); Lalique vases; KPM and Staffordshire porcelain; and Sevres urns.
Other expected top lots of the session include a 19th-century 12-light dore bronze chandelier; a running horse weather vane by J.W. Fiske (N.Y., circa 1880); a 19th-century cast-iron Neptune sculpture attributed to J.W. Fiske; a historic period walnut campaign desk; a heavily carved figural oak dining room table with eight chairs; and a French inlaid commode with figural dore bronze mounts.
