UPDATE Feb.17, see below

Lets have some fun folks

The featured piece of furniture at the upcoming March 11&12, 2006 Craftsman Auction is a custom made Roycroft sideboard. The preliminary description and estimate is below. The contest is open to registered forum members with a post count of five or more.

The contest is: Guess the hammer price (before commission) and whoever is closest, above or below, wins a preliminary copy of my 'Arts & Crafts Furniture Makers' data base which currently sits at something like 80 pages long, 200 makers, 150 pictures of original shop marks and original catalogues, notes on location, dates of operation, furniture types, noted links to other companies, and other historical annotations. As a registered member you can edit your guess at any time up to the day before the sale when I lock the thread (I'll pick the exact time closer to the date, depending on what I'm doing that weekend). This also gives new members the time to get their post count up (no spam please LOL). One piece of advice here, the rare and unusual usually goes above estimate, and given the maturity of the high-end furniture market, meaning there really aren't that many super rare pieces left for high-end collectors to fight over, I would guess that this piece will go over estimate. More information will be posted as it becomes available for this sale - the actual catalogue is not up on the web yet but when it is, it will be posted.

GOOD LUCK

Unique Roycroft Sideboard custom made for the home of Elbert and Alice Hubbard, descended through the family and consigned by a grand-daughter of Alice Hubbard.

Estimate $20,000-30,000

UPDATE Feb. 17 - Tha catalogue for this sale is now on-line and you'll need Macromedia flash player to view it; you can just look at it on the site or download and save a copy (which you want to do for future reference )

http://www.ragoarts.com/

new pictures and new info for this piece:

"The sideboard was custom-built at the Roycroft shops for the Sharp house on Billington Rd. in East Aurora. Ownership reversed to my grandmother after she and my grandfather married in 1917 and moved to the Hubbard farm across the road (then known as Concord Farm). It graced their dining room for many years. When my parents moved in to their first house in 1957, my grandparents gave them the sideboard."

Miriam Hubbard Roelof's grandson

Lot 59 ROYCROFT

Important sideboard with leaded-glass cabinet doors over a mirrored back, three small drawers flanked by cupboard doors over a linen drawer all having original copper hardware. Beautiful original finish and patina, top re-joined to lower portion with pegs, one side panel has a seam separation. Carved orb and cross mark on center stile. 75 1/2" X 65 1/2" X 21" $20,000-30,000

$45,000

this is a good original example of the strap hinges and pulls reintroduced by stickley/rockler

$42,750.00

I think the final price will surprise everyone. My guess $87,500

A shot in the dark at $51,500

This is a true beauty! my best guess would be $355,000.
I have a WEBSTER MFG. CO old wood vanity-#127/chair. Made in Wisconsin? Have had since I was a child in the 50's. The Vanity had a 3-way mirror attached. I still have it tho the mirror needs redone and mirror needs to be put all back together. Has been painted many times too. Still had the original paper label attached until recently. Still have it. Would really like to know about it or how to find out about it?

quote:

Originally posted by chars:
This is a true beauty! my best guess would be $355,000.
I have a WEBSTER MFG. CO old wood vanity-#127/chair. Made in Wisconsin? Have had since I was a child in the 50's. The Vanity had a 3-way mirror attached. I still have it tho the mirror needs redone and mirror needs to be put all back together. Has been painted many times too. Still had the original paper label attached until recently. Still have it. Would really like to know about it or how to find out about it?

At 355 grand that would put it in the top five or so of prices paid for A&C - would rival the Barbara Streisand price for a Gus Stickley sideboard. To be an official entry you need to get your post count up to five, so keep posting

With regard to Webster, scroll down a few threads for some information on this company. It doesn't seem like it was a really famous company but nonetheless your piece might be worth fixing up. Post pictures if you can, including the label.

when is the auction date?

quote:

Originally posted by don szymanksy:
when is the auction date?

I could tell you or you could just read the second line at the top.....

The Hubbard Provenance is going to have a great deal to do with the final price. I suspect it may even reach into the 6 figure range.

Fred

Hello Fred and All,
Due to the early demise of Elbert and Alice on the Lusitania Ship when it was sunk by German U boat and the fact that there were few actual pieces that Elbert had anything to do with and the rarity of this piece I am going to estimate the selling price at $124,900.

Respectfully,

Ralph Jones

original post UPDATED Feb.17

Hey Stonecat,
Thanks for adding the extra pictures as well as the Roycroft mark.

Respectfully,

Ralph Jones

I think I have enough posts now...

$66,500 and that is just guessing. It seems very difficult to project what something like this could go for. So how do they come up with the estimate for something like this that has no history at auction and there isn't another one like it? Maybe all the folks at the Craftsman auction house just stand around the water cooler, say what they would pay for it, and then they slap an estimate on it... I do know that they usually try to be very conservative on their estimate.

i assume they would compare to other like (form and structure, not historical significance) pieces and get an idea that way. i think the historic part is completely unknowable.

Agreed, it has a relatively simple boxy shape and look, not anything dramatic in the style department other than the finish and hardware, but finish and hardware are quite nice. Historical value is truly the big ???? Should this be back on the Roycroft Campus as a museum piece, or should it be in the Whatever Museum of Modern Art, or should it be in the collection of a Hollywood celeb, or in the estate of an annonymous wealthy collector so they can fill it with mega-thousands of dollars of art pottery???

I haven't found any other pre-sale information to add at this point. The contest will close at midnight Friday EST. I'll throw in my prediction of....$245,000....hey why not I look at this way, there are at least two very wealthy people that know this is for sale, and they know they will never get it cheaper (relatively speaking). They also know, as do we, that the best Gus sideboard to come to market originally sold for over 300,000 and when it was re-sold a few years later it went for over 500,000, and if it were to come to sale again..who knows.

LOCKED until showtime.

There's a chance I might actually miss this Saturday morning, so please anyone watching, get the price. In case people don't know, you can follow the bidding by live streaming - go to the ragoarts site and click around, you should be able to figure it out (might have to be a registered ebayer however; I forget from last time).

The other highlight piece of furniture to watch is lot 147, a Harvey Ellis table, estimate $35,000 to $50,000 but somehow I think the Roycrofty will go higher.

Hammer price $35,000 - Wow I thought it would fly

CURRY wins

Gotta go, workin from my laptop right now, I'll check back later.

Hey Stonecat,
I can hardly believe that it went that cheap, it went for way less than I thought it would as I do believe it was a one of a kind.

WOW, I am awl struck. Oh, well you can't be right all the time, huh?

Respectfully,

Ralph Jones