So I guess you could say someone got a bargain? Based on the provenance etc it seems so. Are other items going around the estimated price?

Stonecat - Is there a possibility that the rest of us might one day be able to get our hands on your database? Maybe for a small fee or are there still plans for a web site? Congrats to Curry by the way! There is currently a project going on with the Yahoo Roycroft group to make available a collection of catalogues through PDFs. I'm not saying you should do that though Stonecat since you made the database yourself and it wasn't a collective effort. Neat idea though...

If I were in the financial position to say to myself "maybe my family needs another new car in the driveway or on the other hand how about this one of a kind Roycroft sideboard", I know what I would do. The Maine Antiques Digest sometimes covers these sales so maybe with luck there will be an article in weeks/months ahead with some insight, or maybe someone else with info will let us know.

I only caught some of the other furniture and I saw several things go above high estimate, but I missed the Harvey Ellis table (anyone catch this?). I'll try to catch a bunch of today's session.

My scheming for the database is that it will be a website. It continues to grow and doing print copy I don't think is an option because of costs. It now stands at something like 245 companies and 135 pages and too many pictures to count. It still has the feel of a DRAFT copy, but with more work it should be a final draft. I have been experimenting with conversion into pdf and I guess this is how I'll get a copy to CURRY on disk, so in theory there will be a decent pdf version sometime soon. I've also been trying the html thing, just to start the website process, while trying to teach myself web stuff at the same time. The pdf conversion kills some of the quality of the graphics (unless there is a way to adjust this that I haven't checked out yet), so a web version will be higher quality I assume. With a website I can also get people to contribute content but a website means more work and cost, and so on. I also want/need to do some introductory stuff so its not just an A-Z list. I'll keep playing with it to get it to a satisfactory draft final version and think about what to do next. I like the idea of pdf CD copies as way to make a few bucks and get it out for some feedback. I have to think/check out various stuff about copyrights as well because obviously much of my info is off of the web.

Congrats, Curry, I see a wink beside your guess, did you know something?

Sounds great Stonecat. You should definitely check out the discussion going on with the yahoo Roycroft group. They have been hashing out many of the same issues including copyright stuff. They have even had suggestions about the best way to get catalogue info into pdf form, what type of scanner to use that eliminates the book binding shadow you usually get when trying to scan a book, and the best way for others to contribute including if they have to pay. I look forward to seeing the database in whatever form you choose. It really is a shame that you have done all the work and then everyone else gets to benefit. Maybe you could set up a web site where you get limited access for free as an introduction and then you have to pay a one time fee to get a password and then you get access to it all. They have things like this set up on sites like ESPN. You can read some of the story but to get all the features you pay a fee. I would be more than happy to pay for access. I was trying to think of an alternative but it seems that a financial contribution is the best way for others to contribute given the massive amount of work you must have put into it already...

People could also just buy sets of CDs containing pdfs. And yes I do believe there is a way to maintain quality when converting. My wife does it for her business newsletter and she says that with her pdf converter she can go to properties and change the output quality before she uses the print to pdf function. This results in huge files since you maintain the quality of the photos so it might be a few cds even if you compress it. Good luck. Keep us updated.

One other thing - my wife uses Microsoft Publisher which works great for stuff like this. You should try it if you haven't already. You can move around pictures and text boxes like in powerpoint but it has the page layout like in MS word...except with a whole lot more features.

Let me know if you want someone to review it when you get it together!

Personally, I don't like the limited access thing because when I see that on a site I just go looking elsewhere where it might be free. I have some other ideas about cost recovery however, and I'm working on those . I have a full copy of Adobe so I'm sure the quality control things are in there, but I'll definately check out Publisher. Right now the data base is formatted in Word which means it can be saved/converted as a web page and this is where I'm at so far, plus playing with tabular columns, backgrounds, and stuff like that etc. etc.

...and they're about half way through todays session, no surprises from what I've seen of the furniture, more coming up in a while to check out, I don't know where they find all this great stuff..