By JO ANN HUSTIS MARSEILLES, Ill. — The two-ring auction opened in an outdoor rural setting drenched in blazing sunlight and ended eight hours later still wrapped in Midwestern summer heat. Most likely, this was the only one-day public auction in northeastern Illinois where more than 1,900 lots of antique and vintage items were snapped up by about 240 registered bidders in an old fashioned sale on June 14. “I’ve never handled a sale this big before,” noted auctioneer Matthew Bullock, who founded Matthew Bullock Auctioneers of Ottawa, Ill., two years ago. “There was a lot of everything in this auction. This was one of those good old-fashioned farm sales. It wasn’t actually on a farm, but it was just like one,” he said of the location adjacent to a state park. Both guys and gals toted umbrellas against the summer sun to the field where two auctioneers dispensed of 14 hayrack loads of virtually everything owned by a three-generation family. A nearby 1970s dance hall held 150 vintage wood furniture pieces for the sale. About 20 boxes of hardbound books by noted authors, collectors’ magazines, two dozen large framed paintings and pictures from the late 1800s to early 1900s, and a myriad of other items from the garden, basement and storage shed also were included in the auction. “It took two weeks to ready this sale,” Bullock said of the Otto/Lillian Seidelman estate auction. A local newspaper ad had listed 840 items to be auctioned, including more than 50 crocks with two from the early Monmouth Pottery Co., 500 glass Mason and Ball fruit and veggie canning jars, tins, washboards, wooden advertising yardsticks, toys, wooden cigar boxes, wood kegs, more toys, Christmas decorations, costume jewelry, two boxes of vintage eyeglasses, old light fixtures and wire tomato cages from the garden. From the one-time dance hall, 1,000 45 RPM records were also included. The day’s top seller was a solid wood Mission style library table in good condition at $325, which Bullock noted was “a really good price.” Second place went to a wasp-waisted 1870s female store mannequin of cardboard and wood with cracked back that was purchased by a two-decade area antiques dealer at $310. “Pretty unique – the fact that it survived being made of cardboard,” Bullock said in his presale estimate of $300. The purchaser said he had never seen another like it, and he wasn’t sure whether to keep or sell the mannequin. Probably the biggest surprise of the sale were two children’s toys from the 1950s-1960s that brought $150 and $240 each. “A couple of oddball toys,” Bullock said. Also surprising were the winning bids on the crocks, ranging from $20 to $30 for the unnamed pieces to $235 to $245 for the signed models. The western crocks averaged $10 per gallon, or $60 for a six-gallon crock, for example. The furniture included many vintage kitchen, dining room and other casual chairs, which sold well for those in good condition. “The good stuff sold for good money,” he said. “There was good furniture and a lot of problem stuff, but overall, the furniture did OK.” Also selling well were the pictures with winning bids from $125 to $255 each. Among the many other vintage items was an L&M tin advertising sign that went at $55, wall mounted coffee grinder with crank and glass receptacle at $139, box lot of locomotive manuals at $190, kerosene barn lantern at $12.50, job lot of table flatware at $17.50, miner’s lamp with cracked chimney at $12.50, covered clear glass coconut container at $120, brass light fixture at $20, and a handful of cloth lamp wicks at $10. One flat with a dozen Mason and Ball canning jars went at $35, another at $30, a third flat at $25, and a fourth at $42.50. Other flats of about a dozen jars each went at $65, $30, $25, $20, $70, $40 and $30. “They’re nuts on these prices,” one antiques dealer said as he walked away. The dealer who bought the major share of canning jars told AntiqueWeek he planned to resell them. “People pay money for them,” he said, “especially for the old ones.” Dozens and dozens of dresses of 1980s-1990s vintage awaited the sale. “How do they auction old dresses?” one spectator asked another. “Dress by dress by dress?” The other spectator didn’t know either. Then a man checking hayrack items hefted a U.S. Army combat battle helmet for weight. “Imagine wearing that all day,” he said. “As is, where is, what you see is what you get,” Bullock chanted as he began the auction with a vintage one pound tin coffee can that closed at $40, a box of aluminum cookie cutters at $35, a job lot of kitchen utensils at $25, two old tea kettles at $10 and a vintage manual typewriter with case at $4. A hayrack loaded with a large collection of vintage tablecloths and napkins, bed linens, doilies and blankets quickly sold out, starting with one box lot of lace furniture doilies at $4 and another at $5. A Depression Era tablecloth with napkins sold for $10, an intricate braided rug at $45, and a grouping of Depression Era tablecloths went for $25, a round braided rug at $15, lace tablecloth and box of doilies at $7, wool blanket at $10, two boxes of bed sheets and covers at $40 and $55 respectively, bed quilt at $15, two chenille bedspreads at $55 and $40 apiece, and two jars of older buttons at $25 and $12.50 each. A hand knitted bed cover only got a $1 bid. There was no Internet bidding or buyer’s premium. The auction netted more than 160 clerical pages of sales. Bullock said afterward the furniture did OK in that there were good items and a lot of what he called “problem stuff.” He said each segment of the sale did exceptionally well: The coin sales were phenomenal, the pottery crocks brought exceptional prices, and the primitives did really well. Many of the buyers were collectors attracted by the scale of the sale. The Seidelmans moved to Marseilles in the early 1970s. After their passing, their son and only child decided to divest himself of their house and contents. Including the estates of two family relatives from Yorkville and Aurora, Ill., basically made the auction a three-estate combination of a wide variety of antiques and primitives dating to the 1850s. Contact: (815) 970-7077 |