Goin’ ‘Shoeless’ at Heritage: Trove of tainted ‘Black Sox’ player in April

March 31, 2009
Posted by Noah

“Shoeless” Joe Jackson is one of those guys who lives on as much in infamy as legend. He stands among the most brilliant baseball players to ever step on a diamond, and as one of the most cursed. The former cannot be disputed. The latter, however, is rightfully the subject of much debate. The fact, though, is that we’re auctioning off some very cool Joe Jackson stuff – and I don’t mean the singer of Steppin’ Out – in the April Sports Auction. For the right collector – that brave soul who loves the sport as much for its black eyes as for its glory – these are must-have items.

I’ve always been a fan of the underdog – I took 16-seed Radford to win the NCAA Tourney this year – so it may not come as a surprise that I always believed Joe Jackson was framed. Also, how can you not love a guy whose nickname is “Shoeless?” The most telling fact of his innocence, though, is in his statistics during that notorious 1919 World Series. They went up. It seems so simple, doesn’t it? Would a guy trying to hand the Series to Cincinnati play better in a situation that depended on the best players intentionally playing worse? I don’t buy it. If I had about $100,000, however, I’d certainly buy the 1914 Boston Garters Joe Jackson baseball card that’s part of the trove.

Another key lot in the several that constitute this mythic corner of baseball history is a 1908 Greenville Spinners team photograph featuring an impossibly young version of the soon-to-be slugger and pariah. It is his first gig, the year before he was called to the majors, and eventually stardom, by Connie Mack, and Jackson is raw. What’s impressive about him in the photo is the raw physicality he conveys, a diamond in the rough. He’s ready to break out, if not ready for the challenges and pitfalls of fame, which took him considerably longer to master. It’s a beauty of a piece, and at around $20,000, I’d say well worth it. Something Cooperstown should be interested in, even if it represents a supposed stain on the game. (Jackson was never convicted of any wrongdoing, by the way. MLB had already made up its mind as to his culpability.)

In the photo, the team mascot sits right at Jackson's right foot, if you don't already know what he looks like.

“This is the first ever to reach the hobby's auction block,” said Chris Ivy, “and the first we've ever encountered, period.”

It’s an amazing look at the innocence of youth before the influence of fame and fortune, and scandal, make it all dissolve into a bitter mask of indifference.

As for the other Joe Jackson, the singer from the 1980s, I have seen him in concert at least a dozen times and his albums – from 1977’s I’m The Man up through 1986’s Big World – remain a staple in my music rotation. His longtime bass player, Graham Mabe (pronounced “Maybe”) is the very best of his generation and is the reason I learned to play the bass guitar. I had the chance to interview Joe for Goldmine Magazine last year, and found him to be a very forthright person, a good interviewee and a very outspoken advocate for Smoker’s Rights. No kidding. Still, he rocks.

Coin Monday: Rarity Comes With the Territory

March 30, 2009
Posted by John

Though cataloging comes fairly late in the consignment process, often the catalogers get a hint of what’s coming through the pipeline. My main source is the consignment director grapevine; I can’t count the number of times I’ve met a CD in the hallway and the first thing I hear is: “You’re going to love this. I had an (insert fabulous rarity here) come in today. It’s going in the next auction.”

I have my other sources as well, and one of them told me about a small gold ingot that was in-house and was going to be part of next month’s Central States Auction. A few probing questions later, I found out it was a Moffat ingot, created in 1849 during the California Gold Rush. I was on the numismatic equivalent of a sugar rush the rest of the day, asking for updates on the ingot’s internal processing status a little too frequently. I also spoke with the other catalogers and convinced them to let me do the write-up on it. Victory was mine!

Two days later, I had the opportunity to actually catalog the ingot itself. In the meantime, I’d done plenty of research and consulted with outside sources, supplementing my knowledge of the Moffat ingots in general.

Most ingots created during the California gold rush were meant only to serve as a way of transporting gold; a solid rectangular ingot was much easier to handle than the gold dust and tiny nuggets that made up the bulk of California gold discoveries. Such ingots were weighed, usually to the hundredth of an ounce, and stamped with that weight, the ingot’s fineness to three decimal places, and a conversion of that weight and fineness to a dollar value based on official government rates. Sizes and dollar values varied widely.

The Moffat ingots from 1849, by contrast, are smaller and share the denomination of $16.00.

Why $16.00? Some scholars suggest that the $16.00 denomination corresponded with the eight escudo coins, better known as doubloons, circulating in Latin America; just a few years before the gold rush, California was Mexican territory, and even after California became part of the United States, Mexican coinage stayed in use. (Two other small-size Moffat bars are known, denominated in irregular dollars and cents. They are unique and held by the Smithsonian.)

Somewhere between one dozen and two dozen of the $16.00 Moffat ingots survive today, suggestive of what must have been a much higher original mintage. In addition, all known examples show wear from handling. It is clear that the $16.00 ingots, of a much smaller size than other ingots, were not intended as a mode of transportation; instead, they were made to serve as money, and judging from their worn states, the Moffat ingots did indeed serve that purpose. They were among the first pieces of West Coast territorial gold, or gold money struck by private individuals or firms instead of a government mint or assay office.

This $16.00 Moffat ingot is a fascinating artifact of the California Gold Rush, an inspiration for those with a passion for the past. As I held it, I remembered the classic numismatist’s line about money being “history in your hands,” and once again I felt its truth.

When Tiger roars we are lucky just to be within earshot

March 30, 2009
Posted by Noah

Monday is reserved for coins, I know, but I felt compelled to write something after watching Tiger Woods come roaring back to dominance in yesterday’s conclusion to Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill Invitational. If you are not a golf fan, and don’t watch the guy, then I really do pity you. He is, simply put, the greatest to ever pick up the sticks, and certainly the most dominant athlete on the planet at the moment. Greatness personified, no matter how you slice it, is named Tiger Woods and we are all fortunate to be living in the time of his glory.

I went through the Heritage archives to dig up some of the Woods memorabilia that has sold here in past auction, and it’s an impressive list. There are some things that rightly went for a bundle and some things that were picked up for a song that are worth more and more with every passing year and every passing victory. The top lot is a tourney worn, and signed, Nike cap from around 2004, sweat-stained and all, pictured above. It brought more than $9,000 last October, which looks like a bargain now.

While I am a hacker by any account, I do love playing the game. More than that, however, I love to watch it. I’ve watched it since I was a kid, when I was obsessed with Greg Norman and my brother worked at Preston Trails Golf Club, where the Byron Nelson was played for years, and where I got to go and watch The Shark play in person. It’s a game of sheer poetry when played at its highest level, and sheer travesty when played at its lowest – meaning mine – level. It’s exquisite tension, soaring drama and unbelievable pathos when the very best slug it out for top honors at the most difficult courses, and time and time again Mr. Woods has shown that he has no equal in any time period. Before he is done, mark my words and the words of thousands of others, the history books will be completely rewritten in his exact image.

I wanted to enlist the help of one of our resident experts to legitimize my meager standing, so I called Mark Jordan, one of our Consignment Directors in Sports, the go-to golf guy, and a man who has forgotten more about sports history than I could assemble in any five lifetimes. His thoughts on Woods and Bay Hill:

“(This Bay Hill victory) just shows how determined and focused Woods can be when playing golf,” he said. “Any mortal who is five strokes behind on a Sunday, it’s hard to come out and win. Tiger had to reach down and deep and see if he could pull it out, which he did, and the look on his face when he won shows the guy knew that it was really special that he accomplished that.”

Agreed. Tiger is a man who plays his personal feelings very close to the vest, and people respect that, I believe, because he is so giving of his fire and focus when he is on the course. He is the greatest ever, no one can doubt it, but he still manages to make us root for him like he’s the underdog. The only thing Tiger Woods is an underdog to is history, and that won’t be for too much longer.

“You know, he limps around at Oakmont and wins the U.S. Open (June 2008) on one leg,” Mark continued, “then he has surgery, comes back eight months later and wins Bay Hill, which is (Arnold) Palmer’s tournament to boot. With The Master’s coming up this really gets him in a frame of mind to do well there.”

To the rest of the PGA Tour, who might have hoped for a little respite from Tiger’s dominance as he slowly rehabbed his way back, they all just took a collective punch in the gut – along with a spike in TV ratings and the return of the big prizes as long as Woods is in the field.

I could go on ad infinitum about the man’s greatness as a golfer. Time will tell if he shapes up to be a great man off the course, but that is unimportant right now. All that matters now is that he is back in the game, as great as he ever was, and we should all be grateful to get to fan ourselves from the bright white heat the star of his greatness gives off.

Here’s that archive once again, and a hearty welcome back to Mr. Woods from the world of mortals…

No one – I repeat – No One is faster than The Flash…

March 27, 2009
Posted by Noah

… and very few are more valuable, at least if you’re talking about Showcase #4, The Flash, 1956, from DC Comics. It’s the book that started the Silver Age, and is easily the most valuable Silver Age comic that exists. Did I mention that Heritage is auctioning off a copy of Showcase #4 in our May comics auction? Did I further mention that it’s from the Motor City Run, and that it’s the single highest graded copy of the book in existence? Forgive me for not saying so sooner.

I know that this was a comic printed in 1956, and that I was but a mote of cosmic dust at that point, but this was the comic book of my dreams as a kid. I also know that the Silver Age ended in 1970, the year I was born, but I bought ratty old Silver Age Flash comics with my meager allowance all through the 1970s, the more beat up the better, as I actually enjoyed reading them. I read many of them until they literally disintegrated in my fingers. The few that survived my slavish reading and re-reading of them, as I was very politely informed by Barry Sandoval when I started working here and brought them in on a whim, are worth maybe a couple bucks each. I think he was being charitable at that, as nice a guy as he is…

Showcase #4 introduces Barry Allen as The Flash, and tells his famous origin story. Many a kid, I imagine, was tempted to douse themselves in a stew of chemicals in the hopes of gaining the same speed. At least I know I was – thanks to my brother Matt for stopping me on that hazy July afternoon.

Barry Allen was The Flash of my childhood, and is still The Fastest Man Alive, in my opinion. Wally West is Kid Flash. Period. I know that very fact has become a big part of Wally West’s character, or was until 1996’s The Return of Barry Allen, but I still didn’t buy it, even as much as I enjoyed watching Dr. Zoom take yet one more thrashing some 3,000 years before he was born.

My passion for The Flash has never really died; it’s just changed over the years. Ii now mainly consists of a plastic Flash figurine on my desk. It’s of a later vintage, so I know it must be Wally West. That doesn’t matter to me, though. One of my oldest and dearest friends in the world gave it to me years ago. It has sat on every desk I have worked at for more than a decade, which is not so interesting. The real story of this Flash, though – and I think this proves that The Flash really does have superhuman powers, in all of his forms, even plastic – is that this one survived a rather nasty flood in 2005.

I had just moved to Amherst, MA to edit a couple antique magazines when I got the call one morning that the basement office where I worked in Palmer, MA, flooded to the ceiling overnight when the Quaboag River overran its banks, travelled across a football field, and a parking lot, to flood the whole street and all the buildings on it. Everything was completely destroyed. When we made our way in two days later, knee-deep in mud, paper slush and office equipment, I went to the area of my desk. There, miraculously, sitting right where my desk once was, was The Flash, stand and all.

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t a miracle, but it was pretty cool, considering it was really the only thing I was hoping to find.

Here’s a link to all The Motor City run comics in the May Comics Auction. You can look, but you can’t touch…

Don’t hold your breath for relics from the Titanic anytime soon

March 25, 2009
Posted by Noah

You can’t be in this business without having wondered – at least once during the last 24 years since it was located – whether the 5,000+ relics actually salvaged from the sunken remains of The Titanic would ever actually come to the auction block and what they would be worth. The answer to the former is, as of today, probably never, and the answer to the latter is: who knows?

The AP is reporting widely today that a U.S. Maritime District Judge in Virginia, one Rebecca Beach Smith, is set to rule within weeks that the wreck is “an international treasure” and that “the salvaged items must remain together and accessible to the public… ensuring the 5,900 pieces of china, ship fittings and personal belongings won't end up in a collector's hands or in a London auction house, where some Titanic artifacts have landed.”

The disputed sale of just a few of these things brought great scrutiny and some impressive prices when they were auctioned off, and I’m sure the imminent ruling doesn’t do a whole lot for the folks at RMS Titanic, Inc., who salvaged the relics and were seeking limited ownership of the artifacts from the world’s most famous shipwreck. It is a legal to-do that began in 1985 when the first images of the ship were broadcast to surface.

I won’t lie and tell you that I’m 100% happy about this, because I would have hoped that Heritage’s crack team of Consignment Directors would have been all over this and would have brought the goods, and the glory, home to HA HQ in Dallas. On the other hand, this is indeed good news for the tens of millions of people who have already stood in line to see the artifacts in exhibitions, and for the millions more who will. It may not be a win for Heritage, necessarily, but it is a win for the world at-large. Let’s all give a hearty cheer! Hooray Humanity!

As I enjoy doing with any story like this, I went to Heritage Auction Archives and did a search for “Titanic.” The results were somewhat varied. I expected the myriad movie posters from the late-1990s James Cameron pic, and from various other movies about the sinking, but there are also a good selection of autographs from survivors. The coolest lot, though a prop from the movie, is a lifejacket, which was used during filming. Do you think that Leo might have actually touched it? Maybe Kate spilled her Diet Coke on it? Perhaps James Cameron berated the extra wearing it?

The autographs, especially for one Milvina Dean – the youngest survivor from the ship, btw – seem to have turned into a cottage industry. I suppose, though, I would have done the same thing had I survived the most famous wreck in history…

I was no great fan of the Leo and Kate movie. Despite good FX for the time, the script was horrendous and a lot of the acting wooden. My friends and I actually referred to the movie as The Craptanic. What do you want? I was very cynical, if not clever. I did, though, develop a new appreciation for the movie a year or two after its release when I traveled through India for several months with a good friend. Everywhere we went, it seemed, the movie was playing to massive sold out audiences – especially in Bangalore, Mumbai and Chennai (formerly known as Madras) – and I must have seen at least 1,000 Titanic t-shirts up and down the sub-continent and into Nepal. That was added to the hundreds of greetings we received as we walked the streets of cities or rode trains where people would stop us, shake our hands and say: “Namaste! Leo DiCaprio Titanic! Best film! Best film!”

Check out the HA Titanic archive above, or right here.

'Freaks' find acceptance – an update on a very cool movie poster…

+

March 24, 2009
Posted by Noah

You may recall that, oh, exactly 14 days ago your humble blogger looked into the churning fog of his crystal ball and recognized an absolute gem just dying to be discovered in Heritage’s March movie poster auction. The humble little prize was a very rare 1932 original Freaks movie poster. I’m not saying that I personally made it a great poster – you flatter me, you flatterer you – I’m just sayin’…

That poster sold last weekend for more than $100,000, and was the second highest lot in the entire auction, right behind an exquisite 1931 Dracula one sheet that I also wrote about more than a month ago in these very pages. Let me just say that, yes, the thing still creeps me out.

The story behind the Freaks poster – which hopefully will become very familiar to everyone soon if it gets picked up off the AP wire and distributed nationally – is one of those great tales that makes the final sale of it that much better.

I had the good fortune to help with the crafting and pitching of the story and to talk to the consignor, one Anne Stafford, out of Southern California. She bought the poster in a dusty old antiques story in Corona Del Mar in the early 1970s. She and her husband were young and struggling at the time – the way so many of us struggle(d) at that age – and she agonized over the $10 the dealer wanted for it. Her love for her husband, and his love of B-movies, was greater than the immediate hardship caused by the missing sawbuck. He loved the poster, they hung it on the wall with tacks until years later when Anne decided to have it framed. Fast forward almost 40 years and the thing sells at auction for 10,000 times its original price. Pretty good investment, yes?

I love stories like this not just because they end happily with the consignor getting justly rewarded for a true treasure, but because the original purchase of the thing, and its subsequent preservation, was an act inspired by the love of a wife for her husband. I don’t have to tell anyone that the journey of a marriage is sometimes biting and sometimes bit – to paraphrase Russel Hoban in Riddley Walker – but ultimately worth it when you give yourself over to what it represents. I like to think that this poster was a witness to both the good times and the bad in their marriage, and ultimately a witness to the value of the institution itself.

Things like the story of this poster are what the story of marriage is built on, what generations relate down the line. That story, with the poster’s auction, is now part of the public domain, and the poster is now in a new home. All these years the Staffords had been sitting on a museum quality rarity, one of the greatest posters in the entire hobby, and one that is worth every cent the buyer ultimately paid for it. Had I had the cash then you can bet I would have dropped it on the thing in a second. For them, however, it was simply that great birthday present from the early 1970s that seemed to cost so much at the time.

Still married, and waiting for that healthy payment check for their consignment, they can laugh about the initial stress of that original purchase, and wish that they had bought a few more posters, spending a few more dollars they weren’t sure they had.

Coin Monday: Of Registry collecting and a 1919-D Walking Liberty Half Dollar

March 23, 2009
Posted by John

I never got into Registry collecting, mostly because my budget can’t support it, but I’ve long found it fascinating. For those who aren’t familiar with it, Registry collecting is an online way for collectors to compare their cabinets with one another, a service usually supplied by a grading firm (for example, NGC).

After registration and setup, simply enter the certification ID numbers off the holders for coins you own, and they appear on the site as being part of your collection. Add in a touch of mathematical fiddling, and presto! For the series you collect, Walking Liberty half dollars, for example, you get one neat-and-tidy score that tells you where your assembled coins stand against the collections others have submitted to the site. Public rankings fuel the competitive spirit, leading collectors to acquire even finer examples of coins already owned.

As with any other numismatic activity, Registry collecting can inspire strong passions and lead to behavior that can seem over-the-top to those on the outside. I have personally observed a collector with a list of coins to purchase, organized into groups so that each group purchased in sequence would move his set one rung up the ladder. Occasionally this mindset turns into an arms-race mentality that can border on Dr. Strangelove levels of absurdity. If there are 89 examples of a particular coin tied for the finest certified at MS67, for example, all is well. Those who want to find a representative at that level can do so, though it may be expensive. When a single MS68 coin is certified, though, it upsets the balance; one collector can gain an edge over everyone else. Much fretting, discussion, and jealousy ensues when a new best-known coin appears in the listings: Who is the lucky one? How did the coin get that grade? What can I do to get my hands on it?

For series enthusiasts, and for Registry collectors in particular, there are many conditionally rare Walking Liberty half dollars coming up in our April Central States auction, including this 1919-D Walking Liberty half dollar, an MS66 beauty.

That’s right, it’s an MS66, and it’s the single finest survivor graded by PCGS. Coinage production was sluggish in the United States immediately following World War I, and the meager output for 1919 was noted for poor production quality, particularly at the Denver and San Francisco Mints. Half dollars were a larger silver denomination, unlike easily-collected cents and nickels, and few individuals saved examples of the new year’s coinage, particularly out West. The Great Depression came just a decade later, and it is a virtual certainty that coins that might have been saved earlier were spent to pay for necessities. Is it any wonder that 90 years later, pristine examples are rarities?

Yet this coin has survived the decades with the same luster and radiance it must have had the day it was struck. To those who would have this coin to call their own, two pieces of advice: First, if you can, do what I have done and savor the piece in person. Admire it at arm’s length and then stare at it closely. Appreciate it, not only for the number on the holder but for the quality that number represents. Celebrate its beauty.

Second, do what I cannot: open the checkbook and prepare to spend a six-figure sum.

April 1 Space Auction gets a nice mention in today’s New York Times

March 20, 2009
Posted by Noah

National publicity, even international publicity, is not new to a world-class agency like Heritage. Just in my seven months here I’ve watched – and had the pleasure to be an active participant in – more than a dozen stories that have broken widespread across newswires and related media outlets across the globe. You add to this the extensive category-specific PR we get, then it starts to expand exponentially into much higher numbers.

Today, though, on this glorious Dallas spring Friday – I kid you not when I say it is a gorgeous day here, as good as it gets in Dallas in my humble opinion – we all got a little kick when we saw that our own Michael Riley, Chief Cataloger and Historian, was quoted in the New York Times today in a nice little piece about our April 1 Space Exploration Auction here at Heritage world HQ, which I wrote about just last week. As a major player in the auction world, we’re all usually pretty sanguine about a story hitting big, but the cachet of the Times makes this one just a little sweeter. It is, after all, America’s paper of record for just about everything.

Michael is a good man and an amazing researcher and historian – and he’s just one of the many superb talents in this building that makes it such a pleasure to come to this beautiful place every day – and he deserves to be quoted for this auction, and he deserves whatever attention may come his way today for his contribution. A passing week has not dimmed my observation that the April 1 Space auction is so cool I can hardly contain my excitement.

I wrote to our resident celebrity to ask him if I could get an autograph before he is partying like a rock star with A-list starlets, and he quickly rebuffed my request – all in good humor, I assure you.

“I think I’ll retire while I’m on top,” he wrote.

In all seriousness, though, the NYT article is just the topper for all the hard work that Michael and the rest of the Space and Americana team has done to make not only this auction such a great success, but also to put Heritage squarely on the top of the heap when it comes to this niche of the market. Clearly, even the space exploration of almost 40 years ago still has the same power to capture our imaginations as it did then.

If you have a few minutes and want to spend some quality digital time with an amazingly cool collection of stuff, much of which actually saw the lunar surface, then grab a cup of coffee, kick back and click on this link. It’s time you’ll find well spent, especially as it fires your imagination into the stratosphere.

Off subject for a moment: On the death of Natasha Richardson

March 19, 2009
Posted by Noah

I’d like to take a few minutes this morning to go just a little off-subject for this blog, though you’ll see that – with my typical breathtaking flair as a writer, ha-ha – that we will ultimately come back. It is a bit grim what I have in mind, to write a bit about the sudden death of famed stage and screen actress Natasha Richardson, wife of actor Liam Neeson. Believe it or not, I had a connection to the couple – not big, but enough to warrant some reflection.

For the second day in a row I find myself transported again to New York’s Hudson Valley.

When I was first starting out as a journalist, as I’ve written before in this blog, I worked for a chain of weekly papers based in a town named Millbrook. Being so close, but just far enough, from NYC, it was home to many famous people. Those that moved there loved the place as a haven from the hysteria of celebrity worship, and the “regular folks” of the town were fiercely protective of these people, and went out of their way to treat them like regular folk. It works quite well, actually. Among the many that live(d) in Millbrook are/were Richardson, Neeson and their two sons.

I eventually became editor of the Millbrook Round Table, the local paper. As editor, I was also a reporter, photographer and layout artist. If you’ve worked in small newspapers, then you know what I mean. As editor in Millbrook I had occasion to know many of the people that lived there, if not by name, at least to say hello to them at the local diner, coffee or antiques shop. Liam Neeson was well-known for riding his motorcycle along the gorgeous and secluded back roads of The Hudson Valley, and one day – it was a Wednesday, I believe, in fall of 2000 – he collided with one of the numerous deer in the area, suffering a crushed pelvis.

I had the good fortune, a week or two after the incident, to be able to go to the home he and Ms. Richardson shared with their boys to interview him about it. It was a normal enough interview, pleasant and no longer than it needed to be. She answered the door, a resplendent beauty in blue jeans, served me a cup of tea – pouring the cream, but not measuring the sugar – and their boys toddled around as toddlers do. I interviewed her husband, then we all chatted pleasantly for a few minutes after the interview about theater, literature and American history. I then took my notebook, shook both of their hands, and left. I was struck by how normal they seemed, even in a place where the famous strove extra hard to be normal.

I’m sorry that she has died, I’m sorry for the pain Liam Neeson must feel, and most of all I hurt for their now teenage sons, whose sadness must know no measure. It is a cruel trick of fate, but death is indiscriminate. None of us gets out alive, no matter how much time and energy we expend ignoring this fact. If, in her death, Natasha Richardson has given people a chance to remember her considerable accomplishments, re-connect with the love in their hearts, to contemplate the fate which awaits us all, and to touch so many people who never knew they could be touched – myself included – then I count her life well lived and her death not in vain.

There is also a Richardson connection to Heritage – albeit small – in the form of two lots in our archives that bear her name. One is a movie poster for the creep John Carpenter movie Gothic, which I hated, and the other is a somewhat odd, and now oddly moving, baseball signed by both she and her husband. It sold for $18 in 2007, with BP.

A view of the Hudson River Valley from the banks of The Trinity

March 18, 2009
Posted by Noah

Okay, so Heritage World HQ is not exactly on the banks of the Trinity, but it’s close enough. We can see the river from the numerous windows on the south side of the building bearing our name. The Trinity, however, is simply a wonderfully clever device – if I say so myself – to make the title of this post work.

What it actually refers to is an amazing major gathering of American paintings – The Buchanan Collection of American Art – that will be auctioned here in June as part of our American Art Auction. The auction is shaping up to be stellar, without a doubt, and that includes some amazing paintings beyond Buchanan. There is one painting, among the many landmark names, that made me sit up right away and take notice. Near Leeds, an 1869 oil on canvas by Hudson River School luminary George Inness. The painting is, in a word, breathtaking.

Anyone who knows me well – Anyone? Anyone? – knows that I have a deep and abiding love for the Hudson River School painters. This came during the decade in which I lived there, in and around Rhinebeck and Red Hook – just above Poughkeepsie, two hours north of NYC – when I worked as a reporter, editor and antiques and art writer. I drove the roads that skirted the Catskill Mountains and peered onto the Hudson, the very views that painters like Frederick Church – I spent many a pleasant afternoon hiking around his amazing Olana estate – and Thomas Cole and Inness, among others, painted with such passion and detail that their influence over the subsequent generations of American painters has yet to diminish.

During the years I traveled that hallowed American landscape I came to know it as a place where America’s history took place. The American Revolutionary War is represented by buildings, plaques, furniture, roads, estates and any vast number of places that bore direct witness to the birth of this amazing country. From that history, The Hudson River Painters were born. They captured the light, the angles and the shadows of the Hudson Valley, but more so they captured the gravitas of the astounding beauty of the place. Just writing about it makes my heart ache to be back there now, as spring brings those amazing vistas to life with a veritable bursting chrysanthemum of varied colors. It is indeed the very view-shed of America, the way in which the northern population centers of young America came to identify itself. It’s very hard for me to write about it with writerly detachment, so much do I love the place…

Inness’s Near Leeds is a masterpiece of middle period Hudson River Valley painting. It looks east towards the mighty river, barely discernible in the distance. Here’s what Marianne Berardi, Heritage’s Senior Art Fine Arts Expert, wrote about the painting in the upcoming Heritage Magazine:

“The verdant scene is calm and the space is beautifully constructed,” she writes. “A woman and her child sit on a log in the right foreground, watching a horse-drawn cart descend along a road, which carves through the heart of the composition and takes the viewer’s imagination along the same path. The greatest force in the painting is the light streaming through the gate on the right, and filtering through the delicate screen of trees.”

Well put, indeed. I’m very excited about this painting, about the amazing Buchanan Collection – which I will certainly cover in more detail in a later post closer to the auction – and about the American Art Auction in general. This is a major auction and it should go a long way toward showing art collectors in this nation that Heritage is a serious player on the scene. I’m glad I get to be around to bear witness to it.

The catalog for the auction is not fully online yet, minus a good handful of works, so you’ll have to accept this little teaser as a taste of the good things to come. Trust me, it’ll be worth the wait.