31 
THE PLUNDER OE THE PAST 
Now Being Purchased by Americans 
for the Glorification of Their Homes 
I T is an interesting experience to attend 
one of the big dealer's sales. He has 
the collection, perhaps, of some Italian, 
French or English aristocrat, fine antiques 
shipped to New York under heavy insur¬ 
ance, and unpacked with a delicacy beyond 
the conception of any but an egg merchant. 
Or it may be the collection of a departed 
Wall Street money-king, whose heirs have 
a notion that the money would be more use¬ 
ful to them than the art. 
You are probably surprised at the mag¬ 
nificent air of the rooms themselves. The 
thought of luxury was not associated in 
your mind with the thought of sales by auc¬ 
tion, yet here are deep-carpeted, high-gal- 
leried chambers, murmurously alive with 
visitors in silks and furs. 
The collection has been on display for 
several days, and many of those present 
were here before and have now come re¬ 
solved on a plan of action; these are pre¬ 
occupied and finger their watches a little 
impatiently. Others are making a hurried 
tour of investigation, jotting a note now and 
again. Everyone carries an expensively 
prepared catalogue that has been lovingly 
compiled by the cognoscenti and printed in 
the best typographical taste. 
T he auctioneer is a mortal shrewd fel¬ 
low. He has to be or he wouldn’t be 
where he is. He looks around him with a 
keen glance and you have half a notion that 
he knows how much money there is in your 
pocket. You are sadly conscious that your 
limit is thirty dollars, or fifty, or whatever 
it is, and you bear yourself accordingly. 
The law of the great auction rooms is, 
quite simply, that the highest bidder gets the 
article bid for. Reserve prices are the rare 
CLIFFORD POPPLETON 
exceptions. The stuff is there to be sold for 
what it will fetch and your dollar is as good 
as the next man’s. If competition is scarce 
you may buy a fine antique cheap, and if it 
is rife prices go sky-high. Do you think it 
would be interesting to have a book that was 
printed two hundred and thirty years ago? 
One went for fifty cents in a famous auc¬ 
tion room recently. The man who bought it 
might have been willing to pay twenty times 
the amount, or fifty, but he waited until he 
saw that no one else was going to bid, and 
then he said mildly, “Half a dollar.” 
At the same sale a copy of Burns’ poems 
with an autograph note from the poet 
fetched the sum of nine hundred and twen¬ 
ty-five dollars. 
B ut to pick up the thread again, ob¬ 
serve that dealer over there, leaning, 
regardless of rules, against one of the exhib¬ 
its, a heavy Jacobean cabinet. So far he has 
shown little interest in the sale, but now the 
auctioneer calls “53 A.” This lot is the fig¬ 
ure of a child in bronze by an Italian sculp¬ 
tor of the 16th Century. 
“What am I bid for 53 A?” 
Silence. 
“Come, give me a start please.” 
Silence. 
“I can’t sell it unless someone will give 
me a start. May I say ten dollars, will you 
let me say ten, it’s a fraction of what it 
cost.” 
“Ten.” 
The languid dealer has spoken. 
“Ten I am bid, ten, ten, twenty, twenty, 
twenty, fifty, fifty, fifty, fifty, a hundred, a 
hundred, one hundred dollars I am bid.” 
Ah, Mr. Dealer, this is no “snip.” Two 
more bidders have jumped in. An attendant 
puts the laughing bronze girl down on a 
table where she may be examined by late¬ 
comers. The clear, modulated voice of the 
auctioneer runs on firmly and fluently. 
Subtly he is conveying to you something 
more than that he is bid one hundred dollars 
for 53 A. 
“One hundred, one hundred, one hun¬ 
dred.” 
A bald fact, true, but listen again. Is 
there nothing else? 
“One hundred, one hundred, one hun¬ 
dred.” 
There is a quality of restrained surprise 
in his tone. You feel that someone is 
wounding him in his finest sensibilities ; you 
are not sure that so sensitive a man should 
be an auctioneer; he is as thin-skinned as 
the princess in the fairy tale who could feel 
a pea through several feather beds. 
“One hundred, one hundred, where’s my 
hundred and twenty-five?” 
The bidding is against the languid dealer, 
who now raises his eyebrows an eighth of 
an inch. 
“One twenty-five I have, one twenty-five 
I have, where’s my fifty; one fifty I’m bid, 
one fifty, one fifty, one seventy-five, one 
seventy-five, two hundred dollars, two hun¬ 
dred dollars I have.” 
S HARP eyes, these auctioneers have, for 
the slight, significant movement. A 
peculiar glint in the eye, a nod hardly per¬ 
ceptible to the casual observer, or a slight 
twitch of the catalogue—they are all bids 
among the experienced. 
“Two hundred, two hundred, two hun¬ 
dred.” 
Still a bald announcement, but his tone is 
{Continued on page 74) 
