WORLD'S LARGEST INFORMATION SOURCE FOR SPORTS DISPLAY ANTIQUES

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- AUCTION PREVIEW -

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AUCTION CLOSED

Mastronet's 

December 2005

Sports Premier Catalog Auction 

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www.mastronet.com 

Doug Allen, President

Bill Mastro, C.E.O.

10S660 Kingery Highway  Willowbrook, IL 60527

phone (630) 472-1200

MastroNet's 

December 2005 Auction

AUCTION CLOSED

COMMENTARY 

by

Carlton Hendricks

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Wow, where do I start with this auction, there are 2,827 lots. When I got the catalogs I first dove into the sports sections, which is in two separate catalogs. Both were excellent; full of great stuff. But then there was this other red catalog they sent with the two sports ones. It had a picture of Abraham Lincoln on the front. I didn't pay much attention, since it had the non sport Americana things. After I plowed thru the two sports ones I cracked open the red Americana one....WOW...there was page after page after page of incredible items. The automobile collection of Charles Schalebaum is off the Richter scale. (Charles Francis Richter 1900-1985, American seismologist) That catalog is a rare opportunity to see some of the finest automobile display antiques in the world. It really was a pleasure to go thru. Between the sports section, and the non sport Americana, it's almost overwhelming. I'd have to say it's one of the best combination sport and non sport auctions I've ever seen. I'll put it like this. There are probably at least three lifetimes of things. Meaning, if you were very active, and attended lots of antique and sports shows all your life, you might see about 1/3 of this amount of things of the same caliber. And the quality of the catalogs is brow raising; they're practically encyclopedias. The sheer voracity of descriptions is startling, as they look like about two years worth of work.

I was going to take a run at mentioning all the highlights, but there is so much I don't have the patience, and you don't have the attention span. So I'll try to stick to the top three. At the end of this commentary I'll list all my top picks with links directly to the given MastroNet web page. I highly recommend you get the hard copy catalog. Trying to view it all on the MastroNet website is not as good. 

Alright,  here's what I'll do. Because there's just so much great stuff, I'll choose my three top picks from the sports things, and two top picks from the non sports items, and I'll try to keep the chatter to a minimum. 

This is a very tough call, but I guess my top piece of the sports auction is Lot 2004, the 1926 Chicago Tribune Award presented to Benny Friedman of the University of Michigan. Man, phew!...now that's a football trophy. An apparently life sized, sterling silver figural football, displayed on a 23" round black wooden base, 15" total height. I don't recall ever seeing another example of this. What a presence it must have in person, on that 23" round base. I would guess it's commissioned presentation silver, meaning it would be a one of a kind work of art. I don't see any mention of a maker in the description, and it looks at least a few notches above a Dieges and Clust work.

My next pick would be Lot 2006, a I’ve never seen it before, it’s big, has great graphics and color, and probably most important, the player is wearing a super rare Princeton style Helmet. This is another perfect example of an exciting, never seen piece. 

My third pick would be Lot 2016, the Bradley Sweaters trifold advertising display sign, . Phenomenal! Antique football display pieces don't get much better than this. I think this is the same one John Buonaguidi had and sold at the 2000 National in Anaheim. John had picked it up at the Antique Collectors Revival show San Mateo for like $1,200.00 as I recall; from a dealer out of the San Joaquin Valley area of California, who dealt in oak furniture mainly. I remember talking to the dealer, and I think he said he'd gotten it out of a closed store there in his own area. John kept it a year or two, and brought it to Anaheim. Tony Bussineau a.k.a. Mr. Michigan, saw it and thought it over a bit and bought it for like $4,000.00 or something like that, before the show opened. When John was first considering letting it go and bringing it, I inquired what he would ask for it. He asked me what I thought, and I said around $5,000.00. John said he was figuring about that himself. I remember when Bussineau came to buy it I was standing there, and it was exciting to watch it all go down right in front of me. Bussineau made the offer and even though it was a grand or so under asking price, $4,000.00 was a lot of dough to turn down. John's always been a take the money and run kind of guy, and so he took it. Everybody was a little nervous I remember. After Tony left, John and I looked at each other like, you think that was the right thing to do, kind of look. We both agreed, hey four g's is four g's, time to turn the page. But it's always tough to move a great piece when you're a collector at heart. 

Anyway, here it is again, and it's even more powerful now. Based on the fact that after all this time I've only seen one other example, the one in Gary Cypres' museum. It'll be very interesting to see what it brings this time. 

Alright, now the non sport Americana stuff. Actually the automobilia  in the Americana catalog is mostly European, but who cares, it's just great stuff. O.K., my top pick out of the Americana catalog is so incredible, that it's not hard to choose as number one. To be honest, it's so great that if I had to choose between it and the Benny Friedman trophy...well...I guess the Benny Friedman trophy would win, but not by much! I mean this thing is incredible. I'm talking about  Lot 336, the 15" tall c1880 bronze statue of a high wheel bicycle rider. Phew! Killer! Have never seen it before. That thing is so great, that if I got it, I wouldn't care if the rider is a soldier, I'd put it in with my sport stuff anyway. 

My next pick is based on it's graphic quality, and telling historical significance. Lot 42, a c1900 William McKinley presidential campaign poster, 21 1/2" tall by 15" wide. Great color and design with story telling. Outstanding graphics of the American flag draped as bunting over McKinley and Vice President, as well as keen sportsman, Theodore Roosevelt. Later of course McKinley would be shot and killed while visiting the  Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, and Theodore would become president. It's just such a great representation of America, from when we we starting to blossom into the industrial age, if you call that blossoming that is. 

At the beginning I mentioned this poster's telling historical significance. That's seen in the statement under the portraits. "THE AMERICAN FLAG HAS NOT BEEN PLANTED IN FOREIGN SOIL TO ACQUIRE MORE TERRITORY BUT FOR HUMANITY'S SAKE". No doubt this is in reference to Guam, Puerto Rico and The Philippines, who we ended up in control of by default, after our victory of the Spanish American war. The statement is an attempt to defend the administration against any thought we were straying from George Washington's and Thomas Jefferson's dictate and ideology of: Stay out of entangling alliances and foreign wars. What's sad, is that this was about the end of that mind set. Between the time this poster was printed in 1900, and 1918, when guided by Woodrow Wilson, we entered world war one, something changed. That was when we started abandoning our founding fathers original criteria for war.

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