Obs 139: A Taxonomy for auctions
And lots of furniture below the jump
Welcome back to Snake—back to it ASAP with furniture.
One thing immediately: I’m doing a lecture on CIGARETTES TOMORROW FEB 5 9 PM at CAVEAT in MANHATTAN—tickets here, info here.
Now furniture.
New to the game? Furniture every week—mostly on auction, mostly vintage, always designer, always good.
A Taxonomy of Auctions
Thinking about it as I’ve been rifling through a number of different groups of auctions that it’s not endless but there are a few different types. Do this long enough and you can assess exactly what you’re getting from an auction the second you look at it. The seven different types of auctions that most often come up are as follows:
Reliable Value: Auctions from houses, like Showplace below, or others (paywall) in which a number of good pieces are listed every week, or so, but rarely overwhelmingly, with the rest of the stuff on the lot, if it’s furniture, somewhere between antiques, mid and junk. In these auctions, every lot tends to be priced accessibly, which helps the good items—maybe 5 to 10 canon pieces per auction, although occasionally many more—slip between the cracks. I lean on these auctions heavily in the newsletter; they often have a couple more things than I highlight.
Canon auctions: From bigger houses, like Wright. Curated and collected, items in mostly pristine condition. Stateside bias. Some of the best pieces you’ll see, from accessible canon like Eames to tricky to find ass-busters like Wendell Castle, and, in these auctions, almost always a theme. (A decade; a country; maybe a designer; distilled but sometimes very broad.) Don’t expect many surprises either in terms of price or inclusion: the capable intelligent folks at these places will stack the lots with say, mostly French modern work, and deals are rare because these event auctions are heavy on big-ticket pieces. This said, great curators stretch the canvas and throw some surprises and obscurities in there; less expensive (though still brilliant) pieces get priced accordingly, and there can sometimes be so many pieces in such a narrow aesthetic that excellent pieces slip through the cracks.
Euro auctions: Self-explanatory. In Europe. The end. No immediate utility for stateside or Canadian consumers due to prohibitive shipping costs. However, these auctions are worth it from a taste/education point of view: there are more incredible usable pieces in these auctions than anywhere. As in they tend to be as curated as stateside canon auctions, but because of the nature of the European furniture market—better, more democratic, more fun—the pieces are more at eye level. Again, better stuff here than anywhere, and when I say anywhere I mean museums, any store in America, any newsletter. And when I say incredible I mean: unique, beautifully designed, or experimental, or shocking works of art in the furniture medium. It’s just really exponentially different in Europe.
Stinkers plus 1: Gotta love these. Maybe my favorite auction type of the bunch—albeit for myself and not this newsletter. What is it? An auction in which everything on lot is straight up reprehensible but for one confusing (and excellent) item. Generally on the East Coast, usually filled with antiques, or card tables, or Resto Hardware furniture (new), or bruised Coke machines and then one, like, Toshi Kita chair… or, maybe more often, one or two Eames/Miller/Saarinen pieces. Preference here is for the former but both offer a serious deal opportunity; they’re also karmically healthy to run across. The world runs on surprises; but they only show up when you do the work. You really never know.
Estates (good): Karmically ideal. Some dentist or corporate executive or collector dies and the American public gets the honor of interacting with the material sum-total of their lives. Will often have rarer and wilder pieces here than any other auction—forgotten items and major curiosities. This is because the pieces individuals buy and hang onto are markedly different than the ones companies select for their archives or which academics try to resurrect. No selection bias, even though these are things that they picked. When good, the best.
Estates (average): A bad day estate bidding beats a good day at a furniture store; even if it’s just an actor or musician’s mid leftovers or what’s been bought by a doctor. (Dentists are better at accumulating material goods than doctors. Not sure why. They are so much better. There’s a winsomeness here, too—this was somebody’s life—and so we have to respect what’s on the block. There are also more stories in an average estate auction than in most other places. Really good for rugs, service.
Repeat offenders: Some of these lately, but not that many as a couple years ago. These are auctions in which everything is repeated: maybe the same table or chair for the 20th time, maybe a collection of 200 things. These are aged Stinkers plus 1: the same frosted coffee table in your alerts forever. Nothing you can do about these, though the bright side is sometimes sanity prevails, and houses accede to the market and drop the price on their pieces to what they should have been years ago.
How in the God Damn/Mistakes: Rarest ones. Average house, or regional house selling a mix between canon and Euro-level auction: a curation of masterful, though accessible, pieces that feels… too good for the house. How did Batavia Brothers in Indianapolis get a hold of 200 discrete pieces of Umbo shelving and Scagno coffee tables? Why does Pinnacle Furniture in Jupiter, Fl. have 125 Tackett planters and half a dozen Anfibios and like 12 B-Tier Joe Colombos? Happens every now and then. Last one was a few years ago. It’s why we do this.
Obs 139
This Albini, Helg (and Piva) AM4C lamp for Nemo, auctioning in Astoria on Thurs., is one of the stronger pieces from this Showplace auction full of “Italian designer furniture samples.” Showplace is a house that’s a perfect example of reliable value Type 1—their auctions vary, a handful of good pieces minimum jump out each time, and occasionally there are collections in which everything or at least half of it’s good. Local to New York as well; Kind of ideal. If you were a psycho you could build out your whole place just through this house and get far; couple pieces a week. This particular lamp is one of a few from the group of designers; you likely know the most popular model, the AM/AS—sort of an elegant hotel lobby mushroom lamp. The pendant to me is the cream of the crop, both from the designers and this auction. It’s a bit more industrial and pared down than the mushroom lamp there; also about 3% of the price. Not bad. Part of a strong auction, even for Showplace; other hits…
Like these above, and about 50 more ass-beaters, follow the jump.
