Snake Auction Observer 025
Snake Auction Observer 025
Knoll, Haller, Ligne Roset, Matta Malitte
Snake Auction Observer: good furniture, undervalued, or eternal, all selected off LiveAuctioneers.com, with an emphasis this week on tables and cheap seating. Immediate auctions first…
Housekeeping
Supply chain issues have my book still at the printing press. What can I say? Thank you for everyone’s patience. Will keep everyone abreast.
Is anyone watching the Croatia game? Sound off in the comments.
Auctions:
Pfister for Knoll chair, LA: Old office chairs are tricky; if they’ve been actually used, they’ve really been used, and barely are usable. This is why most Knoll Executives (shaped like this, though not this one) from the era look so beat up. Not this thing, though. Pfister designed quite a bit for Knoll; these chairs don’t tend to run very much (and passed last time). Local pickup in Los Angeles, not far from Crypto Arena and that spot with the jewelry. $200
Hollis Jones waterfall table, LA: Same house, mostly auctioning off odds and ends that didn’t get bought up this year. This table sticks out, though; one of the gaudier but also more contained pieces of Regency/Goodfellas third act furniture I’ve run across. Cheap, too, though occasionally some HJ skids over $1,000. Worth looking at the whole auction as there are some nice wild cards worth flipping a coin over, best ones being these Swedish counter stools. $400
Haller cabinets, LA: Lots of standouts in this Billings auction, as usual: they have an aluminum grand piano (like those all-3M Pump Furys except you can play Lamentation songs on them), an Hermès bracelet, an ESU… much more. These cabinets of course jump out, because auctioned Haller is rare; this color also does not seem to be around anywhere that has these cabinets new. Full mega deal opportunity here, anything under 3 grand is a fair price. $1,000
Osvaldo Borsani desk, LA: Same auction, one of these perfect style-less dining room slash conference tables made in the shadow of American mid-modern… better, though, I think. Looks Miller-y, what with the legs. Borsani, who also designed the Canada sofa (not bad—I grew up in Canada… meaningful), did this for Tecno, in Italy, in the 60s. Quite a bit of auction history on these; this type of table runs 4 grand, auctions all hover at around $1,300 to double that, so at $1,000 it’s just good sense.
More hits, all $1000: This Ligne Roset lounger looks like it has the don’t-sit-on-it plastic on it, but harsher; Geometric Frattini coffee table for Knoll with a Sottsass-esque (vibe Frat. did Soriana, Sesann); perfectly capable chocolate brown Marco Zanuso sofa that emanates early 60s but is made sturdier and fatter than that; ESU from ‘05, just a good deal; and this Citterio for B&B Diesis sofa (pictured) for only $850, probably the best thing in the lot. All Los Angeles
Matta Malitte sofa system, LA: There’s never going to be a newsletter where I don’t highlight one of the best pieces of furniture ever made, if it’s on auction… I wrote about Matta’s Malitte in my very first issue in 2014 (which leads off my book, available on Shining Life Press) and in the past decade as Italian furniture has half skated out of favor, it’s just as important now as it was 8 years ago as it was 35. Need a big crib for this; the last one on LA sold for $4,500 but every other one before that was under $1,500. I like the idea of not using the Malitte as a sofa and just placing against a wall, as a sculpture; colors here more staid than past auctions, but looks to be in really good shape. $1,200
Cascella Narciso statue, Delaware: Wild-card auction from this house selling lots of basketball memorabilia—there’s a great photo of @FantasyExplosion, wearing one of my T-shirts, with NBA hall of famer Gary Payton somewhere out in the ether—and this very small sculpture by Andrea Cascella, who worked often in stone… LA is not as great a place to get lost on as eBay, but it’s pretty good. Fishing around items from furniture or poster auctions will bring up genres like these… feels like, and I know I’m wrong here, that only three dozen people in the world know about sculpture. $600
Anon Cassina-style cabinets, CT: No information on these, just a set of 70s/80s industrial slash slightly disco or camp Haller-ripoff cabinets for a company drafting behind Cassina; the plastic, fat lines, gaudiness and all that click. Who needs a designer? Old furniture is so much better than new; white label is luxury here. Maybe it’s still like that now—but it definitely was like that then. $50
Quick hits:
Bertoia for Knoll side chair with the yellow ass, $100, Queens
Philco space age TV (rewire it and watch Impetigo videos), $50, PA
Panasonic Transistor TV (see note above about Impetigo), $100, PA
Eight-leg bamboo windsor-style bench (breathtaking), $300, PA
Thanks for reading.
Snake