Note to Neal Auction:  free advertising on Rare Vic for infinity if this cabinet finds it’s way to my front door.  Don’t worry, it’s a covered porch.  Like they would need to bribe me since I blog about their sales anyway.

Yes, I’m drooling over this fantastic Allen & Brother cabinet coming up at the Louisiana Purchase Sale on the 11th.  They have another sale chock full of big names: Meeks, Belter, Pottier & Stymus, Herter Brothers, Doe Hazelton.  Yes, Doe Hazelton as in the House of Representatives desk manufacturers.  The desk in this sale indeed bears their stencil and it is a fine example.  There’s even a solo effort by Gustave Herter (attributed) in this sale in the form of a chair frame.

I have questions about a few of the attributions as I have the tendency to do – the P&S table resembles Marcotte more so to me and the Belter Library Chair is very reminiscent of the Henkels/White chair that Neal recently sold.  The key differentiator appears to be – lamination.  The chair sold prior didn’t appear to be laminated while this one is indeed laminated.  That’s an interesting distinction and I see where they are going with that one.

Although picking up a pair of Meeks Stanton Hall pattern chairs seems like it could never be a bad investment, that all depends on the price of the acquisition, and with this pair, the asking price of $4,400 is above where auction activity has put these chairs.

A pair of abused chairs sold at Cowan’s for $1,700, though I wouldn’t use them for comparison for a set that hasn’t seen major repairs.  John Moran auctioned off a pair for $3,250 in November, and Neal sold a pair for $2,350 in ‘06.   You can’t compare prices with armchairs since they tend to nearly double those of chairs without arms so I ignore those prices.

If you were to buy these chairs in a retail environment, then a price like the $4,400 or more would not be unexpected.  However, on Ebay or at auction I would not be a buyer and assuming I had time to wait, would expect to find a pair pop up in the months ahead that could be grabbed at a $2,500-$3,500 range, including any fees.  … Or about the price that each of us Americans will owe on the $700 billion bailout.

The listing for the set on Ebay is here.

Plenty of high-end Victorian coming up in the Fontaine sale in a few days with all the usual suspects: Belter, Roux, Meeks, Jelliff, Baudouine, Pottier & Stymus, and Horner among others.  The Meeks Hawkins pattern set above is expected to bring $35,000-$50,000 and a Belter Milwaukee 3-piece set, $20,000 to $30,000.  A surprisingly unassuming bedstead in the sale is signed A. Roux, which shows you that the best makers of the time absolutely made simplistic pieces for everyday use.

As regular visitors to this site are aware, I’ve been watching the health of the Victorian antique market recently for concrete examples of this trend and I thought I’d take another quick glance at some fresh auction results that speak to the decline that we’ve been seeing lately.

I’ll open by saying all is not in the dumps.  There is money still out there aggressively chasing select items, but I can tell you that there is no distinct pattern that we can extract.  Items such as the late English Victorian Jockey Scale armchair shown at the top of the page surprised me as it reached $10,000 via 25 bids.  Were you to remove the scale looking something like an antique sewing machine fastened to the side, the chair is fairly unremarkable itself.

Some items are seeing better prices than from only a few months ago, so the market is certainly schizophrenic.  This Laminated Rosewood bed by John H Belter saw a $19,000 price tag in February but a comparable bed recently fetched $29,000 at auction.  While the overall trend is down, a confluence of buyers at any moment in time can drive bidding up.

I was recently left a bit queasy by the $1,500 that this cabinet fetched at auction.  Months ago, in a stronger market, this cabinet would have fetched $4,500 to $6,000.

Pieces by J & JW Meeks appear to be caught in a time-warp, fetching near their usual pricing as if they are in a different market altogether.  This Meeks “Hawkins” pattern Rococo chair recently fetched $5,000, albeit at the low end of the range.

I recommend that you pick up a copy of this weekend’s edition of the Wall Street Journal or read the article here on the state of the antiques market, in general.  Aside from being an interesting article which addresses the broader antique market and not just the niche that we favor on this site, RareVictorian.com is also mentioned.

The article’s premise is that due to shifting tastes and economic pressure on consumers it is creating quite the buyers market for antiques.  I, for one, have been taking advantage of it whether my budget should be allowing me or not.

I was the recent high-bidder on this 3-piece Egyptian Revival set by Pottier & Stymus with marked mounts bearing “P&S” to confirm their maker.  It also appears they may have their original upholstery and purportedly came out of a famous Tarrytown castle formerly known as Carrollcliffe but known today as Equus.  I’ve never been so excited in my 4 years of collecting and will be picking them up tonight.

As I have captured the process of my recent Merklen Brothers restoration in high-definition video, stay tuned in the months ahead for the journey of restoring these Pottier & Stymus chairs captured in another video series on this site.

There is no recent auction activity on this fairly well-known chair design so I can’t compare the price I paid to “typical” auction levels, though I can compare it to retail levels of other comparable Egyptian Revival sets by P&S at $29,500.

As you can see, I am availing myself to the current pricing trends and will probably be curbing my sales in the meantime.

If you’re interested in following along in my journey to research and educate myself in the world of Victorian antiques, you can be notified of new articles automatically by submitting your email address here. If you prefer viewing blogs in RSS readers, the link is at the top right of the page.

I’m on the road again so Rare Victorian access is somewhat limited but I caught a window of time to mention that there are a few Meeks-attributed items going up for sale during a Jackson’s Auction sale happening today. The above table is being sold as a “Stanton Hall” pattern Meeks table with it’s pierce-carved skirt and carved floral cabriole legs. You can see the full complement of 4 attributed Meeks items at the sale here.

On another note, I made an exciting purchase this past weekend which could end up being a great restoration project. Once I have them in my possession and can take some reasonable photos, I will share the next project with you all.