The E-Sylum:  Volume 5, Number 40, October 6, 2002, Article 7

ADAMS SALE REMINISCENCES

  In response to Robert Christie's request for memories of the
  Kolbe sale of the John Adams library, George Kolbe writes:
  "The June 1990 Adams sale was remarkably successful. I
  believe it brought something like 175% of the estimates, due
  in good part to the very high prices brought by the large cent
  correspondence.  A couple of hundred mail bidders, 25 floor
  bidders, and 2 telephone bidders participated in the sale. The
  phone bidders added much excitement to the sale.  Harry
  Bass's bids were handled by Linda Kolbe, and Armand
  Champa's were handled by John Bergman, who was extremely
  busy executing bids for a number of other clients as well. This
  was, I believe, one of the first sales that I personally called; in
  past public sales, an auctioneer had generally been engaged
  (usually the celebrated auctioneer, George Bennett in California,
  and Harmer Johnson in New York).

  Anyway, I was more than a little nervous, and the extremely
  heavy floor bidding did nothing to calm me. John Adams'
  wonderful set of The Numismatist brought the highest price
  ($33,000) but the sale of lot 206 (unique manuscripts of
  Edward Cogan sales 1, 2 & 4) was probably the most exciting
  to those present. Estimated at $1,000, it opened at $700,
  though we had a $2,000 commission bid.  A strong floor
  bidder and the two telephone bidders engaged in rapid-fire
  bidding but the lot ended up opening three times before it was
  finally hammered down at $8,000.  I was going pell-mell
  between the floor bidder and the telephone bidders, and one
  of the latter, Armand Champa, withdrew his second-high bid
  twice and asked that the lot be re-opened.  I don't think he
  believed that there was anyone out there who would pay more
  than he would for the lot, and I kept calling the bids so
  rapidly that I'm sure it was confusing to him from 2,500 miles
  away. The last time around, I do not believe that he was even
  the underbidder. So, the Cogan sales, along with the set of
  Numismatists, went to Dallas. Harry Bass believed in anonymity
  and Del Bland long "bugged" me about the identity of the
  mysterious bidder No. 15. It was amusing to note his guess
  that it was "R. E. Naftzger, Jr. bidding for ANS" in Richard
  Christie's commentary. The set of Numismatists turned up in
  the third sale of Harry's library but the Cogan manuscript sales
  never did. Perhaps Del is right and they are now in the ANS
  library. The most disappointing aspect of the sale to me was
  that the catalogue covers turned out so poorly.  The stock was
  too porous and the bronze ink employed "bled," with the result
  that the images have the appearance of a photographic negative."

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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