Auction Highlight: A $415,000 Desk Job

The ultimate take-this-job-and-shove-it desk--the piece of furniture on which King Edward VIII signed papers renouncing the throne of England--was sold Saturday for $415,000 in a quick burst of bidding at Sotheby’s.

The mahogany desk, circa 1755, with a green leather top and a dummy drawer, was the most expensive item purchased so far during a marathon series of auctions of 40,000 of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor’s possessions.

The successful bidder, who submitted the offer by telephone, was not identified.

When Edward put his signature on the abdication document at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, Dec. 10, 1936, the king, who took the title of Duke of Windsor, became the only British monarch to resign.

His decision to give up an empire for love--to enter exile to marry Wallis Warfield Simpson, a twice-divorced American--silenced bitter condemnation within the royal family and ended a grave constitutional crisis in England.

After more than six decades, the drama of the abdication has dimmed, as reflected somewhat in the sale price of the desk.

Top officials of the auction house said they were pleased at the size of the winning bid but admitted they had hoped the historic desk would sell for more.

“I even thought it would go higher,” said Diana D. Brooks, Sotheby’s president and chief executive officer.

Brooks, who conducted the auction, said 15 people bid on the desk, but lacking was the heated competition between an anxious underbidder and the eventual winner to drive the price higher. The presale estimate in the catalog was $30,000 to $50,000. “It’s a pretty reasonable price, but it is still a lot to pay,” Brooks said.

In 1996, at the auction of memorabilia from the estate of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, a European foundation paid $1.43 million for the antique desk on which President Kennedy signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963.

Competition has been intense for many items the Windsors collected in their former residence in Paris. But the series of sales so far has not matched the feeding frenzy of the Kennedy auction, which totaled more than $34 million.

So far, $6.7 million worth of Windsor possessions has been sold, including a tiny piece of preserved cake from their wedding, which fetched $29,900.

In addition to the desk, two green jade Maori war clubs, given to Edward, when, as Prince of Wales, he visited New Zealand in 1921, drew considerable attention.

The clubs were sold despite a last-minute appeal for their return by some New Zealand government officials and tribal leaders.

The clubs, valued at $3,500 each, brought $24,000 and $27,000, before taxes and premiums. The successful bidder was a private collector in New Zealand who made the purchase by phone.

Prince Edward met his future bride, who was still married, on Jan. 10, 1931, at the country home of Vicountess Thelma Furness. Simpson was suffering from a heavy cold--and from fright--when she found herself seated the next day alongside her future husband at the dinner table.

It was the beginning of one of the most widely discussed love affairs of the 20th century.

“I was petrified, and in the foreground of my mind, censoring all lighter impulses,” Simpson recalled in her autobiography. “. . . royalty must be allowed to lead any conversation and that I must eschew mention of politics and controversial matters--a restraint which by habit and temperament I was ill-equipped to exercise.”

As the romance blossomed, the prince realized he had met a woman of rare independence.

“Wallis had an intuitive understanding of the forces and ideas working in society,” he wrote in his autobiography. “She was extraordinarily well informed about politics and current affairs. I was impressed by her habit of reading the four leading London newspapers every day, from cover to cover.”

“She kept up with the latest books and knew a good deal about the theater. Her conversation was deft and amusing. But most of all I admired her forthrightness.

“If she disagreed with some point under discussion, she never failed to advance her own views with vigor and spirit. That side of her enchanted me. A man in my position seldom encountered that trait in other people.”

Five years later, the abdication papers were signed, and the Duke of Windsor sailed into exile aboard the British destroyer Fury.

No members of the royal family were present on June 3, 1937, when the Duke and Wallis Warfield (Simpson had reverted to her maiden name) were married.