Seeking to Turn Sale Finds to Gold--or at Least Cash

They came as early as 6:30 a.m. Saturday to Sotheby’s Heirloom Discovery Day, lugging--and we do mean lugging--dolls, battered chairs, a Buddha statue, old paintings and prints. The dream is that the $4 lamp you bought at a lawn sale and that has been exiled to the garage is actually worth $40,000 because its maker turns out to be a landmark artisan. (That actually did happen Saturday.)

Or maybe the Steiff stuffed turtle you bought for your son 40 years ago is now worth a couple thousand dollars. (Unfortunately, the turtle--faded by age and missing its two eyes--was sent back home with its owner.)

Most of the nearly 800 people who had waited in line for free appraisals found their offerings diplomatically rejected.

James Goodman, an appraiser and fine arts broker, pulled out a jeweler’s loupe to inspect the detail of handsome wood-framed prints that Shirley Usher had just put before him.

“They’re second, even third printings,” he told Usher. “They’re wonderfully decorative but don’t have the value that would warrant you disposing of them.”

“Disposing of?” Usher asked.

“Selling them,” said Goodman.

“I bought them from a garage sale for about $8 apiece,” said Usher.

“Then you did very well!” said Goodman soothingly.

Usher, who lives in Culver City, packed up her prints and headed off to get her clocks appraised.

On the expansive patio of the auction house in Beverly Hills, appraisals were being conducted by Sotheby’s experts as well as representatives of various dealerships with which the auction house teams up for online sales.

All the goods chosen for consignment will be auctioned online at https://sothebys.amazon.com from June 19 to 29. None of the items will match the find made by a man in 1989 who bought a $4 frame with a torn picture, only to discover a folded copy of one of the original prints of the Declaration of Independence. Only 25 are known to exist, and his fetched $2.4 million in 1991 at Sotheby’s in New York. It will be auctioned again online.

Among the potential treasures carted in Saturday was a significant amount of Civil War memorabilia--”which is amazing for California,” said Laura Maslon, Sotheby’s director of public relations--and three swords. An electric guitar made for Jerry Garcia--who died before he could play it--was expected to fetch between $6,000 and $8,000.

“If Jerry had actually played it--now you’re talking,” said Leila Dunbar, a senior vice president at Sotheby’s. “It would depend on when he played it and what songs he played, but it could sell for between $25,000 and $50,000.”

The popularity of the Heirloom Discovery Day dovetails with two phenomena: the burgeoning online auction business and the public enthusiasm for collecting and selling.

Some of the experts who appear on PBS’ “Antiques Roadshow” were evaluating objects. Chris Jussel, who until recently was the host of that TV show, is the senior vice president of Sotheby’s Online Auctions Associates Program.

“This looks like an Austrian ceramic from the 1920s,” said Jussel, walking toward a 10-inch-high figure of a man sitting in a chair with a cigar in his hand. Jussel gently picked up the item, scrutinizing it like a doctor might examine your lymph nodes. Good news for its owner, Lois Carmody: It can fetch $500 to $700.

By the afternoon, Sotheby’s furniture expert Leslie Keno--another star of “Antiques Roadshow”--had yet to see something as spectacular as, say, a rococo revival piece by John Henry Belter. “But I’m hopeful,” he said cheerfully.

More than 100 salable items were discovered, but few reached the level of Viola Goodwill’s big copper lamp with a layer of grime and a ratty cord. The Dirk van Erp lamp--circa 1915, probably made in San Francisco--is expected to fetch between $40,000 and $60,000 at auction.

“He’s considered the foremost manufacturer of Arts and Crafts lighting,” said Jon King of Sotheby’s.

Goodwill bought it at a lawn sale in 1959 for somewhere between $3 and $5 and had relegated it to a garage for the last 30 or so years.

“I didn’t have a place to put it,” said Goodwill, 78.

She does now.