Word: auctioner
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...base charge of $10.95 a month, the QUBE subscriber can voice his opinions in local political debates, conduct garage sales and bid for objets d'art in a charity auction. QUBE is the first major system in which the viewer can talk back to the tube. By pressing a button, Joe or Jane Columbus can quiz a politician, or turn electronic thumbs down or up on a local amateur talent program, à la Gong Show. QUBE supplies specialized programs for doctors and lawyers; the local newspaper asks viewers to evaluate its features; advertisers pretest commercials for audience reaction. Columbus' multifaceted...
...result, the antiques market is at present enjoying an unprecedented boom. The demand for a piece of the past was such that the auction houses hammered down one record after another in 1977: rare books ($360,000 for John James Audubon's Birds of America), Sèvres porcelain ($102,600 for Marie Antoinette's delicately painted milk pail), American furniture ($135,000 for a Boston-made mahogany bombé chest, circa 1780), even tin toys ($3,105 for a Mickey Mouse organ grinder...
...cash in on the action, the London auction firms of Christie's and Phillips, along with French Dealer Didier Aaron, opened branches in Manhattan last year. Since opening in May, Christie's reaped sales of $20 million?50% over original projections. Sotheby Parke Bernet reports that sales for the past four months were $43.7 million, up 53% over last year...
Although princely pieces still command princely sums, the days when royal emissaries vied for a queen's collection of Leonardos in hushed auction rooms are gone. Today's collectors are apt to be middle-class?and many buy on the installment plan. Few of them can afford to furnish a room completely in one period, so they buy an Amish quilt or a mellowed English highboy to soften the lines of their contemporary apartments...
...them want Americana, probably the fastest growing segment of the New York antiques market. Prices have skyrocketed. Twelve years ago, a pair of paintings by Ammi Phillips, a 19th century naive artist, sold for $10,000. Last April a pair of Phillips paintings went for $44,000 at auction ?and were reportedly resold within a month for twice that amount...