Word: auctioner
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...planes were all part of the famous collection put together by Hollywood Stunt Flyers Frank Tallman and the late Paul Mantz. The auction, conducted by Manhattan's Parke-Bernet Galleries, was the first one of its kind, and it marked the coming of age of the helmet-and-goggles old-plane buffs, who readily admit that their mania for flying old crates amounts to "downright sickness." Explains Seattle Lawyer Richard Martinez: "It's a sort of nostalgia. You build yourself a replica of a triplane Fokker, and there you are, Baron von Richthofen...
...plane enthusiasts, whose motto is "Keep the antiques flying," the only disappointment in the auction, which grossed $282,620, was the number of vintage aircraft headed for museums. New York's Aeroflex Corp. alone accounted for $120,385 of the auction sales, including $20,000 paid for a 1914 Maurice Farman Pusher biplane and $20,000 for the Fokker D-VII, both slated for exhibition in a future air museum in New Jersey. But such, at least, was not the case with one beat-up, prop-less oldtimer, listed as the "Travelair Mystery Ship." "Mystery ship, hell!" snorted Oldtime...
...While their risks are lower on the ground, old-car fanciers yield nothing to the airplane addicts in their fervor for the old and authentic. Proof of their enthusiasm was the 20,000 who showed up last Sunday in Brookline, Mass., to preview Parke-Bernet's old-car auction of 65 antique and classic models. For antique collectors, brass is gold, since 1915 is the year when most designers stopped using brass as trim. Thus, when a bright yellow 1913 Mercer Raceabout, model 35-J, with a "monocle" windshield, restored by retired Los Angeles Fireman Harry Johnson, was driven...
...also rated a world-record auction price. With the bid at $35,000 (already past the previous record high of $31,000), Johnson gunned the engine; with the throaty 56-h.p. roar, the bidding shot to $40,000, did not stop until it reached...
About the only chagrined man at the auction was Boston Real Estate Dealer Mark Gibbons, 41, who had put on the block the massive yellow and black 1937 Rolls-Royce Sedanca de Ville used by Goldfinger in the James Bond movie. Gibbons bought it when, after a fenderside chat, he asked the owner to start it up-and found it was already running. But last week bids failed to meet Gibbons' reserve price of $11,000, which leaves him with a problem. "You can't drive it in the daytime," he says. "It attracts too much attention...