On March 26, 2009, Swann Auction Galleries will present “Printed & Manuscript Americana” featuring historic baseball material from the game’s earliest days, property from the Roger Hollander collection, as well as items related to former presidents and important American figures, such as Thomas Edison. Swann Galleries’ auction will be available live online to bidders and interested viewers around the world, exclusively through Artfact Live!, Artfact’s industry leading online auction bidding platform. If you can’t be part of the action in New York City on March 26th, simply visit www.Artfact.com or its sister site in the UK, www.Invaluable.com to register to bid free and to explore the world’s largest marketplace of fine and decorative arts, antiques, collectibles, and estate auctions. If you’re not ready to bid, simply watch the activity live from the auction floor using the Artfact Live! console.
Highlighting the Swann auction is an archive of Thomas Edison’s notes and correspondence, including thousands of pages, more than 130 sheets in Edison’s hand, and 20 artifacts. Edison’s archive is estimated at $50,000-$75,000. The auction also features Roger Hollander’s Western collection of books, photographs and manuscripts, which have been housed at his ranch in Wyoming – the same ranch that was once Buffalo Bill Cody’s hunting lodge. An archive of 42 photographs of Buffalo Bill’s 1886 Wild West show, which provides a candid, behind-the-scenes glimpse of the show and its stars, is expected to sell between $15,000-$25,000. Also from Hollander’s collection and estimated at $8,000-$12,000 is a financial record for Buffalo Bill’s traveling show, including entries for Annie Oakley and Bronco Bill, along with a page of Sioux debits and credits reflecting payments made to Sitting Bull.
Additional auction highlights include a selection of baseball books and manuscripts containing early New York Yankees business records connected to Babe Ruth and other Hall of Famers. A receipt sent from the American League offices to the New York Yankees in return for gate receipts from a 1915 game at the Polo Grounds, in which Babe Ruth hit his first Major League home run, is expected to fetch $500-$750. Concluding the Swann sale are nearly 75 lots of Latin Americana, including rare books and manuscripts. Doctrina Christiana, y Catecismo para Instruccion de los Indios, the first book published in South America in 1584, is expected to sell for $10,000-$15,000.
Since the departure of eBay Live Auctions, Artfact Live! has taken the lead in the live auction arena by partnering exclusively with the world’s most prestigious auction houses to host their online auctions. In addition to Swann Auction Galleries, Artfact’s ever-expanding list of premier auction house partners includes Doyle New York, I.M. Chait of Beverly Hills, Koller Auctions (Zurich), Lyon & Turnbull (Scotland), Gorringes (UK), Ritchie’s Auctioneers (Canada), and Mallet Japan, to name a few.
To date, the Artfact Live! platform has received rave partner reviews. I.M. Chait, which has hosted four successful auctions through Artfact Live! since January 1st, claims, “We had been so tremendously worried about losing e-Bay Live… then, ‘lo and behold’ it all worked. We much prefer Artfact Live!…” After nine successful auctions in 2009, Vectis Auctions in the UK, another exclusive partner, agrees, “We found using the Artfact system extremely user friendly and we are very happy with it.”
Background:
Artfact is the largest global marketplace of fine and decorative arts, antiques, collectibles, and estate auctions. Artfact Live!, Artfact’s proprietary live auction bidding platform, enables users to bid real time on auctions being held around the world by its prestigious auction house partners. Currently, over 1,000 fine auctioneers actively list their catalogues with Artfact.com and its U.K. sister site Invaluable.com. The Artfact community has grown to more than 10 million knowledgeable collectors and dealers worldwide and the Artfact.com and Invaluable.com websites now have close to 2 million unique visitors monthly. Artfact’s database now includes more than 50 million complete auction results totaling more than $190 billion in value, including information on more than 500,000 international artists. Artfact’s RFC Systems software helps prestigious auction houses around the world to manage their businesses.
