02.26
From Tiffany Bronze Dore plates to an old opium box, the items on display at the Kirkland Fine Arts Center galleries this weekend will be a little different than the regular pieces on exhibit.
That’s because it’s time for Millikin University Art Department’s Winter Antique tiffany bracelets.
Ed Walker, chairman of the department and an accredited appraiser, puts together large, high-end antique sales twice a year with pieces that come mostly from local estate sales.
This season’s show is fueled largely by the estates of Judge A.G. Webber III, who died this past February and longtime Decatur residents Dorothy and Bob Nichols, who recently relocated to Colorado.
“If people are interested in getting something from a major estate in town, this is a good place to do it,” Walker said.
Among the items from Webber’s estate is a large desk that once was in the administration offices of A.E. Staley Mfg. Co.
Walker said two pieces he expects to get the most attention during the weekend are an 1867 tiffany on sale 13 star flag and a hand colored lithograph from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
“We’re developing, I think, a reputation of having some pretty good stuff,” Walker said.
This is the fifth sale of this sort Walker has hosted at Kirkland. He works with banks and estates in the area to find the items and then does the research to determine how they should be priced. As soon as this sale finishes Sunday he’ll begin preparing for the next sale this summer.
Walker has pushed to make the event a respectable one at which people can find high-end antiques that normally can’t be found in local antique shops. The difference, he said, is most of the items available at his sale were already a part of someone’s collection, and now they’ve been made available to transfer into someone else’s collection.
“By doing this twice a year, we’re trying to build not only a client base, but a reputation so that people know that when I have a sale at Millikin, it’s going to be topnotch and it’s going to be always interesting,” he said.
While some of the pieces cost as much as $5,000, there are still many items that cost less than $10.
“I really try hard to get a nice variety,” Walker said. “With the accumulation of an estate, you get all kinds of stuff.”
And besides going home with a collector’s item, shoppers also could go home with some valuable tiffany sale from Walker.
“We try to give people as much personal attention as possible when they come in,” he said. “I give out a lot of free appraisal advice on those three days that I usually don’t give out.”
In addition to the items being prepared by Walker, Patty’s Antiques will be selling antique furniture and Flora Gems will bring a few hundred pieces from its estate jewelry department.
John Flora of Flora Gems said the show went well for them the first time they participated, so they’re coming back to try it again.
“There’s certainly is a correlation between people that are looking to buy antique collectibles and furniture, and the group that like to look at estate jewelry,” Flora said. “It gets a lot of people together in the same place at the same time.”
Also on sale will be a collection of fine art paintings and prints. A standout piece is a painting by English artist W.H. Weatherhead. It’s sale price is $5,000.
“This is museum quality art right here, so hopefully that’ll end up in somebody’s house,” he said. “That’s the kind of stuff we really like to have so people can kind of get an education and see something that they otherwise wouldn’t’ be able to see.”
Walker said about 10 percent of the profits from the show will benefit Millikin’s art department.
arueff@herald-review.com 421-6986
IF YOU GO
WHAT: Winter Antique Sale
WHEN: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday through Sunday
WHERE: Perkinson and lower art galleries in the tiffany jewelry on sale Fine Arts Center