FALLS CHURCH, VA. – When a lot of two Chinese bronze vessels in the June 12 Fine and Decorative Arts Auction at Quinn’s Auction Galleries had six phone lines in place well before the sale, David Quinn had an inkling that things might get interesting. The two, which had been cataloged without a date and estimated at $200/300, received numerous requests for condition reports and photos. By the time the lot came to the block, three additional phone bidders had joined the fray and bidding opened at $100. A competing bid of $40,000 quickly escalated bidding among several phones and online bidders. At the $60,000 mark, all of the online bidders had dropped out, leaving the action to the phone lines. When the gavel fell, a Chinese buyer in Spain, bidding on the phone, had paid $203,200 for the two, which apparently were from the Ming dynasty and were made in the Fifteenth or Sixteenth Century.
When we asked Quinn where he had found them, he said they had been with a couple of local collectors who have been in the process of downsizing. “They did not know what they were, but they’re thrilled with the results.”
“Even without those Chinese bronzes, we got to almost our low estimate, so we’re happy with the results. Overall, I’d say the sale did pretty well,” Quinn said, noting the total gross of $875,000. The auction was carried live on two online platforms and international buyers came with deep pockets, taking several of the higher-priced lots.
Despite an auctioneer’s best efforts to collect payment from buyers, there are usually one or two lots that go unpaid after a sale and those works are put back up for auction. Sometimes the lot brings more than it did on its first go-around, sometimes it does not. The latter was the case with a group of three Sevres porcelain cabinet plates that brought $31,750 in the firm’s January 30 auction and went unpaid. The plates had a central floral decoration and green borders and were reoffered with an estimate of $4/6,000 after it was discovered that one had provenance to a service made for Empress Josephine in 1808-09; the other two had belonged to Edward, Duke of Kent, who had received the plates as a gift from King Louis XVIII. The plates brought $24,130 from a buyer in Japan.
The sale offered a few more surprises, though none of the magnitude seen by the bronzes. A George III Thomas Hunter bracket table clock, circa 1760, in an ebonized wooden case with ormolu mounts and silvered chapter ring that Quinn said was “a lovely clock with a gorgeous chime,” sold to a buyer in Florida for $10,160, well ahead of its estimate. A framed Chinese Song dynasty book titled Zizhi Tongjian and written by Sima Guang made more than ten times its high estimate and sold for $6,985.
“Thinking Girl” by Angel Botello (Spanish/Puerto Rican, 1913-1986) an oil on panel measuring 20½ by 17½ inches, brought $22,860, while a marble bust of Napoleon signed “E. Santarelli, Firenze, 1836″ topped off at $6,350, more than five times its high estimate.
A buyer in the United Kingdom paid $12,065 for a portrait of Admiral Keppel that was attributed to Lemuel Francis Abbott (British, 1760-1803) and from the same Arlington, Va., estate that had the Botello. Louis Vuitton is a name that continues to resonate with collectors worldwide and always brings good sums even if the piece is in less than perfect condition. That was the case with a well-worn late Nineteenth or early Twentieth Century courier trunk that will be making another journey, this time to an Italian buyer who had to pay $6,350 for it.
Prices quoted include the buyer’s premium as reported by the auction house.
Quinn’s Auction Galleries’ next sale is anticipated to take place September 11.
Quinn’s $1.3 Million Auction Shows Diversity Of Estate Collection
FALLS CHURCH, VA. – On January 30, Quinn’s Auction Galleries conducted a fine and decorative arts auction featuring American, European, Asian and Modern selections from the estates of Washington, DC, notables as well as elegant residences in the northern Virginia region.
Ongoing Covid-19 restrictions prevented a gallery event with in-person floor bidding, but the auction was accessible by means of several alternatives, including phone bidding on auction day, live online and absentee.
There were more than 4,000 registered bidders from 67 countries participating in the sale.
Among the featured consignments in the 650-lot auction were classical antiques and marquetry furniture from the estate of Catherine Spencer Eddy Beveridge (1881-1970) and her aunt, Delia Macomb Spencer Field, the second wife of Marshall Field. The goods came directly from the Beveridge family home in upper northwest Washington and included selections of Meissen porcelain and high-end marquetry furniture.
“The sale was a massive success, doing more than $1.3 million, premium included, against an estimate of $550/700,000,” said Matthew C. Quinn, senior vice president of Quinn’s Auction Galleries.
A Nineteenth Century American School portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840-1924), American art collector, philanthropist and patron of the arts, earned more than 25 times its high estimate, bringing $69,850 and going to some local DC-area collectors.
Gardner famously founded the eponymous museum in Boston housed in a building designed to emulate a Fifteenth Century Venetian palace after receiving a large inheritance from her father. Early in the morning of March 18, 1990, thieves disguised as police officers robbed the museum of 13 works worth some $500 million – the greatest known property theft in history, works that to date have never been recovered. The full-length oil on canvas portrait, rendered in shadowy tones, came from the estate of a private collector in Potomac, Md., and measured 47½ by 27½ inches.
A $4/6,000 estimate was no match for bidder enthusiasm for a carved lacquer and wood guanyin, Ming dynasty (1368-1644), which was pushed to $63,500, won by a buyer in New York. The 21½-inch-high figure came from the estate of a southern Maryland collector/dealer and was on a red lacquer wood stand. Gilt throughout the whole body with red brown lacquer, the guanyin presented a serene face; sitting on the base with one leg crossed; five lotuses beneath his feet.
Another Chinese guanyin, this one a large three-piece gilt-bronze example, late Ming/early to mid-Qing dynasty, also performed well, bringing $57,150. Seated in double lotus position (dhyanasana) with the left hand held in dhyana mudra and the right in karana mudra, the guanyin wears a long flowing robe and dhoti bordered with stylized flowers with the chest open draped with an elaborate necklace with hardstone inlay.
A portrait of a lady in black by Alphonse Maria Mucha (Czechoslovakian, 1860-1939) shattered its $4/6,000 estimate by finishing at $53,975. Mucha, of course, is best known as the graphic artist behind many Art Nouveau posters. This portrait, painted in 1917 at Zbiroh castle, was done in oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right, 47 by 42 inches. The painting came with a letter as to the authenticity of the work by Wolfgang T. Swatek, who wrote, “The picture doubtlessly a work of the Czech painter and graphic artist Alfons Mucha…If I interpret the signature and date next to it correctly, the picture has been painted 1917 at Zbiroh Castle near Prague, where A.M. dwelled from 1910-1928 to complete the totally 20 giant canvasses of his Slavic epic, partially also as bare commission works Mucha painted numerous portraits during this period. This picture is one of them, The identity of the model and the little child in the mirror…are not to be determined….The portraited person is most probably a wealthy townswoman of Prague, very definitely shown in splendid evening robe.”
The Beveridge estate contributed a group of three Sevres cabinet plates with green and gilt border and central floral design that had descended in the family. Marked on base, the plates surpassed their $200/400 estimate to earn $31,750. Fetching $21,590 and also from the Beveridge estate was a group of seven Sevres green and gold plates with central floral designs, circa Eighteenth Century.
Honoré-Victorin Daumier (1808-1879) was a French painter, sculptor and printmaker, whose many works offer commentary on the social and political life in France, from the Revolution of 1830 to the fall of the second Napoleonic Empire in 1870. This sale offered a caricature of a court scene by the Nineteenth Century artist, a watercolor on paper that was signed upper right and 7¼ by 11¼ inches. Estimated $6/8,000, it did $27,940.
A pair of classical spelter male and female sculptures, one depicting a female figure leaning on torch that rests on a helmet and the other a nude male with a scroll or map case holding a tool in his left hand went out at $26,670, a decided premium over their $300/500 estimate. When we say, “went out,” that should be qualified to mean that at 41 inches high for the woman and 42 inches high for the man, the successful bidder would have to line up a third-party shipper as Quinn’s did not offer in-house shipping for the lot.
A rare 11-1/8-inch ruby-ground famille rose porcelain vase with a six-character Qianlong red-seal mark, probably of the period, was decorated with good-luck symbols on the neck and shoulder. Its main composition showed children on a residential terrace overlooking a pavilion and landscape. Since its purchase in 1922, the vase had remained in the Beveridge/Field family, passing by descent through subsequent generations. It was bid to $25,400.
“This is one of the best auctions we’ve ever produced,” said Quinn.
Prices given include the buyer’s premium, as stated by the auction house.
The gallery’s next estate fine and decorative arts sale will be conducted in June. It will host a wine sale and an African art sale coming up late February, early March. For more information, www.quinnsauction.com or 703-532-5632.
How the COVID-19 pandemic has altered estate sales
Estate sales can be emotional for families, and now they are also complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has largely sidelined the in-person estate sale.
“In a traditional estate sale. People come through your house. There can be 25 or 30 people coming through. How do you do that in COVID?” said Matt Quinn, at Quinn’s Auction Galleries in Falls Church, Virginia.
The answer is moving estate sales online, and traditional estate sales companies as well as auction houses are doing a lot of them. Quinn’s itself reports its biggest July for business in its history — more than twice as much business as a year ago
“We have shifted to an online-only auction model in the home that allows us to go into the home, sort things, organize them, describe them, photograph them, put them up online, give the buyer confidence to buy and then execute those sales,” Quinn said.
Quinn’s is aggressively hiring in all positions, from people who physically move the merchandise to the auction experts who write the auction listing descriptions to administrative staff.
Many estate sales come after the death of a family member, and self-managing an estate sale is probably not something a grieving family would want to do, but with the time and the right technology, it could be done.
Quinn still recommends hiring a professional to evaluate the contents being sold.
“The biggest risk families have is not understanding the the value of objects in the home. We’ve seen it too many times, when there’s been a $100,000 painting on the steps of a Goodwill, or somebody bought something at an estate sale for $10 and later sold it at an auction for $100,000,” Quinn said.
FALLS CHURCH, Va. – The Howard Wolverton Collection of Black Americana featuring artifacts and treasures of Black American history will be auctioned off Thursday in Falls Church. The collection includes items reminiscent of our country’s shameful past of hatred and racism.
Jacob Johnson is the conservator and the appraiser of this collection.
“The collection originated in East Orange, New Jersey,” he explained. “It originated with Howard Wolverton, who was a history teacher for predominately black students in high school there.”
This collection contains more than 2,000 relics ranging from books and photos along with chains and branding irons that might be a little more difficult for people to absorb.
“There are items that I have a difficult time dealing with,” said Johnson. “The shackles, the branding iron – I have a difficult time with those things. It is important because that is American history. It is the dark side of American history that many people would not accept and want to forget. But guess what? It’s part of history and we should be proud of our history. We are Americans.”
For some, these items can bring out a lot of emotion.
“I see people who almost draw tears,” Johnson said. “When you see how somebody was shackled, it brings tears to some people’s eyes. Can you imagine being branded with a branding iron? It’s horrific.”
The pieces in this collection date from the late 1700s to the 1960s.
“There are those people who don’t believe that these things should even exist any longer and there are those people who will buy them to destroy them,” Johnson told us. “It is very significant that we remember who built the country, how it was built, and it’s our history. It is everybody’s history. It is not just black people. It is American history and we cannot deny it.”
There’s a postcard from Dover, Del., of a shirtless black man being whipped in front of a crowd of white boys and men.
“THIS IS THE WAY WE DO ’EM UP HERE,” the sender wrote on the back, amid the more standard postcard pleasantries of 1938.
There are heavy, iron handcuffs and their double-sided key.
A branding rod with the letter J. Both used on humans.
And there is sheet music for a jaunty tune called “There’ll Never Be A Coon Sit In The Presidential Chair.”
All of these items will be open to bidding at Quinn’s Auction Galleries in Virginia this week, part of a 2,000-piece collection of black Americana.
It’s a trend in the collecting world — buying up these Aunt Jemima cookie jars, pieces of the human slave trade and literature from our country’s shameful past.
Some people buy them to get them out of circulation, to prevent the children of today and adults of tomorrow from ever seeing the way we treated other humans. And to keep racists from having palpable totems of their twisted beliefs.
But like Nazi or Holocaust memorabilia, it’s complicated.
When Matthew Quinn, executive vice president of the auction house, asked his webmasters to post the collection they said, “ ‘We can’t post this stuff,’ ” he told me. “I told them we have to. This is our history.”
Yes, it’s our history — and it’s awful. But there’s one important lesson to history: We must never forget it.
And I’m not just talking about never forgetting the Big Baddies — plantation owners, human slave traders and the like. It’s easy to believe we’re nothing like them.
The items that are part of this collection — the caricature salt and pepper shakers, the cereal trading cards of awful slave scenes that kids got with their breakfast, the Currier & Ives prints ridiculing black Americans that were displayed on the walls of the turn-of-the-century everyman like Thomas Kincade prints are hung today — remind us how accepted such bile had been.
Racism ran — and still runs — through every thread of society.
“You can’t talk about it enough,” said Jacob B. Johnson III, the antiques dealer and appraiser who brought the collection to Quinn’s. “As a society, we can’t ever forget.”
Johnson was friends with the collector, Howard Wolverton, a New Jersey high school history teacher who used the memorabilia as part of his curriculum.
“He was a white man who believed in teaching American history — all of it,” Johnson said.
Ignoring how casually America ridiculed and belittled black Americans — from household products with the N-word in the name to home decor that celebrated slavery — isn’t telling the whole story, Wolverton believed.
And his collection is an amazing, cross-class indictment of America’s original sin.
“None of this was made to be collected,” Quinn said. “Whether we like it or not, it’s American culture on display.”
And along with the despicable, the collection has the celebratory, which itself becomes sad.
Wolverton, who died in 2005, had what may be the only surviving tintype — like a metal photo — of William Tillman.
Never heard of him?
That’s part of America’s racism, too.
Tillman was one of the Civil War’s great maritime heroes. He was a steward and cook aboard the merchant schooner S.J. Waring when it was boarded by confederate privateers. Being the only crew member allowed to walk freely (they needed his help), Tillman staged a one-man attack in the dead of night to kill the pirate captain and turn the ship around, back to New York.
His valor got him a $6,000 reward from the government, newspaper accolades and a spot in P.T. Barnum’s show, where he regaled his heroism.
If a white man pulled that kind of coup, we’d be driving on roads named after him.
There’s also plenty of original material from Thomas “Blind Tom” Wiggins, the musical prodigy who composed “The Battle of Manassas” and wowed Americans, including Mark Twain, with his astonishing musical genius. He could perfectly mimic any sound, he learned Beethoven’s 3rd Concerto in one afternoon, then played the entire piece with his back to the piano — treble with his left hand, bass with his right. In his shows, he would play “Fisher’s Hornpipe” with one hand, “Yankee Doodle” with the other, all while also singing “Dixie.”
Never heard of him either?
Yes, forgetting, ignoring and sometimes erasing the strength, heroics, bravery and fortitude of black Americans is also part of America’s continuing racism today.
And how different, really, is the 1938 public whipping in Delaware from the videos we see on a regular basis of black Americans beaten, harassed and killed by police officers today? Or the racist song of Oklahoma frat boys — “There will never be a N-word in SAE”? Or the Arizona girls who thought it would be funny to spell the N-word out on their T-shirts? We’ve already forgotten.
In rare papers up for auction, Jackie Kennedy makes an inscrutable heroin joke
Jackie Kennedy is known for her elegant, tasteful transformation of the White House interiors, but a new cache of papers up for auction offers a rare peek at the nitty gritty aspects of prettying up the presidential digs — as well as the former first lady’s wicked sense of humor.
In letters, drawings, and other items being sold by Virginia-based Quinn’s Auction Galleries mostly from the estate of James Bernard West, the Camelot-era White House chief usher who died in 1983, Kennedy shows an attention to the aesthetics of even the humblest working spaces. In one missive, she instructs West to make changes to make the press room look tidier, including possibly adding shelves and trash cans for the sloppy men of the Fourth Estate — though the first lady admitted it was an uphill battle. “That room will never be ideal as they leave their cubbys messy,” she said of the scribes.
Letters cover mundane details, from the kinds of trash cans she wants in public areas to the positioning of dog beds and light fixtures, with the occasional flash of the first lady’s gently acerbic wit. In the West Foyer, for example, Kennedy asks West to remove a gold trophy: “it looks like the prize one would give to a lady driving champion,” she writes.
Another moment of Kennedy’s levity comes in a watercolor poster (estimated to draw as much as $3,000) she made for West in 1971, well after the family’s departure from the White House. In honor of West’s visit to the family’s home in New York, Kennedy drew a faux “wanted” sign advertising for a chief usher for their Manhattan digs. Among the duties of the job — those presumably those handled by West during the family’s White House years — included “waltz,” “bulldoze,” “winetaste,” “intercept dignitaries” and “forge signatures.”
And then another task that sounds like some kind of inside joke: “take resident kindergarten on field trip to heroin withdrawal center.” Hmm.
Matt Quinn, Executive Vice President of the auction company, says that while there is plenty of Kennedy memorabilia out there, many of the pieces on the auction block offer a rare, intimate look at the storied family. “To find something that’s this personal — it’s an honor,” he says.
The auction takes place online and live in Quinn’s in Falls Church on Thursday night.
This article was originally featured in the Washington Post on September 9, 2015. Source credit: Emily Heil is the co-author of the Reliable Source and previously helped pen the In the Loop column with Al Kamen.
Restaurant Critic Phyllis Richman’s Cookbook Collection Goes to Auction
Proceeds from the Aug. 12 sale at Quinn’s Auction House in Falls Church will benefit the Parkinson’s Foundation.
Have you ever wondered what a restaurant critic cooks at home? If you head to Quinn’s Auction Galleries in Falls Church on Wednesday, you’ll find a wealth of answers from The Washington Post’s longtime food editor and restaurant reviewer Phyllis Richman.
Nearly 200 cookbooks from Richman’s private collection will hit the auction block, including many first editions and signed copies with authors’ inscriptions to the legendary food writer, who recently chronicled her culinary adventures in Arlington for this magazine.
The collection heading to auction includes the first-edition volume of The French Menu Cookbook from 1970, and a 1975 edition of The Joy of Cooking. There are also several books on Jewish and kosher cooking, including Jewish Cooking in America by noted cookbook author and journalist Joan Nathan.
I also spotted a copy of the kids’ book title Cool Careers for Girls in Food—an especially resonant addition in light of this biting commentary that Richman penned for the Post about a Harvard dean who declined to admit her to the school’s urban planning program for fear that her studies would leave her unable to fulfill her responsibilities as a wife and mother. (The food world is ever grateful to that dean, given that Richman ended up pursuing a career in food journalism instead.)
The sale will also include copies of Richman’s own mystery novels, The Butter Did It and Murder on the Gravy Train, for $10 each.
Also on the auction block: several commemorative plates from the many James Beard Foundation dinners Richman attended during her career. Each of the plates, from 1992, 1994, 1996, 1997 and 1998, has a design relating to the theme of that year’s dinner.
The preview begins at 10 a.m. this Wednesday, and the auction begins at 6 p.m. Quinn’s Auction Galleries are located at 360 South Washington St. in Falls Church. Proceeds will benefit the Parkinson Foundation of the National Capital Area.
This article originally appeared online August 10, 2015 in Arlington Magazine, authored by Jennifer Sergent.
A collection of Martin Luther King mementoes goes on sale
An impressive collection of items related to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will go up for auction in Falls Church on Thursday, just ahead of the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights marches in Selma, Alabama.
UPDATE – March 12, 2015 7:55 pm
WASHINGTON — The auction has closed and the 16 items sold for a total of $99,668.
The LBJ condolence letter to Coretta Scott King sold for $60,000, twice the price of the highest auction sale of a President Johnson signature.
EARLIER: March 6, 2015 1:28 am
WASHINGTON — An impressive collection of items related to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will go up for auction in Falls Church, Virginia on Thursday, March 12.
The items are owned by Stoney and Shirley Cooks, of Hyattsville, Maryland, who were both involved in the civil rights movement. Stoney was a college student in Indiana when he became part of a delegation of students who decided to travel to Selma for the march, whose 50th anniversary was celebrated last weekend.
“Two days after Bloody Sunday, Stoney Cooks with three white people were driving through Alabama, just like we were free and cavalier. I say it was the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, you know — a black guy, riding south, heading to Selma, oblivious to all that was going on,” Stoney told WTOP.
Stoney thought he would be in the South for a week, but he never returned to college. He wound up working with King as a staffer at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
“SCLC was a movement. There was no librarian, no one trying to get a copy of everything for SCLC’s history,” he said. So he began collecting things, including handwritten notes of King’s that are about to be sold.
The item the Cooks are selling that is getting the most attention is a letter many would probably assume is on display in a museum. It’s the letter President Lyndon Johnson sent Coretta Scott King after her husband was assassinated.
Written April 5, 1968, on White House stationery, it includes this pledge: “We will overcome this calamity and continue the work of justice and love that is Martin Luther King’s legacy and trust to us.” The letter was given to Shirley Cooks by her brother, singer and activist Harry Belafonte.
Asked why they chose not to donate it to a museum, Stoney said, “Our conclusion was the auction is the best approach.”
But he added: “This document would be nice — the Johnson document — if it ended up at a major institution (such as) the new African-American Museum (under construction in D.C.) or the Johnson Library in Texas.”
The auction, by Quinn’s Auction Galleries in Falls Church, had been scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. Thursday, March 5, but because of the snow, it has been moved to 6 p.m. Thursday, March 12.
“The Lyndon Johnson letter is estimated at $120,000 to $180,000,” says Matthew Quinn. “Bidding will start at $60,000 and go from there. We do have interest from institutions, from private individuals, and only Thursday night will tell.” “We have the opportunity to sell valuable objects all the time, but to be able to hold a piece of history in our hands — it’s very humbling.”
Among other items to be sold is a guest book from King’s wake at Spelman College. Quinn estimates its value at between $4,000 and $6,000.
“It’s probably one of the more compelling items and it’s really hard to come up with an estimate for an object that really isn’t signed by anybody significant. There’s no title page to it; there’s nothing telling us that this is what it is. It’s an object of great magnitude, but it’s hard to put a number on that. The bidders will certainly be the ones to tell us what that’s worth.”
Auction action: A 1960 guitar with a D.C.- area history fetches a pretty penny
Lots of people figured the 54-year-old Gibson Les Paul electric guitar would fetch more than its $20,000 to $30,000 pre-auction estimate, but no one knew how much more.
The answer: a lot. Two Saturdays ago, Gil Southworth Jr. paid $140,000 for the guitar I wrote about recently. Add in the premium paid to Quinn’s Auction Galleries in Falls Church and the price tag came to $165,200. Why, with that money, Gil could have bought 1,652 brand-new $100 ukuleles (a sobering thought).
Gil is from Bethesda. He’s a guitar dealer, owner of Southworth Guitars, which had a shop on MacArthur Boulevard and then Old Georgetown Road before moving to the Web. His customers have included Eric Clapton, George Harrison and Tom Petty.
“I’ve bought and sold almost 100 original Sunburst Les Pauls, but I’m a nut for them, too,” said Gil, 58. “I’m my own worst customer, being a collector-dealer. I could probably sell this guitar right now and make a good piece of change on it. But I’m paralyzed by the terrifying beauty of it. My intention is to keep it.”
Gil said he was drawn to this one for a couple of reasons. It’s actually painted in “chocolate sunburst” colors, a rarer finish than regular sunburst. More importantly, it’s an exceptionally local guitar: purchased for $320 at Giant Music in Falls Church by a teenage Harry Ryan, played in a Northern Virginia band, and stored for decades under Harry’s bed before he decided to auction it.
HANDOUT PHOTO: Harry Ryan (left) and Gil Southworth, Jr., with the 1960 Gibson Les Paul Sunburst guitar that Gil had just bought at auction at Quinn’s Auction Galleries in Falls Church, Va., on Sept. 13, 2014. Harry is the guitar’s original owner. It went for $140,000. (Courtesy of Quinn’s Auction Galleries)
“I don’t recall ever buying one that I knew was bought new at a store in the D.C. area,” Gil said. “Of all the ones I’ve bought — and I’ve bought them all over the world — just to buy one that had that localness really turned me on.”
A self-described “guitar pinhead,” Gil has been getting turned on by vintage musical gear since he was a 10th-grader at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda. He’d mow the occasional lawn or shovel snow for cash, then peruse the teen swap column in the Evening Star newspaper. One day, Gil noticed that someone was selling a Fender Tremolux head — part of a guitar amplifier — for $50, half of what that typically went for. He bought it, then sold it for $90 — his first transaction.
“Oh lawnmower, see you later, man,” Gil said with a laugh. He next bought a 1963 Gibson ES330 for $100 and sold it for $145.
Every penny Gil made was reinvested in guitars to flip. He was “a guitar shark” after that.
“I was always just a psycho,” he said. High school friends would ask whether he would be going to that weekend’s kegger, and he’d have to tell them, “No, I gotta go to Baltimore to get this blue [Gibson] SG.”
There was a time when vintage guitars went for crazy money, sold to baby boomers flush with cash and eager to emulate their rock-and-roll heroes. Mint condition Les Paul Sunbursts were fetching close to $400,000. Then in 2007, the bottom fell out of the market.
“Everybody was so heartbroken,” Gil said. Not him.
“Not that I didn’t lose money on about 150 guitars. I sold guitars for eight grand that I paid 15 and 16 grand for in the bubble. That was a little tiresome. But I was thinking: ‘You know what? Too bad the bubble broke. But I’m only in it for 50 bucks.’
“I paid 50 bucks for the Tremolux head, and I never took a job after that.”
Gil has a coincidental connection to the Les Paul’s previous owner. His mother, Dorothy, and sister, Barbara, both worked at the Army Map Service, where Harry Ryan worked.
Gil’s new purchase has a few issues. The original pickups were removed, and the frets are worn down. Gil will fix that. In the manner of an art restorer, he will take fret wires from a 1959 or 1960 Gibson Melody Maker guitar — he owns about 45 — and transplant them to the Les Paul.
And he owns guitars equipped with the desirable “Patent Applied For” humbucking pickups that were originally in the Les Paul but were swapped out years ago.
“I don’t like to take parts off of one guitar and put them on another, but that is what’s going to have to happen,” Gil said. “One of my guitars is going to have to take it for the team. I just haven’t decided which one.”
When he’s done all that, the guitar will sing again.
