Featured Very Excited, Not Sure Where to Put this...18thC Mystery boxes?

Sotheby's just rejected both of the boxes, for valuation or consignment. Bit surprised at that, I'd have thought this would have been of interest, considering the the number of similar pieces I've been looking at from their catalogue this week. Guess I have to wait on christies but they never responded about the last antique I had.

Edit: Checked my other email, Christies just did the same thing. It falls 'below the sales threshold considering fees involved' and won't give an estimate.

 

I'm rather inclined to agree

My next course of action is to contact a few museums I think...

 

The pieces are exceptional,so I'm guessing its the missing/damaged pieces that make it a 'no go'.
Same thing happened to me w/a Dirk Van Erp vase that I asked Rago Auctions about-missing a handle,so 'thanks/no thanks'.
PS- GREAT pieces nevertheless.How about contacting antique clock collectors/restorers to check on feasibility of restoration ?
There also have to be some clock museums on the planet-keep on punchin' !

 

Clock museum is a good shout! I'll look into that.

I think I had hoped that they warranted more than the generic email I recieved, but I know they're busy! Perhaps if I find something that makes them interesting even with the damage I'll message them again. I am SO sad they're so damaged....

 

But for a Euro each IMHO-it's one of this years great finds....along w/ the gold necklace.
PS-I'd love to see them restored.Believe me,if you had to pick in my neighborhood-you'd be even sadder than you are now !

 

My Chinese ex gf’s family has a bronze censer passed down through the family. It’s one of the only things they fled China with. I had it authenticated and appraised by a highly regarded expert in the field. It was 18th century, a good example, in good condition, but only appraised at around $500-$700 or so if I recall. Nice example but nothing spectacular. I submitted it to Sothebys just to get a second opinion but more to just to be able to present more evidence to her very curious mother. They responded that they weren’t interested. I’ve asked them about one or two other pieces that were nice but not spectacular and fell in a similar value range. They declined interest in those cases as well. They do offer items in those price ranges in their auctions but I think they probably only take that stuff when they have to in order to get better stuff from the same consignor. They really cater to the top of the market and they spend a huge amount promoting their sales. I’m sure they’ve got it figured out that each item they enter into an auction costs them X amount in overhead and time and that when considering single items they need to reach X estimate to make all the costs and paperwork, communication, shipping, and everything worth it. I guarantee if you had 30 items worth 10k each and 5 items only worth $500-$1000 each that they’d take the 5 lesser priced items in order to get the 30 others. It’s worth asking mid tier or lower high tier auction houses about them but the problem is that most of those auction houses don’t have dedicated experts in all fields, if in any field. Museums might be the way to go or finding European based auction houses that may seem to gravitate towards items of this era.

 

If you're in the UK, Elstob's might be one place to look. I've seen a few vids based there and they do some online evaluations, especially if you're looking to consign.

 

Honestly this is definitely something I would want to restore if possible. I'm all for keeping in the original condition but these deserve to be whole again.

@J Dagger that would make sense, sorry to hear they weren't interested in yours either! Sounds like a lovely piece.

So far on the contact list are: VnA, Vienna Clock Museum, Museum of Bavaria, and the Museum of Munster (Westphalia all that). I can find no museum in connection with Johann Maximilian Lamburg to sniff that out. I'll do some research into EU based auction houses or similar. I'm going down to Carcassonne and Beziers in 10 days so perhaps I can find someone to look at them there.

@evelyb30 I'm not in the UK, but will be in December. Bit of a wait, but perhaps worth it!

 

All museums messaged, waiting for a response.

In the mean time I'm trying to figure out the monogram/cypher. Can't make heads or tails of it, except an M (pink/green) and an L or J (mustard). Unfortunately most examples online's owners havent bothered to decipher them, which makes this difficult. I thought I'd post it here for fresh eyes!

 

Updates from Museums!

Two didn't have any idea. One was helpful, they're similar to clocks from the South Germany region, but said she wasn't the expert I was looking for and recommended I contact someone else. I did this morning but he's out of the office until July 29th
I did get a response from the Bavarian National Musem. He was very interested in them, I've put his response below (translated):



Just need to wait on the last person and perhaps I'll have more to research on! So far the responses have been the same, they can find nothing comparable so all we have are educated guesses.

 

Try Rosebery’s. They do good stuff and aren’t as sniffy as Christie’s or Sotheby’s. Also, Toovey.

 

Thank you! I'll look into them

 

I sold a nice aldermaston pottery dish through Rosebery, and some butterscotch amber and other bits for a friend through Toovey’s. The dish was about a hundred and the amber made about seven hundred I think. Both auction houses sell higher end as well.

 

Good that you got some response at least, and he confirmed 17th century and German-speaking region.

 

YAYYYY!! I'm so pleased two museum specialists agree with the assessment. I hope the expert on vacation is excited to look into it more. But at least the region and time is confirmed for further research on the monogram. If only there weren't so many!

 

Quite! All the monograms I find are part of listings that don't bother to decipher hahhaha, harder work now!

 

Okay so my gem tester arrived, trying to learn how to use it. Estimating each stone is under 0.5c and its under 30C today, I set the tester to 6. Fingers on the metal plate, and voila:

Cone Diamond:


Cone 'emerald':


Box diamonds:


Box 'glass':


Box 'rubies?:


So my 10 minutes of google searching is making me think the 3-4 red lights are larger diamonds than the 2 light ones, and that the ruby being 1 red light means it is in fact ruby? The glass and the green stone only go up by one, so not sapphire/precious stone or emerald?
The glass goes up by two if I press a little bit harder.

The only graph I could find was this one, but not sure if it matters that it doesn't show it based on settings? Or if its saying low from where you've set it...
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0537/3037/7919/files/gemtest-pgi-chart-large.jpg?v=1629216164​

 

I always set it to 3. That way I can sus out glass or stones with a low hardness, and get a more reliable reading. If the stones are harder, it will go up by itself anyway.

 

I reset it to 3, the rubies go up to 7 lights, the glass goes up to 5.