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Paula Hantman Sells Celebrity and Political in Return to D.C. Auctions

by Robert Kyle

Not at many auctions can you bid on a pope's autograph, a 14th-century saint's bone, erotic Japanese shunga art, a bunch of John Kerry-signed documents, George Washington's hair, Bette Midler's Emmy award, and Batman's tights.

Paula Hantman had such an eclectic sale on May 15 and 16. She didn't intentionally set out to sell the unusual, unique, and rare; the items came to her in two estates of prominent local persons.

Absent from the Washington, D.C., area auction scene for two years, Hantman made this a memorable return with the two back-to-back but separate sales filled with objects of celebrity, history, notoriety, legend, and myth.

Also notable at these sales was Hantman's foray into the realm of the 20% buyer's premium. She first used this commission in a July 2003 sale of Kennedy memorabilia in New Jersey. With this event she became the first Washington-Baltimore area auction house to do so. The closest is Sloan's at 18%.

The Saturday session was devoted to a portion of the Robert L. White hoard of historical and Hollywood memorabilia. Sunday had items from the estate of the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

Robert White lived in Catonsville, Maryland. "He was considered to be the largest collector of Kennedy material in the world," Hantman said. He attended her auction of Kennedy material in New Jersey last summer.

"After the sale, he contacted us to start selling his Kennedy material that had been in a museum in Florida for five years," Hantman recalled. "The weekend we were getting ready to sign the contract—I talked to him on Friday, and he said, `OK, we'll get together Saturday or Sunday'—he died, unexpectedly. It was his heart. He was only fifty-four. When that news came, we started working with his widow, Jackie."

Hantman soon learned that the White collection wasn't limited to Kennedy material. "He had this other collection of mini-collections," she said, "so that's what we're starting now with this sale. His Iwo Jima collection is a collection of a lifetime. We just put it all into one lot. When I checked on eBay for our stats, it showed it was the most looked at lot in our auction during the preview."

Hantman used eBay's Live Auctions feature for the first time in her 2003 Kennedy sale. She was impressed with the results. "We sold sixty percent to seventy percent to eBay," she said. Using the Live Auctions format again, she said eBay exposure was equally beneficial this time. "We sold thirty-three percent to eBay on Saturday and forty-seven percent on Sunday," she said.

Complementing the Robert White collection, the Moynihan property contained many signed documents, books, and photos from prominent persons. Prior to his lots, about 225 random lots of jewelry, furniture, art, and silver were offered.

The two estates, each punctuated with articles with celebrity and history, set the stage for an unusual spring weekend auction where one could buy artifacts associated with the political, the powerful, and the preeminent. The venue was an Elks Lodge in Rockville, Maryland. Hantman's previous sales took place at a VFW hall in Potomac, Maryland.

Daniel Moynihan was a legendary figure in Washington, D.C., the only person to serve in four successive presidential administrations (Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford). He had been a U.S. Ambassador to India and an ambassador to the United Nations. He served four successive terms as a senator from New York. When he decided not to run in 2000, Hillary Clinton did, and now she fills his old slot in the Senate.

Moynihan was a professor at Harvard University, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at Wesleyan University, and at Syracuse University. He wrote 19 books. Moynihan died unexpectedly on March 26, 2003, at the age of 76, of complications from emergency appendectomy surgery several weeks earlier. He left a considerable cache of material.

"What we have is the first part of his collection that his wife consigned to us," Hantman said during the preview of the sale. "This is the tip of the iceberg. There are probably a couple thousand boxes of material left. And there is a wonderful retrospective at the Museum of the City of New York. Once that concludes, we'll be selling that as well.

"His other material is at the Library of Congress, and we have our pick of what we're going to sell from that whole group of property. In the fall we'll be holding successive sales. How many I'm not really sure until we get into some of the boxes," she said.

Because both Robert White and Daniel Moynihan had John and Jackie Kennedy material, Hantman said she will combine it for one of her fall auctions.

The Robert White collection had about 490 lots. Here are the top ten with the buyer's premium included.

1. Academy Award, cinematography, Wuthering Heights, 1939, $33,000 (est. $30,000/ 40,000).

2. Titanic memorabilia, two plates, a spoon, and a telegram from survivor Margaret Hays Easton, $24,000 (est. $20,000/30,000).

3. Guest register, 1859, Barnum's Hotel, Baltimore, signatures of Cyrus McCormick, James Buchanan, Belle Boyd, Charles L. Tiffany, Eli Whitney, and many others, $16,200 (est. $8000/12,000).

4. Emmy award, 1960-61, for Raymond Burr in Perry Mason, $11,400 (est. $4000/6000).

5. Six London Savile Row tailor's address books, 1895 to 1936, with about 14,000 signatures and addresses, including Albert Einstein, Rudolph Valentino, Rudyard Kipling, David Niven, William H. Taft, Gene Tunney, and many others, $7200 (est. $10,000/12,000).

6. Signed documents by John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln, one each, $6600 (est. $6000/9000).

7. Emmy award, 1977-78, for Bette Midler in Ol' Red Hair Is Back television special, $5100 (est. $3000/4000).

8. Signed Warren G. Harding presidential paycheck for $6250 for the month of March, $4800 (est. $3500/5000).

9. Batman and Robin costumes, photos, and book from television show, $3900 (est. $500/700).

10. Expansive collection of Iwo Jima World War II items, including flags, photos, uniforms, posters, medals, etc., $3750 (est. $10,000/15,000).

The following day, Batman was replaced by Bill Clinton when political items from the Daniel Patrick Moynihan estate were offered after the run of consigned antiques and art.

Three significant artworks were expected to highlight this first session, but only one sold. Cotton Pickers, a 9 inches x 12 inches oil on panel by William Aiken Walker, brought $19,800 (est. $15,000/ 20,000).

Not selling was Winslow Homer's pencil drawing, Boy in a Blackberry Patch (est. $20,000/30,000). The 11 1/4 inches x 17 inches work is signed and dated 1873. A Henri Matisse charcoal on paper, T<136>te de Femme, 11 3/4 inches x 9 inches, signed and dated '31, was also passed (est. $20,000/ 30,000). Both works were fresh to the market and consigned by John Kucera, a Philadelphia school artist, now 93.

In addition to the Aiken painting, another highlight of the non-Moynihan material was a 19th-century Louis XV style ormolu cartel clock and barometer that sold for $3600 (est. $4000/ 6000).

In the middle of the Moynihan selection of material was a group of 23 lots consigned by Patrick Anderson, former president Jimmy Carter's speech writer. These were notes, drafts, and speeches, all with Carter's editing. All of the lots sold, for a total of $45,210, about equal to their low estimate total.

The highest price, at $6600, was for four pages of notes on yellow lined paper that became an integral part of an address on the condition of the American family in which Carter suggested honoring the Biblical command to "honor our father and our mother." This lot sold over eBay.

The Moynihan material consisted of 156 lots, primarily political papers bearing signatures of past and present congressmen, senators, presidents, supreme court justices, and others. It proved an insightful glimpse into who's hot and who's not in politics based on their documents and signatures. Here are the top ten.

1. Jimmy Carter notes (three) to Moynihan, dated 1977, $3900 (est. $400/600).

2. Bill Clinton notes (two) to Moynihan, dated 1997 and 1999, $3300 (est. $600/800).

3. John Kerry notes (20) to Moynihan, from 1985 to 1997, $2040 (est. $4000/5000).

4. Bill Clinton letter to Moynihan, dated 1999, $2040 (est. $500/800).

5. John Kennedy signing pen, framed with letter, dated January 17, 1962, $2040 (est. $500/750).

6. Ronald Reagan signing pen, framed with letter, dated January 25, 1982, $1560 (est. $800/1000).

7. Ronald Reagan signing pen, framed with letter, dated December 5, 1988, $1560 (est. $800/1200).

8. Chaim Herzog (sixth president of Israel, born in Ireland), 18 typed letters to Moynihan dated 1978 to 1992, $1560 (est. $2000/4000).

9. Yoko Ono letter to Moynihan, 1987, urging peace in Ireland, $1440 (est. $1000/2000).

10. Ronald Reagan signing pen, framed with letter, dated November 9, 1988, $1320 (est. $800/1000).

Bidders also determined which names aren't as collectible. Here are five examples.

1. Framed color illustration of the Treasury Building, inscribed and signed by Larry Summers, secretary of the treasury, $60 (est. $200/300).

2. Robert Byrd, West Virginia senator, signed note on a page from the Congressional Record, August 25, 1994, $72 (est. $200/ 300).

3. Chuck Hagel, Nebraska senator, signed notes (four) and letter to Moynihan, dates unknown, $84 (est. $350/500).

4. Framed photo of Richard Nixon and his cabinet, presented to Moynihan, undated, $84 (est. $200/400).

5. John Danforth, Missouri senator, letters and notes (six) to Moynihan, dated 1991 to 1995, $120 (est. $500/750).

Collectors and dealers in celebrity and political memorabilia will have other opportunities to bid on material from the Moynihan and White estates this fall when Paula Hantman has part two of these sales. Check her Web site (www.hantmans.com) for more information or call (301) 770-3720.