New Developments in Hillsborough

September 9th, 2016

Leland Little Auctions, Hillsborough, North Carolina

Photos courtesy Leland Little

A number of new developments highlighted the September 9 catalog sale at Leland Little Auctions, Hillsborough, North Carolina. First was the catalog. This was the first time that the catalog for one of Little’s major sales was available only online. Auction houses in the Carolinas have offered both paper and digital catalogs for years. At the Hillsborough sale, however, there was only one, and it wasn’t paper. To ease the transition, the house offered a loaner tablet to those without an iPhone or laptop. “We are investing in digital infrastructure,” said president and principal auctioneer Leland Little. “It is the wave of the future.”

There are other waves in Little’s future. By December, he expects to open a new addition to his gallery, making it 21,000 square feet on 4.5 acres. He had to close one of his public galleries for the September sale; it was crammed full of merchandise for upcoming sales. There was also scant room for processing in his processing room.

Recently Little awarded longtime staff member Mark Terry with the enviable position of director of estate and collectible vehicles. That means Terry manages low-mileage, late-model luxury cars made by Cadillac, Lexus, and Mercedes-Benz. “We’re going slow on collectible cars,” said Terry. There are just too many old Corvairs looking for a new home. Cars are a smart option. The only one in the September sale, a 2014 Mercedes-Benz GLK350 SUV, was the sale’s top lot at $37,950 (includes buyer’s premium).


Searching Internet sites I found a similar low-mileage 2014 Mercedes-Benz GLK350 SUV in North Carolina for $33,000, the same price (minus the buyer’s premium) that a phone bidder paid for this car. With the buyer’s premium, this SUV was $37,950 (est. $20,000/30,000).

The nine-hour Friday sale was divided into three sessions—African artifacts, etchings, and general antiques—with a short break between sessions. The 143 African lots and the 47 lots of etchings were single-owner collections, and those sales had sparse attendance.

The African artifacts were accumulated by a now-deceased couple during the 1970s. The consignor added perhaps 10% to the all-West African collection, said Rob Golan, who cataloged the artifacts. No presale estimates were provided. Four lots sold for or exceeded $1000: a 33¼" tall Lobi female ancestral figure ($2360); a 15½" tall Mende female helmet mask ($1298); a 28" tall Baule Guro seated figure ($3075); and two sets of Yoruba Ibedji twin figures ($1180).


This 28" high seated figure from the Ivory Coast of Western Africa was the top lot in the single-owner collection of African artifacts. It sold to a LiveAuctioneers bidder for $3075.

The etchings were by French, British, Dutch, Austrian, and American artists. Every lot was in a simple gilt or wood frame with a wide cream or white mat. It was a stunning, unified collection from Stephen Foxwell Albright of Raleigh, North Carolina. Six etchings exceeded $1000—two French, two Dutch, and two British. An Old Bridge at Salisbury by British painter John Constable (1776-1837) was far and away the top-dollar lot. The etching sold to a LiveAuctioneers bidder for $5904. Someone really wanted the Constable; the winning bidder jumped the bid on it four times. No estimates were provided on the Little website.


This etching by British painter John Constable (1776-1837) of An Old Bridge at Salisbury (sheet size 4 7/8" x 7½") sold to a LiveAuctioneers bidder for $5904. It was the top lot of the Albright collection.

Selling prices for the 384 lots of general antiques were considerably higher, with 24 lots equaling or exceeding $5000.

Among the top lots in the latter session were three that came within a few hundred dollars of each other. Selling for $23,600 were a matted, unframed photograph, Sierra Nevada, Winter, from the Owens Valley, California, by Ansel Adams (1902-1984) and a set of ten deep blue Meissen cabinet plates with floral centers. Stephen Prior of Quinton, Virginia, drove down just for the Adams and kept his bidding number up from start to finish on it. It was his first Adams and his only purchase.


Ansel Adams inscribed his 13¾" x 19" photograph of Sierra Nevada, Winter, from the Owens Valley, California “To Phylly–Christmas 1978.” The negative was circa 1944. Stephen Prior of Quinton, Virginia, bought the Adams photo for $23,600 (est. $10,000/20,000).

When the gorgeous Meissen plates came up for sale, all eight staffers taking phone bids stood up. At Little’s gallery that means each of them had a potential bidder on the line. It looked as if the queen had entered the room. No one on site joined the bidding frenzy, but there were a few Internet bidders left behind. The opening bid was even queen-worthy: $9000 on a $600/800 estimate. With bidding increments of $500, the sale concluded rather quickly at $23,600.

From about 1940 to 1952, one of America’s premier etchers, Louis Orr (1879-1961), produced 50 images of North Carolina landmarks. Sets of all 50 etchings, like the one in this sale, are extremely rare. Each sheet has an 8" x 10" image with a signature and title in pencil on the lower margin. All 50 are in matching gilt frames. An on-site bidder paid $22,420 for the set. Despite its rarity, this is the second complete set of Orr’s North Carolina etchings that has sold at Leland Little Auctions. The first was in 2013.

The player who jumped the bid on the John Constable etching may have returned when a 17th-century Indo-Portuguese scribe’s casket came up for sale. This time the winning bidder on LiveAuctioneers jumped the bid five times. Despite four active phone bidders, the person on LiveAuctioneers emerged victorious at $9225.


This 10½" x 16" x 12" Indo-Portuguese scribe’s chest sold for almost three times its high estimate to an Internet bidder who jumped the bid five times. With various losses to its ivory and veneer, the chest cost the eager bidder $9225 (est. $1000/3000).

Little set aside one room in the gallery for modern art. Commanding the space was Potato Field by John Beerman (b. 1958) of North Carolina. The signed and dated (1993) oil on canvas was divided between a pink and blue sky and a field of plants in semicircular rows. An absentee bidder claimed the piece for $17,700. A set of eight signed and dated (1990) Seafoam glass pieces by Dale Chihuly (b. 1941) was part of the modern offerings. In deep emerald and crimson, the seashell-like objects were illustrated in Leland Little’s new quarterly pamphlet in an article featuring modern and glass art director Luke Newbold. The Chihuly set saw all Internet and absentee bidding. A LiveAuctioneers bidder took it for $8610.

Little employs three Internet bidding platforms, with one person responsible for each platform. The three managers sat next to each other on the auctioneer’s dais and called out winning bidder numbers. That made it easy to compare and contrast platform efficiency. Of the three, LiveAuctioneers had the most successful bidders and the highest winning bids. Invaluable was second, and Bidsquare a distant third.

Leland Little brings an intense, businesslike formality to his sales. Attired in a dark suit, dress shirt, and necktie, as are most of the males on his staff, Little moves merchandise along at a brisk 90 lots an hour with little banter or chitchat. There is no overselling or repeating what is in the catalog. With a little help from staff, advertising, and photography, good merchandise sells itself.

For more information, visit (www.lelandlittle.com) or call (919) 644-1243.


There are six links in this French platinum and diamond bracelet, each centered with four baguette-cut diamonds. Add in 150 bead-set round brilliant-cut diamonds and 102 bead-set single-cut diamonds, and you have a work of art that sold for $11,800 (est. $3000/6000).


The small circles on this collection of 35 Native American copper spear points, needles, edged tools, and other implements are labels indicating where and when the objects were found. Most were excavated between 1900 and 1940 in Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The collection opened at $2000 with considerable interest from the phones and Internet. The lot sold to a phone bidder for $5192 (est. $400/800).


One doesn’t expect a sale’s sixth-highest- priced lot to cross the block one minute before closing time. Leland Little’s staff estimated the early 20th-century palace-size silver vase accurately at $6000/9000, and it did not disappoint. An Internet bidder bought it for $13,530. The same vase sold at Sotheby’s in 1998 for $12,650.


Old-time auctioneers often joke about sky-high lots by saying, “Joe, bring out more of those!” Little wished he did have more of these gorgeous plates. Estimated at a rock bottom $600/800, the ten colorful floral Meissen cabinet plates soared to $23,600 in the space of what seemed like a minute.


Randall Love, a piano instructor at Duke University, sat down and gave this Steinway & Sons grand piano a test drive. “It’s a nice practice piano,” said Love. The 1974 Model L opened at $7000 and quickly sold for $9225 (est. $4000/6000) to an Invaluable bidder. Prunkl photo.


Originally published in the November 2016 issue of Maine Antique Digest. © 2016 Maine Antique Digest

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