1-2-3 Sold! Recent Pipe-Auction Action: Difference between revisions

'''SYSOP's Note:''' Still working on this but needed to save it....

What follows is a series of pipes at public auctions held within the last five to ten six years. For a balanced report, I present an amalgam of pipes from today and yesterday. Some may be worthy of their realized prices … depending on your perspective. I can judge whether the realized prices for the antique pipes were realistic, but I will not comment on the prudence of spending this kind of money on any of the briar pipes I have included.  As to the sequence, I wanted to present the pipes in chronological order and by medium, but I was not always successful.   

The Web is chock-full of articles about famous people who smoked a pipe, famous pipe smokers in history, famous writers who smoked a pipe, pipe-smoking actors, famous tobacco pipes, and such. This narrative is different. It’s about pipes ''from'' celebrities, and their disposition after they departed this life or after they lost interest in smoking. (Near the end I include a few pricey pipes at recent auctions that are not from celebrities.) I would think that, at auction, the celebrity, not the pipes, would influence the price.

File:Rapaport-Pipe-Auctions-9-45-1.jpg|Courtesy, craftsmanpipes.com

File:Rapaport-Pipe-Auctions-10-45-2.jpg|Courtesy, craftsmanpipes.com

In September 2010, Hake’s conducted a two-part online auction that included this Smoke Master briar pipe and Yello Bole cigar holder belonging to the legendary Hollywood actor John Barrymore. The House placed a value of $400–$700, and a starting bid of $287.50. No takers.

Aaron Spelling. It was fairly well-known that the actor, writer and TV producer had a collection of some 600 Dunhill, Saseini 4-Dot, and S.T. Dupont pipes. Sometime after he died in 2006, Spelling’s estate contacted Kevin Godbee, who contacted Rick Newcombe and then onto Brian Levine and Sykes Wilford. In 2010, Brian, Kevin, and Sykes catalogued the collection at Pheasant Run during the Chicagoland Pipe Show in 2010. This extensive collection was available to the public but not in a public auction. Smokingpipes.com sold them all in 2011 and 2012. Kevin posted his involvement at pipesmagazine.com.

Orson Welles. In the March 2012 Nate D. Sanders Hollywood Memorabilia auction was “Lot 1550, Orson Welles Personal Signed Pipe Set. The eclectic pipe set includes eleven pipes from different worldwide pipe brands Oval wooden display unit holds a possible 24 pipes and features two glass tobacco jars with wooden lids in the center.” Minimum bid was $100; the realized price, $1,477.  

 

Bing Crosby. The first mention of an auction from his estate after he died in 1977 was by Robert Lindsey in ''The New York Times'' article, “Memorabilia of Bing Crosby’s Houses Will Be Sold” (April 18, 1982); he listed many of Bing’s possessions, but pipes was were not one of them. In the following month, another article in ''The New York Times'': “From Pipes to Cars, Fans of Bing Crosby Buy Pieces of His Life” (May 30, 1982): “…1,400 lots of the late singer’s possessions, including his pipes, his golf clubs, pocket watches, gold clips and some of shirts, ties and socks.” The auction was to be conducted by Butterfield Auctioneers, San Francisco. However, I found this: “Fans, bargain hunters claim memories of Bing” (stevenlewis.info): “The 26 pipes offered for sale included some a foot long and others that were hooked with huge ceramic bowls. Some had ivory mouth pieces, others were briarwood.”  

[[File:Rapaport-Pipe-Auctions-22-Crosby-6-59B.jpg|thumb|center|600px|SYSOP Note: Same as lot 47E above? Courtesy, invaluable.com]]

Ain’t much to look at in any of the four lots, and the realized prices indicated as much. As recently as April 2023, Proctor Auctions, New Bern, North Carolina, “Discovery Auction 130” included 207 lots; Lots 39, 42, and 45, each consisting of “NOS 3 Bing Crosby Pipes” with the advisory “Price Realized Not Uploaded.”  

Albert Einstein. In Christie’s, London, auction, “Valuable Books and Manuscripts” in July 2017, among some of Albert Einstein’s collection of personal effects was this sandblasted billiard with an estimate of 5,000–8,000 GBP. The realized price? It was tenfold more than the House anticipated, 52,500 GBP or $67,200. Someone wanted this pipe at any price.

This much-used smoked Einstein pipe was donated to the Smithsonian in 1979.  

The comedian Jerry Lewis (Joseph Levitch). In June 2018, Julien’s Auctions conducted a two-day Hollywood Legends auction in Las Vegas that included property from the estate of Jerry Lewis: three pipes––a Dunhill Shell Briar with a 14-kt gold fitting (stamped B118 33), a K&P Tankard, and a Chacom lady’s pipe–with a House estimate of $200–$300. Two bids and a , yielded two bids, sold price: $640.   

Burt Reynolds. On June 15–16, 2019, Julien’s Auction hosted the sale of the property of the Burt Reynolds estate. Burt smoked cigars, so the catalog included many of cigar cases and humidors, and but he also owned an assortment of tobacco pipes, most of which were unremarkable. Lot 612: “Inlaid Pipe Stand and [5] Pipes, $1,000–$1,500”; Lot 613: “Pipe Stand and [9] Pipes, $1,000–$1,500”; Lot 615: “Pipe Stand and [3] Pipes, $800–$,1200”; Lot 616: “Pipe Stand and [5] Pipes, $500–$700; Lot 618: “Pipe Stand and [3] Pipes, $300–$500; and Lot 621: “[2] Tobacco Pipes,” in their pipe stands, $200–$300. These two lots were the highest bids.  

How about a A solid amber pipe?  It’s not practical pipe to smoke, because amber, a soft gem, burns at relatively low temperatures. Yet, from the 1850s onward, amber was turned into mouthpieces and all-amber pipes which that are rare finds today, such as this one in pristine condition, the amber figural of a bull. It has a long history of ownership. In 1940, the American Tobacco Company acquired the Demuth Company collection of about 250 pipes; American named it the “Half and Half Collection” after its best-selling pipe tobacco, and displayed it at the company plant in Richmond, Virginia. In 1957, the collection was donated to the Valentine Museum in that city. In 1991, The Valentine sold the collection to the Austrian Tobacco Museum, Vienna. The Museum shuttered in early 2002, and its contents were sold later in the year by Kunst Auktionen, Vienna, where this pipe was purchased by a French collector. After he died, it reappeared in this Piguet auction. The house estimate was a low 1,000–1,500 CHF. Its realized price was unexpected 7,000 CHF or about $7,800.