Antiques dealers ready to put it all up for auction
Two stores are going out of business — and the inventory is out of this world
If you like high-quality antiques, art and collectibles, get out your credit card or your checkbook and be prepared to do some shopping. Two well-known antiques stores — Carl Moore Antiques and Harrison’s Fine Antiques and Art — are both going out of business. Mark Harrison’s antiques inventory will be auctioned on Saturday at Gallery Auctions and Geoffrey Westergaard’s Carl Moore Antiques inventory has been marked down for what will likely be a monthslong retirement party/sale. Both men said they simply are ready to retire and do something else. Harrison is 77 and retired from a 34-year career in pharmacy and managing Walgreens stores in 1995. He’d already been dabbling in antiques, and that’s when he dived full-time into the world of antiques. He has owned buildings and leased space and most recently had a shop on Westheimer.
On Saturday, what remains of his inventory from his 10,000 square feet of gallery space and another 6,000 square feet of warehouse space will find new owners in live-auction bidding. Thursday and Friday are preview days, and there will be no online bidding. Auctioneer Vikki Vines expects to go through 100 items an hour, and whatever doesn’t sell on Saturday will become part of her regular Monday French container auction.
Westergaard said he recently turned 60 and decided to end his 40-year career as an antiques dealer — there originally was a Carl Moore, and Westergaard bought the shop from him 20 years ago — to travel the world.
In fact, Westergaard is even selling the contents of his own home — art and all.
“I’m going to let everything find a new home. All of my friends, when I told them I’m retiring, said, ‘Oh, good you can come for a proper visit,’ ” Westergaard said. “I said, ‘A proper visit is two to four weeks,’ and not one of them flinched. They all said, ‘You let us know when you are coming.’ So I sat with a globe and figured that I could go around the world for 18 months staying with people and having a good time.”
Harrison, on the other hand, is ready to relax. He’s tired of working and said he already has traveled the world. He said he’ll sell a few personal collectibles on eBay to stay busy.
Harrison’s goods are arranged at Vikki Vines’ auction house on Luthe Road, and he says he’ll be on hand for the auction on Saturday. He’s a dealer of antiques and art, but his specialty was always unusual collectibles.
There’s an original Chippendale tall chest of drawers waiting for a new owner. It would retail for $25,000 to $30,000 but will likely end up a bargain for an antiques lover.
A pair of tables — Harrison calls them Presidents’ Tables and they’re valued at $225,000 for the pair — will be manna for a history buff. They come with a provenance that tells how Presidents John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson were part of a dinner party that used these tables in a going-away dinner for a French diplomat. They are two separate tables, but someone later created a piece that joins them together for one longer table.
Harrison’s inventory includes a pair of bronze Foo Dogs, statues believed to have protective powers. The huge menacing figures would sit outside your home, the male with one paw on a ball to represent supremacy over the world and the female with a paw on a playful pup, meant to symbolize nurturing. They’re valued at $19,500, and it will take a team of strong weightlifters to help you get these home.
His more unusual things include a working French studio dry plate camera (circa 1890, valued at $23,980), a polished bronze French clock (19th century, valued at $28,000) and an ornate Meiji period cloisonne incense pot (circa 1640-1912, valued at $2,950).
A handful of artwork will also be for sale, pieces by George Rodrigue, Salvador Dali, Marc Chagall, Toulouse Lautrec and David Adickes.
“I like anything that is unusual — Asian things and art. I likes porcelain and jewelry. I have eclectic taste,” Harrison said. “The people who come to me are collectors. Let’s say you collect green monkeys. You start with a little ceramic one that maybe is chipped. It’s OK, but then you want porcelain ones and you collect those. Then you see one and think, ‘That’s a real nice one, it has emeralds and diamonds encrusted in it.’ You keep upgrading until you’re looking for the the cream of the crop. That’s what I tried to get. The green monkeys with emeralds and diamonds.”
Harrison won’t be sad to see things go, after all, they were always meant to be sold.
“I know it’s going to someone who will appreciate it. Or it’s going to a dealer who will sell it to someone who will appreciate it. In the course of a dealer’s life you buy and sell so much stuff … you’ve already had the love of possessing,” he said.
Westergaard’s inventory is varied, but much of it is meant for home décor, sofas, cabinets, chairs, dressers, lighting and art.
“I feel this is a win-win-win. Yes, I get to retire, but people can come in and find something that’s one of a kind. These are the kinds of things that give a home texture,” he said.
Like Harrison, Westergaard gives a quick history lesson with every piece he sells. After all, furnishings represented the times in which they were used. One English dresser has three layers of paint that you can see because the paint used 150 years ago was all natural, unlike the longer-lasting paint someone would use today. And, inside the dresser drawers you’ll see the original acid yellow color because homes in the 1800s were darker and they needed bright colors to reflect light.
“I always tell people that I’m looking for magic because some pieces have an ability to transport you to another place,” Westergaard said. “There’s just as much ugly furniture being made today as there was 250 years ago, and my job is to filter through the cacophony, the noise. My job to tell you why any one piece is a good one and a great value.”