Snappybids online auction blog

Dated April 20th 2012.

Like many college student I have to pay the financial plunge and dwindle my account down to near nothing, to cover the cost of tuition, school books. When I started College years ago an average text book at my community college would cost about $40.00 and I thought that was steep. I did not want to have to pay $40.00 for that book which now costs $200.00 that is totally outrageous.
And yet the big name publishing companies are set to raise prices again on us hard working students, So I am using my American ingenuity to develop a solution to the problem I am creating a website where college students can rent the text book, set their own prices for the text book, plus the cost of Shipping and Handling and save real money. A quote from “Amanda Wilczynski

At the beginning of every semester, students dread the thought of purchasing textbooks, and this year may have been one of the worst yet.

In the past four years, the cost of textbooks has increased at twice the rate of inflation, according to the Government Accountability Office. With a market estimated at $3.7 billion this year, the stark increase has not gone unnoticed by Congress, state governments, university officials, and students — all have joined in a movement to lower the cost of college textbooks.

Dali to Test Surrealism Prices At Sotheby’s
April 09, 2012

Sotheby’s is staging a major modern and impressionist auction that will test the surging market in late 20th Century artists such as surrealist Salvador Dali whose painting, “Printemps Necrophilique,” comes with a $12m estimate at the May 2 sale in New York.Also offered are a Picasso with a high estimate of $30m, a Soutine, and a prized version of Munch’s, “The Scream.” No published estimate was attached to the Munch work. Sotheby’s urged interested bidders to call for a speculative price. Some London bookies are giving odds it will go for as much as $200m.
AuctionNewsNetwork

An Orrery & Other Curious Devices At London Sale
April 18, 2012

An orrery, as mavens of vintage scientific instruments may know, is a mechanical model of the solar system. W & S Jones produced the George III example that Christie’s will be offering on April 25th. The intricate 1794 device has a a disc showing phases of the moon, mounted on a complex multi-wheeled mechanism, with a secondary ring graduated with the signs of the Zodiac. Christie’s anticipates a price of $47,580-$79,300.The auction’s top valued lot is a painting by Augustin Brunias (c. 1740-1796). “A Negroes Dance in the Island of Dominica” is a depiction of island life. Brunias had traveled to the West Indies in 1763 while employed by Sir William Young, who was appointed first Governor of Dominica in 1770. Two other featured lots are early globes. One is a 17th century copy (c.1615) of the Hondius Celestrial Globe (est. $39,650-$55,510). The second, produced about a century later, is a German 8-inch armillary Sphere attributed to Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr (est. $39,650-$55,510).
AuctionNewsNetwork
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First Olympic Marathon Cup Sets Record
April 19, 2012

In 1896, more than 100,000 Greek spectators were on hand in Athens to cheer as farmer Spyros Louis won the first Olympic marathon. This week, 116 years later, there was cause for another round of cheering as the silver cup he was awarded sold at a Christie’s auction in London for a record $868,000. That was over three times the high estimate, and more than double the previous record for an item of Olympics memorabilia.The Breal Cup, as it’s called, takes its name from Michel Breal, a French linguist who proposed that a marathon should be included as an Olympic event. Six bidders vied for the trophy, driving up the price. The final winner was the late Greek shipping titan Stravros Niarchos’ foundation, which announced it plans to exhibit the 6-inch high cup at its Cultural Center, due to be completed in 2015.
AuctionNewsNetwork
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Dated April 18th 2012

More changes are coming to snappybids.com we are going to make huge changes.

Christie’s Brokers $14.4m Sale of St. Cuthbert Gospel
April 18, 2012

The oldest surviving European book that’s intact isn’t very large. In fact, the St. Cuthbert Gospel is almost small enough to fit in one’s palm. It’s price, however, is another thing. Yesterday it was announced that the British Library, in a deal brokered by Christie’s, has purchased the 7th century manuscript from the Society of Jesus for $14.4m.The book takes its name from the 7th century English Christian leader in whose coffin it was discovered in 1104. Still in its beautifully preserved red leather binding, the book appears exactly as it would have to a 7th century Anglo Saxon. The purchase was made with the aid of a $7.2m grant from Britain’s National Heritage Memorial Fund together with gifts from the Art Fund, Garfield Weston Foundation and the Foyle Foundation.
Art Auction News Network

Trepanning Anyone? Macabre Specialty Items At Auction
April 10, 2012

One of the stranger offerings heading to auction next month can be found at a “Specialty Auction” at Germany’s Team Breker. It’s a complete set of 18th century French trepanning instruments. For those not versed in superannuated medical procedures, that’s the practice of removing a circular section of the human skull, still performed into the 19th century. The set, in “original” condition, comes complete with everything a surgeon of the time might need, including ebony-handled trephine, perforators, elevator and lenticulars (est. $9500-$12,700).Another macabre offering at the May 26th sale is a 1930’s coin-operated working model of amusement machine titled “The English Execution.” Evidently popular on British piers in that period, it simulates, for the price of a coin, exactly what its title suggests (est. $11,100-$15,900). On a happier note, the auction also features an assortment of French Automata with sunnier themes, such as a Chaplinesque figure who performs a tap dance on the seat of a chair (est. $32,700-$47,600).
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Jewels From Eccentric Heiress Come Out Of Vault
April 13, 2012

The story of the jewelry’s owner is more fascinating than her jewels to be sold next week by Christie’s in New York. Huguette Clark died at 104, a recluse for 60-years. Unseen in a vault for most of those years were a rare 9-carat pink diamond and an“internally flawless” 44.09 carat D-color, emerald cut diamond. Christie’s will offer 17 of Clark’s pieces, expecting a total of $12m.Ms. Clark, the daughter of a Montana copper mogul, moved from her enormous 5th Avenue apartment and lived the last 22-years in a hospital room surrounded by her dolls. She had no children. Even distant relatives were not allowed to visit. Her art and real estate holdings were vast and the estate is now tied up in a number of lawsuits.
AuctionnewsNetwork
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The Contract That Created Disneyland
March 09, 2012

Hard as it may be to believe now, when Walt Disney was planning Disneyland back in 1954, he had trouble raising money. So he entered into a contract with the third-place network ABC, which needed programming. According to it, ABC would invest in the theme park in exchange for a weekly television show that Disney would provide for a fee of $50,000 per episode. Online auctioneer RR is currently offering that contract with Disney’s signature in a sale that scheduled to end on March 14. Bidding stands at $8784, plus 20% buyer’s premium.Disney later joked that “ABC needed the television show so damned bad, they bought the amusement park.” The document that made Disneyland possible and positioned Disney as a titan in TV also features the signatures of Roy Disney, and Lloyd Wright, then the vice-president of ABC.
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Titanic Letter Sells For $40,700
March 22, 2012

Although it didn’t originally meet its reserve at a sale earlier this month at Philip Weiss Auctions, a two-page handwritten letter by a ship’s surgeon on the Titanic met a happier end than the vessel it describes. After the auction, a museum in Ireland called Titanic Belfast raised the funds to meet the $36,000 reserve for the document. Commissions raised the selling price at the Long Island auction house to $40,700.John Edward Simpson, 37 at the time of the sinking, wrote the letter to his mother on White Star Line stationary. His letter was dated April 11, 1912—four days before the disaster. Simpson, who perished, had been hired only on April 6 to care for second and third class passengers.
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