The buyer of the copybook was on the phone, number 68. It was made for Georg Weber and dated October 22, 1794. It is decorated with a big heart, tulips, two parrots, and a dog-faced alligator. There was plenty of competition for it, and it was knocked down to number 61, registered to Baltimore dealer Milly McGehee, underbid on the phone. It is hard to predict what these high prices will mean.
Collectors bid until they got what they wanted.
A few dealers bought for stock, paying a premium. Other dealers bought little unless they had strong bids from clients in their pockets. Bill Koch would have loved to have been at this sale. His younger son Fred, who orchestrated this sale as he had done for two other sales held at Horst Auctions in Ephrata over the nine years since his father's death, said he wanted to sell the core of the collection at a farm sale like the sales his father attended every weekend. Because it was an estate sale, no Pennsylvania state taxes were charged.