The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-04-05
Bogus Sales, Reserve Prices and
Dummy Bids Bring Them
Into Disrepute.
The Great Sales of Art Collections
Are Not Entirely Above
Suspicion.
Mary AndersOn's Crank "Mash"-Taking
an Evening Out-Items for the
Third Sex.

Especial Correspondence of THE INDEPENDENT.
New York, April 1.-Mr. W.. Jennings
Demorest will deserve a statue at the hands
of his grateful countryn,en if he succeeds
in putting a stop TO even one of the bogus
''auctions'' which deceive the unwary New
Yorker 1856 days in the year.
Tho bogus auction is of many kinds. The
most palpable fraud 10, of course, the "fam-
lily just selling out the extraordinarily beau
tiful furnishings of their house on -
street." II a man didn't know that fresh
carpets are laid on the floors every week
and fresh furniture brought in as fast as it
is sold, it might puzzle him to understand
why the family is 30 long disI osing tof its
wares. There are no bargains in these
mock sales. There is a reserve price on
every article and il genuine bid cannot be
secured at the reserve price, or even a high
er figure, the goods are knocked down to a
dummy to be put up again some other day.
OF course, women are the fish for whom the
hook is baited. A woman's fondness for
auctions and her proneness to bid high
when another 'mean old thing completes
are proverbial.
Art auctions are sometimes just as decep-
tive. There are auction HOUSES whose word
is reliable and there are others which sell
sosds of Corots and Troyons by the dozen,
without too curious scrutiny of their au-
thentioity. 1t is common enough in one of
those auction rooms to sec a genuine work
by an unknown American painter sold for
a higher figure than the imputed master
piece of a foreigner of high repute. Art
amateurs haunt the shady auction rooms to
pick kernels out ,of the husks, and artists
of merit, when they get hard up, send their
unsold pictures there to try their fortunes
on the block. If a man doesn't know a
good picture from a bad one and can't stop
bidding when he has gone high enough, no
matter what the dummy says, he might as
we'll stay ava
Sometimes a man is quite willing to be
deceived. now one who has a gallery
full of Corots, Troyons, Viberts, Daubignys
everything but Millets, which can't be
counterfeited because all the known exam
each for the lot. Pm pretty certain he sus-
poets that they are bogus, but he has a cat
alogue with all the big names printed upon
1t and brags about his treasures.
There are men in New York who make a
living at painting these cheats at day wages,
One of them, whens reproached by a repu-
table artist for his part in the deception,
replied: II have a wife and four children.
What can l dor"
Even when famed collections come to the
block, there is a species of deception prac-
ticed not SO very much less culpable. Art
lists say hat sat the Seney sale a number of
paintings were auctioned off at high prices
which had not been in Mr.. Seney's collec-
ton at all but were rushed hot from trans
atlantic studios to get the advantage of
sale in well-advertised company. They
were authentic enough, but poor and hasty
examples, "thrown off carelesslv for the
American market" AS for the Ives sale. l
have not yet seen it denied that So, 600
worth of Japanese medals was added to the
collection just before the sale. No wonder
that there is a universal complaint of low
prices at art sales.