134,250 pieces of silver

NOTE: Please refer to the Advocate report from April 9, 2008 because it reports net proceeds ($110,000) and not gross proceeds ($134,250) that I used here, from which one can conclude that about $25,000 went to sale expenses.

Licking County Historical Society is richer by $134,250, sort of, but the long-term cost may be much greater than that.

David Spencer reported as a comment in this journal on the prices paid to Licking County Historical Society for some photos by Clarence H. White. They were sold by Sotheby's Auction House, New York City April 8, 2008.

According to his report, 11 prints were sold and two unsold for a total gross price of $134,250.

"Telegraph poles" described here earlier as "a rare local gemstone" brought $103,000; "The Arbor," $11,250; "The Readers, $10,000; and "Selected Studies" (eight images), $10,000. Two ("Woodland Scene" and "The Puritan") did not sell, apparently because no bidder met the Society's reserve amount.

Of particular interest to collectors was the lot containing eight photos because two of the platinum prints in that group are "quite important," according to one dealer/expert/curator who insists on anonymity. Six of these photos are platinum prints, two are photogravures, and all are very early works by Mr. White.

Among these - the most important one in the dealer's view - was an image entitled "Lounging." It was shown in the "New School of American Photography" exhibition organized by F. Holland Day, presented in London and Paris. It was also exhibited twice in the Newark Camera Club shows (1899 and 1900) and further exhibited in New York (1899), Dresden (1909) and finally in the influential International Exhibition of Pictorial Photography at the Albright Art Gallery in Buffalo (1910). Another print of this image is in the Alfred Stieglitz Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This image was published twice in 1901, once in The Photogram and again in the Bulletin du Photo-Club de Paris. "Lounging," shows Letitia Felix in the Penney House in Newark. Letitia was, if I remember previous research correctly, Clarence's sister-in-law.

"Someone got a sweet deal," he said, explaining that the LCHS take on these eight images would be $7,500 or less after sale expenses, or not even $1,000 each.

The exact amount of net proceeds and how they are used is a subject for the Advocate to report.

But no matter about that, it will be interesting to observe, as the years roll on, if this relatively piddling amount of "profit" will not have cost the Society irreparable harm to its reputation as trustworthy keeper of the community's historical treasures.