This week, the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, ND, hosted Trash or Treasure, a collectibles-themed fundraiser for the museum. Ivey-Selkirk, an auction house from Saint Louis, Missouri, performed appraisal services in an “Antiques Roadshow” style, open to the public to bring in their treasured items, that weird thing they inherited from Aunt Mabel, or whatever they might be curious about. D and I, of course, fall in the last category. As general-purpose collectors, we’ve got a pretty good handle on the value of our own items (fact: most is worth very little — but we make up for it in volume), but we did manage to come up with a few things in need of a professional opinion.

The first night of the event was a Front-Of-The-Line reception, a $50-a-ticket meet-and-greet to chit-chat with the appraisers and museum staff, and try out some fine eats from Mosaic Foods. The Plains Art Museum is a beautiful building, a renovated International Harvester warehouse in Downtown Fargo, retaining its early-plains charm with lots of exposed wood and brick-work. The building’s charm is an excellent place to show off antiques.

We attended, hesitantly trying exotic hors-dourves and unhesitatingly chatting with museum president Ed Pauley, whom we met a the MPMA convention a few weeks ago. Once everyone got comfortable, Malcolm Ivey of Ivey-Selkirk was introduced to the group, and the appraisals began.

For this Front-of-the-Line appraisal, each attendee was encouraged to bring one item for appraisal. D and I fretted quite a while about what to bring: we’ve got some items with a little higher value than the rummage sale stuff we love so, but we wanted to take something that we had no idea of the value. D brought a folk-art-piece she got this past weekend at Georgine’s (which she’ll write about later), and I brought my collection of 20th Century Fox paperwork.

The 20th Century Fox paperwork, it turns out, isn’t supposed to be owned by me. Fox is currently working on getting it back from me (we’re still in negotiations). You see, Fox had lent it to the University of Southern California in the 1940s…but never got it back. Somehow the stolen paperwork made its way to Wisconsin, where I purchased it a few years ago and put it online for sale. Fox discovered it, and promptly contacted us to arrange its return to their archives. This, on its own, made me interested in finding out what an auction house would think of such an item. The one-of-a-kind nature brought a lot of attention from the appraisers, who had glanced at it before the event, and wanted to know more about it.

Terry Bye was the appraiser with the most paper and ephemera experience, so we waited patiently until he could devote some time to the Fox scrapbook. He initially started with a low figure – around what I paid for it, so I didn’t feel too torn about it, but as I flipped through the book, page-by-page, showing more and more of the thorough catalog of Fox paperwork, the appraisal price grew until it was just over what I had been asking for online. I was pleased to hear that my valuation instinct was correct, and I enjoyed talking to the appraisers. They, of course, had never seen anything like it before, and the fact that the collection would not be legal for the auction house to try and sell on my behalf was a treat for them to examine.

On Day Two the appraisal fair was open to the public: $5 admission, plus $20 for the first appraisal and $10 for each thereafter. We were disappointed to see the line short and attendance low, but this gave us more of an opportunity to chat with the appraisers and other collectors. I stopped to talk to Steve Kranstover, who had just been talking to Mr. Bye about his collection of photos. Kranstover was looking for a price on his collection of ephemera belonging to Albert Forseth. Forseth, at age 19 in 1913, invented a propellor-driven snowmobile, joined the Army Air Corp in WWI, started a barnstorming “flying circus” upon returning to the states, and later raced powerboats on various Minnesota lakes. Kranstover’s collection contains an amaing set of photos, news-clippings, and personal correspondence from Forseth’s life – which, of course, had me drooling, but Kranstover was interested in selling to a collector, aviation or otherwise, who will appreciate the collection for its historical value (if you’re interested, I can connect you with Kranstover).We originally didn’t intend to bring anything for the Day Two appraisals, but we had such fun at the early-bird appraisal the night before that we had to bring something more. We elected some more traditional collectibles: an oil painting, a numbered lithograph (she’ll also write about that later), and an antique chair.

My painting, acquired at a Columbia, Missouri flea-market ten years ago for $12, isn’t signed, requires some restoration, but appraiser Susan Kime said its quality and age should still make it worth a few hundred dollars.

Wifey brought in her little boudoir chair. This chair is one of the items for which D has paid the most money for — a whopping $25, which did not please her first husband. In typical collector-scorned fashion, once they split she got the piece reupholstered (with some lovely vintage fabric she just happened to have laying around); now she was curious what it was worth… Terry Bye said it was an early 20th century piece, English Regency style, but American made, with a Hitchcock style. He said it was a lovely antique chair, worth around $250 to $300 — which not only makes the chair worthy of being auctioned by Ivey-Selkirk (they normally do not ‘do’ chairs under $100) but makes the boudoir chair too grand for me to be allowed to toss my pants over (and D, vindicated over her purchase, near insufferable to live with). D was lucky enough to be caught by a camera crew from UND, meaning her and her chair may soon appear on Studio One.After our appraisals, as the event wound down, we sat down with Malcolm Ivey from the auction house, and chatted a bit about their part in the fundraising event. Ivey said their auction house performs these events on a regular basis, a few times a year as schedules allow, to help museums and other non-profits raise funds. In the past, they’d been asked to perform as auctioneer at the traditional ‘charity auctions’ that had once been a mainstay of fundraising. In recent years, however, these have become less successful, so Ivey-Selkirk took cues from Antiques Roadshow and the appeal of their own in-house appraisal fairs and began performing simple appraisal events for charity. Fargo is the furthest event away from their home in Saint Louis, but they’ve enjoyed themselves. The entire 5-person appraisal team are employees of Ivey-Selkirk, each with their own training and specialty. Ivey said that he was surprised at the minimal amount of jewelry they had seen – it’s more transportable than furniture and pottery – but he said they had seen an interesting variety of items while they were in town. The stuff that is brought in to appraisal events tend to be on the ‘lower’ end – from an auction-house standard, who rarely handles items worth less than a few hundred dollars – because those who have high-value items tend to already have an idea of the value, Ivey said. Now that the auction season is ramping up, he said, these events will fit into their schedule less, but next summer he expects to do more in the midwest.The Plains Art Museum provided a lovely, well-staffed ‘item check’ to hold our valuables as we parused the rest of the building, so went to the Trash or Treasure rummage sale (which is also held today, from 1-5) on the third floor. The Museum requested their supporters donate items of value to be sold to benefit the Museum. Items ranged from usual rummage-sale fare like cassette players and housewares, but also included some works by local artists and various art prints. Wifey bought a few more books to add to our already buckling shelves.

The whole event was wonderful and we do hope the museum runs it again next year. Certainly we (and you!) will be talking about it for a long time, which will make everyone want to attend. That will make the lines longer, but we’ll be there nonetheless. It’s too much fun to pass up.

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Article Tags: , Georgines, Ivey-Selkirk, Malcolm Ivey, Plains Art Museum, Trash or Treasure

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