NEWSNOTES

Antique-Instrument Market Heats Up

Any more bids for the nice travel clock? quipped
auctioneer David Mapes, just before bringing down the
gavel. The audience broke into laughter and wild ap-
plause, for he had just sold an 1824 Parkinson and
Frodsham marine chronometer in its gimbaled, ma-
hogany case for an eye-popping $11,500. (Yes, it was
ticking.)
The whole day went like this for 175 attendees of the
Yeier Optics scientific-instrument auction, held August
4th in Candor, New York. From around the country
they came optics enthusiasts, rare-book dealers, in-
vestors, and a large contingent from the Antique Tele-
scope Society. Many arrived in vans or station wagons,
the better to handle any long, tubular objects they
might acquire. Dozens who could not be there mailed
absentee bids or attended by telephone, from as far refractor with brass tube engraved Bardou & Sons,
away as Hong Kong, London, and Edinburgh. Paris sold for $6,200.
In recent decades, $1,000 per inch of aperture has By contrast, several fairly modern telescopes failed to
served as a rough guide in appraising fine 19th-century bring the reserve price set by their owners. The highest
telescopes made by such offer for a never-used 4-inch Unitron refractor was
firms as Alvan Clark & $1,700, just half again what it cost when advertised on
Sons. But that rule seems the back cover of Sky & Telescope in the late 1950s. Bid-
to be rapidly falling by ding stopped at $7,500 on a 7-inch Questar only 15
the wayside. A 4-inch years old. But both instruments were quickly sold after
pier-mounted Brashear the auction as word of the bargains spread.
refractor, dating from Among the curiosities was a homely 6-inch reflector
about 1890, sold for made by Russell W. Porter and Fred B. Ferson and used
$20,000. Another 4-inch, in testing sites for the Hale 200-inch telescope. Spyglass-
made four decades earlier es, octants, celestial globes, orreries, filar micrometers,
by New York optician and sundials rounded out the 380 lots offered. This was
Henry Fitz, went for the 12th such event organized since 1974 by Donald V.
$19,000. A Scottish 578- Yeier, former (and soon-to-be new) owner of Vernon-
inch Gregorian reflector scope & Co. Its a little discouraging to see so many
(circa 1804) with specu- rare, fabulous instruments going overseas, says Yeier.
lum-metal mirrors Still, this was our most spectacular auction yet by at
brought $18,000. A 3-inch least a factor of two! ROGER W. SINNOTT

During a three-hour preview period, auction goers could examine and even try out telescopes,
such as the five-draw French spyglass at lower left. Upper left: This Troughton & Simms transit
instrument, with two side lamps for reading the scales, sold for $7,700. Sky & Telescope photo-
graphs by Roger W. Sinnott.

24 November 2001 Sky & Telescope 2001 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.