Favorite pick up of 2019

[CarltonHendricks]

2019 Wrap
The last three years or so have been spectacular….2019 saw some amazing finds….pretty tough to pick favorites but I’ll take a run at it….Maybe first place goes to this original 1911 Panoramic of the first Indianapolis 500…A gentleman who had enquired in the past to buy a Bobby Jones broadside emailed me again to see if I had changed my mind…I sent him back a polite thank you but no thank you…So over the following week I was thinking about his offer….and it occurred to me I never asked him if he had anything for sale…what was I thinking I thought…I always shake the bushes to see what falls out...dummy…so later that day I emailed him back and said I meant to ask if you just collect golf….and do you have anything for sale…I don’t really know the guy but I think he was in Atlanta and I think he’s a surgeon…So he goes….I just collect golf…but I’ve got two panoramic photos from the Indianapolis 500…one from the first year 1911 and the other from 1912…and that he had them in storage and he’d get them out to photograph for me…Plus he said he had a steel Nascar sign that was really something…I said sounds good let’s take a look…So about a week later he emails me the photos…Dang they were killer…He said he’d like to keep the 1912 but I could have the 1911 and the Nascar sign…So I said I’d like them both and he made me a better deal…He told me he had gotten all them fifteen years ago out of a Leland’s auction….and that they had been way in the back of the catalog…and said he didn’t pay much for them just thought they were great…sounded like he threw some bottom feeder bids and ended up with all them….In the mean time before I pulled the trigger I was researching the heck out them to make up my mind…I learned the photographer C.F. Bretzman had been the official photographer of the race appointed by the promoter…and if I recall I think there is at least one other panoramic shot the photographer did of the race…but all in all the image is rare…the seller said it was a newer frame maybe from the 70’s…then when I opened it up I was blown away….it’s not a newer frame…the glass is wavy and period 1911…and I’m all about wavy glass original so I was thrilled…













The Nascar sign is a dream…I feel like I got part of the old south hanging in my house…since nascar basically started with a bunch of good’ol boys with suped up cars for running moonshine…the metal is old school thick weighs a ton…and with the current petro sign craze caused by American Pickers…I was glad to get it under the radar…









Then there was the “Ilys” Yacht bronze…a real anomaly even in the bronze sculpture world…I have never seen a bronze like it…it was pricey but when I started researching it I learned it wasn’t just a pleasure craft but competed as a “Bermuda Racer”…which was a pastime of the wealthy east coasters…And here’s a good one…J.G.N. Whitaker who owned the boat, (and a bunch other boats), was the son of William H. Whitaker (1835-1920) who was a president and owner of the Philadelphia Athletics from 1882-1890…







And for non-sport…pretty sure this c1930 Beverly Hills/Santa Monica porcelain highway sign comes in first...has Clark Gable written all over it…and I'm a big fan of L.A....found at a bottle show but not a bottle show price…I spotted it on my first comb with an early entry badge…zeroed right it….but once I saw the price tag kept walking…but two hours later it was still there and I cowboy’d up and negotiated a deal…and off it went into my mustang and to my kitchen….Hated to drop that kind of dough on a non-sport piece but I figured I would never see another...and if I did it wouldn't be in that condition...These are just a few pick-ups…The Lord blessed me I had a great year…