MY WORD Fall 2017

This Fall has been a busy way to finish the year. We are underway cataloging the Allan Stone collection for sale in 2018 by Rago Auctions outside Philadelphia. As You will note in this issue we are preparing next week to launch our Christmas Jewelry Show including over a hundred objects ranging from $25 to $10,000. Yesterday we saw Sothebys New York hammer down the Silver Ethnographic collection for over 7 million. I watched the Christie's sale of Leonardo Da Vinci's Salavdor Mundi and it was staggering to watch the last three or four bidders fight it out. No one expected either the final price of over 450 million or to see two power plays the a bidder tried to jump the bid to intimidate his or her competition. Needless to say If you have that kind of money, I suspect you don't intimidate easily. I believe we will soon know who the winner is and we shall follow it for you. See our story in this issue where we look at what happened at the auction, the history of the painting, and finally who might have bought it.

Most importantly we are getting down to the wire on you acting to stop the STOP Act. S1400 and HR3211 are the bills in the Senate and House that are attempting to further confuse and complicate the very sensitive issue of the ownership of Indian artifacts. Noting below the Committee for Cultural Policy's fine analysis of these bills which describes in detail why these bills won't do what they are intended to do.. It is not surprising that politicians in their zeal to advocate for their constituencies are not as concerned with the fallout as they are with making a big explosion on the front end. So if you care about individual property rights this issue might warrant a call to your representative or senator. JB