I, too, was at the auction. I have been to several railroadiana auctions over the years and I told my wife when I bite the dust I want this guy to sell my collection. He got way more out of each item than many of his estimates. I did not understand why anyone would take a predominately east coast railroad collection from Ohio to Kansas City to sell but now I have seen why. I saw several "expert" collectors get frustrated at the high prices realized and sit and shake their heads. Many items, such as signs someone mentioned before, were much too pristine to have been vintage, used items, even listed as reproductions, but that did not seem to matter. Many of those items were purchased at inflated prices by online bidders who could not see the quality of what they were buying but I don't think they really cared. There was one sign that was obviously a repro that went for $17,000. But that's the chance you take when you sit at home and bid. All in all I thought the auctioneer did an outstanding job, very well set-up, nice catalog to those in attendance, moved things along in a timely fashion, and made Mrs. McHugh and himself a ton of money.

This presents something of a dilemma, as far as an auction goes.

Reasonable, and in at least one case very serious, questions have been raised regarding the authenticity of at least some of these items.

Serious auctioneers--the kind that publish glossy catalogues, etc.--stake their reputation on accurately presenting the items being sold. If you are publishing a catalogue, you are effectively attesting to the accuracy of the listings and provenance. The "big names"--Sotheby's, Christie's, etc.--have experts on staff that can and will question the authenticity or veracity of items being offered for sale in advance. In one noted case some decades ago, a major lot of "early American" furniture was revealed (by an outsider bidder's agent who flew cross-country to examine the lots on behalf of a collector) just a day or two before the auction to be a set of fraudulent reproductions (I remember the alleged "label" being presumed to be a piece of copy paper soaked in tea and then torn around the edges). Word spread rapidly through the big-collector grapevine, the lots received a paltry $20 (or whatever) bid or no bids, and the auctioneer publicly challenged the consignor (believed to be the maker of the fakes) from the dais to take the patently fraudulent lots out into the parking lot and set them afire with the matches and gasoline he offered on the spot. (He didn't, but as I understood it his entire collection became "untouchable" among big-dollar collectors, who spent years warning others of the potential deception.)

Now, obviously, this is a much more serious issue with six- and seven-figure auction lots than it is with, say, a rail lantern that may be worth $25, $250, or $2,500 based on a series of indentations. But several auctioneers I have had experienced with have pointedly stated in an opening address to every one of their auctions the equivalent of "We have done our best to verify the accuracy of our listings, but we can make no guarantees-caveat emptor!"

Having not attended this auction and seen nothing more than the catalog listings and discussions, plus having feedback from several "authorities" I implicitly trust, either this auctioneer managed to foist off at least a couple likely fraudulent items, or the big-time archivists and collectors of such ephemera have a LOT of research and rewriting to do. I'm curious to see what come up in the next auction--or two.

Now, excuse me while I go and chisel the words "REPLICA" even deeper into the backs of the cast reproductions of several artifacts I made ages ago..........

UPDATE: The "Prices Realized" list is up.
http://dirksoulisauctions.com/Cat/C224- ... -session-1
I'm seeing prices for items I'm quite accustomed to seeing routinely at railroadiana shows and estates--B&O cast plates, passenger lounge ashtrays, stepboxes, PRR markers, etc.--at two to ten times what I'm used to seeing in areas where such things are somewhat more "commonplace" than Kansas City. There are numerous exceptions, as well as some stand-out "can't be faked" stuff. The EBT porcelain sign I could see going for $500-1,000, but $1,600? And I'm still troubled by some five-figure prices for stuff that some other people have alleged have to be "fantasy" or "fake" pieces.

Now you see why I don't get into this field as a collector.

Items of questionable origin are par for the course in most fields of collecting. I collect antique and vintage military firearms and taking rifle and adding fake markings is more common for certain types of items in that field than others. Many military rifles go for far more than they should when sold because people value them as investments rather than common guns.

German rifles from the WWII era are notorious for being faked. Seems everyone wants a gun that was issued during the Nazi regime. On the other hand, no one fakes a French M1886 M93 Lebel. I buy what I want because I want it, not because I expect it to increase in value. If I'm investing for good returns, that's that the stock market is for.

I thought it was interesting that a modern mars head light went for the same price as the oil burning head light. The deal of the day was the desk, item 199. $100! I have no place to keep it and may not have been able to fit it in my small van but I'm sure it was a dispatchers desk.

Mike, the roll top desk was in sad shape-the upper section was sagging in the middle, had many minor separations which were listed and also had repairs and wear which was also mentioned in the catalog. I still thought it would bring more than $100, it was nicer than that.

The auctioneer did a great job, even to the point of getting good bucks for admitted repops.

As for the anthracite coal signs, I have some concerns about each. Even if legit, they went for very high prices. If they are repops they went for waaaaay more than their market value.

They really did. They also had an excellent online catalog. Lots of very detailed photos, damage, when present shown and noted. I don't see any intent to deceive or hide flaws.

Two things stand out to me.

The first is that the railroad collectible market is apparently doing better than I thought, the prices realized are quite good.

Secondly, it's very sad to see a collection of such depth get scattered to the winds. It would have made a wonderful addition to some transportation museum. I get it, there's a lot of value here (more than I would have guessed) and the family has every right to recoup that investment. It's just sad to see a lifetime of collecting get dispersed.

It's interesting. I've read so many times that the price for railroadianna/antique cars/antique tractors/<insert other thing here> is dropping too fast and everything is way too cheap because nobody is interested, but then you see multiple auctions where the prices are sky high. I do think the price differential between quality and crappy items is growing but there's still plenty of money being transferred between collectors.

Yeah, I told you all that would happen, but a few nay-sayers declared the bottom had fallen out of the market. I knew that wouldn't happen here.
There's a rural auction house near where I live and they have had some recent auctions off a military collection and they have gotten really prime amounts for most of it, taking bids from all over the world. People around here were shocked when they came in expecting to get stuff at cut rate prices, to see it all leave with bids way beyond even the normal rates...
I also have a pal of mine who hits the high-profile car auctions, as well as a buddy who goes to other types. All report back of bidding through the roof.
In this internet age, the days of sneaking into an auction nobody knows about and making off with the stuff like a bandit are pretty much over. And anyone who's been to a good RR collectible show in the last couple of years knows that prices for the 'gee whiz' stuff hasn't dropped at all for those who know what they can get for stuff.

I have been to some railroad collector shows and there were not very many people there.

At the last Indianapolis Railroadiana show, there was a man there with a high priced builder's plate, he took it home with him, I saw very few items sold and carried out the door.

I talked about this with a friend a few days ago, he has had a couple of older collector cars. He told me about one car he watched at a large well known auction, price was through the roof. He told me that the same car was at another car auction, handled by the same company and few weeks later and the bid was lower.

You have to watch some auctions as they put plants out in the crowd to place bids. I attended a large 2 day industrial auction and they ere picking bids out of the air. I bid once on an item and they used me to run the bidding up 3 times, I did not bid. They then came back and said it was mine for the high price, I called them out on the spot and got the item for my very first and only bid price

I watched a recent farm equipment auction on line. Saw a John Deere sell for over $47,000. Just looked that model up online and can buy many of them for $9,000 to $20,000 asking price.

Some collectors have TOO much money and ruin it for the normal collector.

Sometimes it’s people ignorant of the condition and average amounts those pieces normally sell for, sometimes it’s the auctioneer’s skill in whipping folks into a frenzy, more often it’s both. I went to a toy train auction once where they were auctioning boxed lots of items. Only three lots out of maybe 100 interested me. All lots were a mixed bag of parts and junk with maybe one decent piece mixed in. I added up what I knew would be an approximate value for each lot and planned to bid accordingly. I was absolutely shocked at the run-up of bid amounts. Up to four times the actual value. Go figure. After a few more similar experiences, I don’t bother with auctions any more. I’ve had better results on eBay if you can believe that.

On at least one group of unusual items - the station banner signs for passenger trains - those came from the sign painter at Grand Central and are hand-painted on canvas. A good friend of mine has another extensive set of those and I've personally seen them. The set he got out of Grand Central of somewhat lesser trains, but was personally told by the painter 'another guy got the really good ones last week'. And my friend always wondered what happened to 'that set' until he saw the auction results "and solved a 50-year old mystery".

So...while other things may have some rather questionable provenance, those actually have a reasonable proof as I've seen the 'other ones' that were rescued myself.

One earlier poster lamented that a collection of this magnitude would have been appropriate at a museum as a donation. The recent tax law changes have created a serious problem for individuals wanting to donate hardware but needing a tax write off to generate some retirement income. The increase in the standard deduction has essentially eliminated any tax benefits for someone with an AGI of less than $100000. There is a 30% AGI limit on items with capital gains and with the standard deduction just below $25000 for couples, you need a lot of other deductions before your donation generates any tax savings.

How dare people pay more than others would want to. What nerve!
It's capitalism in it's purest form. Things are only valued for how much someone will pay for them.
A pal of mine went to a high profile auto auction and saw a 1950s army ambulance for sale, something that would never go past about $10K to anyone in that hobby.
He saw someone bid against someone else, back and forth and the thing went for well over $40K. He found the winner and asked why he'd bid so much. The winner said, "I always wanted an old Army vehicle toy as a kid, we didn't have much money then, so I thought this was cool..."
My Mother referred to this as "having more money than sense," but in the end, if you can afford it, why not?

Sort of... I did say it would have made a nice addition to a museum. However, I never used the word "donation" and I said the family has every right to sell it and recoup all the time and effort that was invested in it. The financial reasons you mention are exactly why I said that.

*IF* the collector had wanted or intended to have it go to a museum, he should have made arrangements for that ahead of time. Either by donating it to the institution of his choice while he was still alive, or by putting something in his will stating that upon his passing it "should be donated to XYZ Railroad Museum, which has agreed to accept and agreed to the following terms, all of which was pre-arranged and agreed to, as shown in the attached documents"

Hopefully he was hoping that the family would profit well from the collection and that seems to be what happened.

I still find it a bit sad it's scattered, but that's the reality of collecting. Happens all the time.