Vendue Masters: Stories from within the Walls of America's Oldest - Hardcover

This voluminous history of Philadelphia's Freeman's auction house offers insight into the profession as well as the evolution of Philadelphia and America. Whether it's warship building materials during WWI, $100 million estates, or presidential portraits, Freeman's vendue masters (read: auctioneers) have handled some of the most prestigious and exclusive transactions in America. Arkell and Saunders-Watson deftly weave the story of the auction house with that of Philadelphia, interspersing the book with anecdotes of memorable auctions. Among these is the story of the discovery of one of the first printings of the Declaration of Independence, unearthed by an employee who was cataloguing the contents of a closed used bookstore, which sold for $404,000; and the heated auction of a 1750s desk that may or may not have belonged to Benjamin Franklin. These and other stories pepper the book, providing history buffs with an uncommon angle. Scores of photographs give added depth to the episodic narrative, though the layout is cumbersome lacks a sense of flow. The book's greatest appeal will be for Philadelphians and those already familiar with the auction house.
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