Dorothy Draper Auction

Don't get too excited... I couldn't go.
The night before the auction, we had about 15 minutes of fireworks (or shooting the players) at the Orioles/Yankees game, about three blocks from my house. The Connor dog went nuts and was tearing around the house, and when I went to grab him and wrestle him to the ground (he's a yellow lab, not a little dog), I threw out my back.

It was still killing me the next morning and I didn't want to make the hour plus drive down to Alexandria. Since I had a bidding number, I bid on-line and then sat back to wait on my winning bid, (and watch the Wales-Fiji Rugby World Cup match streaming from France - I lived in Wales and a bunch of these players lived near us).

Well, I never heard from the auction house if my bid was accepted, whether I won (guess not) or what the bids were like. My bid wasn't even acknowledged via e-mail. I tried to re-bid, but they had closed the bids. The chair I bid on went for $125, which I would have paid had I been there in person.

I e-mailed the company, and haven't heard back from them. I am a little annoyed about the way it worked. I should have been suspicious that things wouldn't work too well when the first set of bidding numbers and IDs went into my junk mail box.
I checked the Potomack Company site and they are showing all of the items, along with the estimates and the hammer prices. For example, they have the mirror below listed with a winning price of either $4000 or $4700. (Their site says both.) The estimate was $300-$500. The table above had an estimate of $200-$400 and went for $2300, with multiples of that item.The prices were all over the board. Six Hepplewhite-style mahogany chairs, with an estimate of $200-$400, sold for $700, and an eight panel Chinese cormondel screen with an estimate of $300-$500, sold for $475. A modern coffee table, with an estimate of $200-$400 went for $2200, and there were four or five of these, all selling in this range. This cabinet was estimated at $1000-$1500 and sold for $4000.So, I am disappointed that I didn't get to go, but the prices were out of my price range.