Concepts 1 Auction House Sells Forgotten Shoeshine Box For $3,390

July 17, 2014

Lynne and Herb Atkins of Concepts 1 Auction House in Point Pleasant, N.J., sold a one-of-a-kind folk art decorated shoeshine box on May 10 for $3,390. The piece arrived at the auction house with an interesting history:
"A man came to us a few days before our May 10 auction. He wanted to get rid of the boxes his wife had been storing for years. These boxes apparently almost ended up on the curb. They were from the woman's grandfather, Joe Milone, whose birth name was Giovanni Indelicato. Milone had emigrated from Sicily. He had been a shirt presser in a laundry and also worked as a shoeshine man in the 1940s on the Lower East Side of New York City. He bejeweled and painted a shoeshine stand, a chair and two end tables to draw the attention of potential customers.
"During that time period, the artist Louise Nevelson would walk past his place on the way to her studio. She loved the pieces and introduced him to the director of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Milone was part of a show in 1942. He was written up in various New York newspapers, including The Times, The Sun, and The Herald Tribune, as well as in Time Magazine and Harper's Bazaar.
"We had copies of all kinds of great paperwork to give the person who bought this wonderful piece of folk art. It included a handwritten letter by Louise Nevelson and the original press release from MoMA. Also, there was a letter from Mr. Ripley's Believe It or Not, which stated, 'Should Mr. Ripley open an Odditorium in the future similar to those he had on Broadway or at the World's Fair a year or two ago, there would be only very limited space for the display of oddities other than those owned by Mr. Ripley, but yours has been selected as one of the few suitable for exhibition.'
"I was able to find Queens College writer and folklorist Joseph Sciorra, who had once written about the material. The pieces were thought to have disappeared. The family had moved out of Brooklyn and now the granddaughter lives in Point Pleasant. She was the one who told her husband to try and sell it.
"Point Pleasant is a town filled with antique shops. The husband walked into one and spoke with a couple of women who told him, 'You should probably take it down the road to Concepts 1 Auction House.' And that is what he did.
"On the day of the auction, the granddaughter and her husband, as well as Sciorra, were all there. The woman who had sent him our way, local dealer Pat O'Shea, came to watch it sell, too. Right before the hammer came down, Pat bid on the piece and got it! Within a month, she had found a museum to buy it. The Fenimore Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y., purchased the showbox and the accompanying stand and chair. It was reported that the purchase price was $10,000. The museum will be exhibiting the material beginning on Saturday, Aug. 9."
For further information, interested individuals may call Concepts 1 Auction House at 732-892-6040 or visit www.concepts1auction.com.




 

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