A Record-Setting $108,000 Charles Coffin Nantucket Curlew Tops Copley Sale of Decoys and Sporting Art

Copley’s first live-streamed auction was a success. The sale, consisting of 296 lots, was 94% sold by lot and realized $957,000. The auction achieved several world record prices, thanks in part to the more than 150 new bidders registered to participate in the scaled-down one-day sale. A new record was set for Charles Coffin when the O’Brien-Nelson Hollow Nantucket Curlew sold for $108,000, making it the top lot of the sale. The top painting lot was a quail hunting watercolor by Ogden M. Pleissner, which landed at $37,200. Thomas Aquinas Daly’s Electric Mountain blew past its high estimate to hammer at $16,800, setting a new world record for the artist. For more details of this sale, click on the link below to access the prices realized.

The results of this auction, along with the $3.46 million Winter Sale 2020, $1.7 million in private sales, and a $270,000 hybrid single-lot private auction, have pushed Copley’s 2020 sales well over the $6 million mark just one month into the third quarter. Owner and principal Stephen B. O’Brien Jr. reports, “We created Copley Live five years ago as the decoy industry’s only app. To see exponential growth in the number of bidders using it is highly rewarding. With the industry moving in this direction, we are able to seamlessly continue handling top collections and estates in the customized fashion that our clients have come to expect.”

A small number of items will be available for post-auction sale until next Monday, August 3rd. View the available lots. To purchase an item, please contact the Copley specialists at 617.536.0030 or by email at [email protected].