American Scene in New Hampshire: and You're a Winner!

By John Skow

Underneath the big top, with the greatest of delicacy and the easy smile of a star, Dick Withington is juggling invisible Indian clubs. Up goes his left hand: "16,000." Down goes his left hand and up goes his right hand: "17,000." Left hand again, supple and rock steady: "18,000." His knees are slightly bent, his weight well forward. His voice as he calls off the ascending prices is clear and controlled, the even numbers chanted a couple of notes higher than the odd. There is no trace of strain. He can keep the bidding on this early American cherry oxbow chest spinning in the air all morning. Withington is 68, merely mellow for the antiques dodge, a country dance in which the old outfoot the young because they have had time to learn a trade whose secret is endless learning. And to be sure, an intuitive understanding of acquisitive lust so sweet and sharp that fluted quarter columns and a graceful star inlay can cause the heart to go pit-a-pat and sweat to pop on the forehead.

Withington understands acquisitive lust. "I'm a multimillionaire," he tells a visitor. "I'm president of the town bank. I own five houses and a church too." He is and he does, in this well-barbered hamlet of Hillsboro Center, N.H., a glossy enclave of green lawns and ancient white clapboards, with never a rusty manure spreader or junked '67 Plymouth sagging in the sideyard. His self-pleasure is bubbly and innocent. A visitor asks whether it is true that he takes 20% from each sale. "Yes!" he says, beaming. He is delighted to be ringmaster of the classiest and priciest midsummer auction in a state where every third cowshed sells antiques. But now, on the auction block, Withington's rhythm slows. "Twenty-two thousand to 23,000, do I have 23?" He has stopped bouncing. A pause, then "Yes, now 24,000, yes, 25?" A longer pause. Here, if the article on Withington's auction block were merely a blue Canton platter that had peaked out at a predictable $500, or a coffin-top candle stand already breathing thin air at $1,250, Withington might make a fist in the direction of the groggy second bidder and say, "Pow! He's out cold." The joshing might revive the wounded warrior. If not, it would liven the mood of the dealers and collectors gathered here in the tent behind his barn.

Jokes are not going to pull another thousand out of the air this time, however, and Withington's sure instinct tells him not to upstage the oxbow chest. It is a prize, one of the four or five best pieces to be offered. Yesterday at the preview here, dealers prowled around it, old predators who carried their age with arrogance. Kenneth Hammitt, a veteran dealer from Woodbury, Conn., ran his eye approvingly over its shaped serpentine top and guessed that it would bring about $25,000. Then Jack Partridge, an old friend and adversary from North Edgecomb, Me., showed up with a couple of Withington's helpers. As the auction hands turned the chest over so that Partridge could check its construction, Hammitt laughed and said, "It's junk, it's all new. Go home, Jack." Partridge, an Englishman, haw-hawed delightedly. "Yes," he said. "Dreadful stuff. Such a pity."

Now Withington calls, "Fair warning," holds his hands two feet apart, waits, checks his stalled losing bidder again, claps hands and calls out "You're a winner!" Sold, no surprise, to Kenneth Hammitt. The oxbow chest vanishes, and a pair of Hepplewhite tables takes its place. They are Early American, like most of what Withington sells.

Only the best of Americana catches the attention of Mable Lomas, the 82- year-old proprietor of Anderson's Antiques, in Hopkinton, N.H. She is said to be the most respected dealer in the state, and her rules are stern: "No oak. No kitchen stuff. No collectibles." Mrs. Lomas has attended Withington's auctions almost since his first, in 1949, and like other dealers, she credits him with putting on the best show around and with being fair. He will not offer pieces with reserve, or minimum, prices, for instance, and does not accept phone-in bids. Does Withington guarantee what he sells? Mrs. Lomas smiles a gentle, deal-the-cards smile and explains that in the antiques business there are no guarantees. Which does not mean there is no honesty. On a hunch, the day before, Dan Hingston, Withington's veteran auction manager, had unscrewed the brass drawer pulls of an inlaid, bowfront bureau. It was a rare piece, made around 1800, and Hingston had expected it to bring from $7,000 to $10,000. He discovered that the elaborate inlay work was modern, probably done about 50 years ago.

Half an hour into the auction, Withington has taken off his snappy blue blazer. Four hours after that, with the major pieces long gone (and the fiddled bureau, its adulterated state duly announced, sold for a scrawny $2,600), he is still juggling bids and telling jokes. He describes a couple of grotesque female figu- rine candlesticks accurately as the "weirdest and most atrocious things in the sale" and knocks them down for a piffling $170. A colonial dog dish -- so Withington says -- goes for $525, cheap.

By now the big dealers have paid up and rolled out with their vans. The rug merchants, who pool their buying to keep the price down, have loaded their camels and saddled up. Minor dealers hover for scraps. "The closer you get to the sale, the worse the piece you want looks," says one. "You have to ignore your doubts." He looks doubtful, but he spends $250 on a Tlingit basket that he can almost certainly resell for $400. Withington knocks himself out to move a large wooden cheese box for an outrageous $300, and with a final handclap -- one clever scamp applauding himself -- his performance and his 1,884th auction is over.