Last Sunday my husband and I went on our weekend outing to look at the wares at a nearby auction house.  We had grown so accustomed to not finding anything of interest we didn't even take along our Red Wing books!

As we entered the front door, we could see that there were even fewer small items than usual.  It seems that this is the slow season in our neck of the woods for collectibles at the auction.

My husband went into the back 'junk' room, I began my search of the four or five tables up front to get a close look at the glassware and pottery being offered that day.

The first piece of Red Wing that I saw was the large tan fleck salad bowl, like the Bob White except the birds went south for the winter I guess.  We see quite a few of these and bought a couple of them when we first started collecting for $10 or so apiece.  I made a mental note--we have enough of these unless it goes really cheap. 

About 3/4 of the way down the tables I saw a pair of candlesticks that looked somewhat familiar.  They were clearly marked #397 Red Wing on the bottom but had the bronze line glaze.  I had not seen this pair, usually antiqued white, with this particular glaze.  The #397 was a really old number and the glaze was from the 50s. 

Right next to the candle sticks was a large bowl, nearly 15 in, with a centerpiece of the double swans.  Upon close examination, no marking could be seen on these two items.

As I was looking at the items my husband returned from the junk room and also showed interest in the bronze line items but stated that he was not sure if they were Red Wing, saying, as he often does, "I think I might have seen them in one of our books."

At this point we decided that we would look the items over carefully for damage and then return home to try to find them in the literature.  Of course, we tried not to look too long for fear we would alert other collectors.

Home we went, discussing where to look in our books.  My husband said he would look on his computer at the pictures he has collected of unusual items, mostly from ebay.  I decided to start with Reiss.

As I carefully looked through Reiss, my spouse was looking through his zip drive entries to no avail.  He then went to the completed auction section of ebay and put in every combination of words we could think of to find the mystery set.  No luck.

From Reiss we went to Simon, then Dollen book 1.  Our last hope was Dollen book 2 and there they were on pp. 105-106!  Oh boy, now the fun begins.

The discussion of how to hide our real desire to have the pieces at the auction, how much to bid, was it likely anyone else would recognize them as Red Wing, just makes the collecting juices flow.

Of course I went back to the auction alone, my husband had to stay home and watch John Elway throw his last pass(in the pro bowl).  We all have our own priorities I guess.

As the auction started, it seemed to me anyway, there were far too many bidders for the few items available that day.  Not an uncommon feeling when you see an item you really like I guess.  I had taken a book along to read to help pass the time.

The first Red Wing item to come up was the tan fleck salad bowl and it sold for $35!  Oh no, I thought, there is another Red Wing collector here to bid against me.

The helpers at the auction kept skipping over the swan set.  They would look at the bottom of the candlesticks and then the bottom of the bowl and swan and then just kind of set them aside.  It drove me to distraction!

After a couple hours I could not wait any longer.  I found a nice lady that was working up front and told her I had to leave and wondered if she could bring up the dark colored console set.  She gladly granted my request.

Even though the swan centerpiece and bowl were not marked, the candlesticks were, the auctioneer announced them as all being Red Wing.

He started the bidding at $150, no one bid.  He finally got down to $30 and someone raised their paddle.  l was ready now!  I bid $35 and was ready for battle.  Much to my astonishment nobody joined in, I won the bid for all four pieces at 35 bucks. Yippee, Yippee!(I said under my breath.)

I gathered up my treasures and headed home.  Of course when I got there my husband was asleep, he finally got tired of watching football after seven months.

Since there was no one to share my excitement with at the moment, I decided to try the ultimate test for auction items, to put them in the sink and see if there was any damage I had not been able to see.  Much to my satisfaction, all items came out great.  Also, in the bright light of the kitchen I was able to see the number on the bottom of the bowl, very uncharacteristic mark, really small number along the raised part of the bottom.  The heavy glaze made it really hard to see.

That's why I love auctions, found an unmarked piece that no one else recognized and got it for a very reasonable price.  Sure looks good on my coffee table.