So, Mr. Modtomic Took The Weekend Off From Estate Sales....And STILL Scored Some Paul McCobb! Status: 4 Hours Of Anxiety!

Yup, if you're local you mighta seen this pop up on StL. craigslist Saturday morning. After a quick check of my e-mail, the first thing I do in the morning is peruse the latest ads on c-list. When I spotted this I had to rub my blurry eyes a couple of times 'cuz the pic in the ad was kinda fuzzy...and surely I wasn't seeing that asking price correctly!

Of course, I don't really discuss how much I pay for anything here, but this was listed really....

really cheap. As soon as I spotted the ad I was like 90% sure that it was Paul McCobb and shot

the seller an e-mail with an over offer. I included a phone number but because of the ridiculously

low asking price I figured there was little chance of getting a reply.

As you have probably guessed, I did get that call! Holy crap! I was ready to jump in the car and

head over to pick this up but the seller said that they wouldn't be home to meet me until later that

afternoon. I was gracious about the wait but I was gritting my teeth knowing that they'd probably

get a ton more e-mails about the table / cabinet. I thought for sure this was going to end up like

the Jere Birds sculpture debacle from a few months ago.

 

 

After making arrangements with the seller I had to wait four excruciating hours for them to make

their way home from a previous obligation. That was a looooonnngg four hours. As a matter of

fact a reader e-mailed me in the interim to ask if I was first in line for the piece. "Crap", I though.

It has begun. The seller is gonna get a bunch of e-mails and I'm gonna loose out. As a matter of

fact the reader even offered the seller more than I did...with the caveat that the piece had to be

"tagged".

Lucky (?) for me then it's not marked or tagged. After 3pm (when the seller said they'd call me)

I had resigned myself and the entire endeavor to "fail" status. I was certain that someone else had

offered WAY more and snatched it up. But then I got the call I was waiting for! I got the address

and tooled on over only to arrive at the same time as another buyer.

No, not another buyer for the McCobb, but for a set of pretty cool retro living room tables. The

weird thing is that I had met the other buyer before! He was the fella who sold me the Brutalist

Clock a few months ago! Weird coincidence...but that wasn't the Only coincidence.

On the way home I stopped at a Goodwill near the seller and found...yup, you guessed it,

ANOTHER piece by Paul McCobb! This little covered dish was just waiting for me there. And

this was at what I consider a more suburban Goodwill. Not where you'd expect to find vintage

modern swag. Yet here was a piece of Paul McCobb Contempri by Jackson Internationale. My

first case good by McCobb and my first piece of dishware by McCobb all in the span of 20

minutes!  Cool.  Estate sales, Schmestate sales....I got to sleep in!