Campbell goblets are on their way home!

One of twelve Camp­bell gob­lets that are com­ing home.

First day back in the office after a long week­end, and we have an email from a board mem­ber announc­ing he’s secured the dona­tion of some Camp­bell pos­ses­sions from the Selkirk auc­tion back in Feb­ru­ary 1941.

What was the Selkirk auc­tion? After Hazlett — the last sur­viv­ing Camp­bell — died in 1938, the Camp­bell estate went through a long pro­bate case. It was one of the largest in Mis­souri his­to­ry, and it took ten years to wrap up. As part of the set­tle­ment — and why we have many of the pos­ses­sions we do — all the Camp­bell fur­nish­ings went up for auc­tion at a 1941 sale by Ben J. Selkirk and Sons (now Ivey-Selkirk Auc­tion­eers). Stix, Baer & Fuller, mean­while, pur­chased the house from Yale Uni­ver­si­ty (who had inher­it­ed it), and they in turn donat­ed it back to the new­ly formed Camp­bell House Foundation.

Since the Camp­bells’ fur­nish­ings were auc­tioned at a pub­lic sale and the foun­da­tion only had a bud­get of $6,500 to buy back as much as pos­si­ble, quite a few items end­ed up with oth­er fam­i­lies. For­tu­nate­ly, many gen­er­ous folks have giv­en us back items over the years. Today was no exception.

Board mem­ber Tim Rohan learned a local fam­i­ly had this set of twelve punch gob­lets (pic­tured above), and they agreed to gen­er­ous­ly donate them back to us . Here’s the orig­i­nal auc­tion cat­a­log description:

[969] Amer­i­can Ster­ling Sil­ver Punch Gob­lets, Mer­mod & Jac­card Co

Hemi­spher­i­cal body with dou­ble-scroll bor­der, balus­ter and ring stem; ris­ing cir­cu­lar foot with bead­ing, height 4–1/4 inches.

They fetched a whop­ping $2.25 each at the 1941 Selkirk auction.

St. Louis Post-Dis­patch clip­ping of the Selkirk auc­tion. These cups are on the bot­tom shelf of the case in the top pic­ture. Also note that “Women Almost Swoon.”

To the left is an image of a page from the Sun­day, Feb­ru­ary 23, 1941 edi­tion of the St. Louis Post-Dis­patch, and these cups can be seen in the top pic­ture on the bot­tom shelf of the case.

Want to see the gob­lets (and all of our oth­er cool stuff)? They’re not here just yet, but give us a call at 314/421‑0325. The house is open by appoint­ment only in Jan­u­ary and Feb­ru­ary, but we are here all week and we’re always hap­py to wel­come guests.

With this dona­tion, ongo­ing mys­ter­ies and all the oth­er excit­ing pro­grams and events we have on tap, 2012 has kicked off swim­ming­ly. From the Camp­bell fam­i­ly to yours, we hope that you’re hav­ing a hap­py and pro­duc­tive new year.

4 thoughts on “Campbell goblets are on their way home!

  1. Susie Hahn

    I’ll buy a new jar of pol­ish just for these amaz­ing treasures.
    Can’t wait to see them !

  2. Pingback: The goblets have landed! (Well, one anyway…) « Campbell House Museum's Blog

  3. Scott Johnson

    It is sim­ply amaz­ing that Camp­bell pos­ses­sions are still “com­ing home to roost.” This is won­der­ful news!

  4. Terry Baer

    Con­grat­u­la­tions to Tim Rohan and Andy Hahn on secur­ing anoth­er piece of Camp­bell his­to­ry. Maybe we should host a din­ner par­ty to learn the iden­ti­ty of our mys­te­ri­ous donor?

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