SPECIAL SALE, 26th June 1999
The special sale held on Saturday, 26th June 1999, was surprisingly successful. This sale of seized carpets, held by order of the Munich court of enforcement according to Section 825 of the German Code of Civil Procedure, was originally supposed to take place on 28th September 1996. Due to legal action taken by the debtor, however, it had been repeatedly postponed. As late as the day preceding the auction date the debtor attempted to stop the sale, using defamatory pamphlets, calls for boycot and intimidation manoeuvres, eventually resorting to legal action once again; this was prevented on the eve of the sale by express court order so that the auction could finally take place.The sale attracted a large number of bidders both from Germany and abroad, and their enthusiastic bidding made for very lively proceedings. Of the 201 carpets and textiles called, 177 items were knocked down, some of them at prices well above the minimum bids that the auctioneers were obliged to publish by court order. Only 24 items did not receive any bids. The knock-down rate was thus nearly 90 percent, and the sum of the sales amounted to almost DM 1,280,000.00. Once the sum owing had been reached the sale was discontinued; the last eleven lots were not called.
Some carpets fetched amazingly high prices. A white-ground Bijar rug (lot 103) increased to DM 46,000. An elegant Feraghan (lot 120) sold for the same price. A Shahsavan flatweave decorated with animal designs (lot 157) changed hands for DM 29,000 while a yellow-ground Sumakh runner (lot 140) was worth DM 32,000 to a committed collector.