Klarinet Archive - Posting 000427.txt from 2004/10

From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Not really a klarinet question
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 14:06:18 -0400

As one gets older, the desire to reduce the size of one's island
grows. Except for a basset horn that I will sell on 1/1/2007, I
no longer have any clarinets. I've donated my entire (and rather
extensive) clarinet library to the Delaware facility (or wherever
it is). These things I can estimate in terms of what they are
worth.

But now I have decided to get rid of some things whose worth I
cannot estimate.

I have about a dozen letters from Percy Grainger to me from the
years 1958 until his death in the early 1960s. I suppose I could
donate them to the Grainger library in Australia but I think I'd
rather sell them. Except for one in which Percy congratulates me
on my forthcoming wedding, none of them are particularly
personal. Most have music content in one way or another. All
are in his handwriting and each carries his rubber stamp of
address in White Plains, NY.

I'm going to do my ebay thing for them, but I have no idea what a
minimum bid should bring. I suppose it is partly a function of
the letter's content and so, for each one I will transcribe the
letter to enable an intelligent buyer to estimate what it is
worth to him or her. But I need a starting figure and I have no
idea where to start.

Mozart's manuscripts I know something about pricing, but Percy
Grainger's I'm not so sure. I also have the John Singer Sargeant
(spelling) charcoal sketch of Percy that he signed over to me and
that is a big piece. I decided that I will not sell that.
Instead it will go to my daughter or my son, probably my daughter
because she plays a lot of Grainger in the San Jose Wind
Symphony. She still has not figured him out and I've got to do
something about that.

But what should be a reasonable starting price for an authentic
Grainger letter, most of them on two sides of a single sheet?

Dan Leeson
DNLeeson@-----.net

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