Every lot in this catalogue is honestly described. The reader will kindly note that honesty and truth are two different trades, and the House has only ever practised one of them.
— Perpetua Lutt, Chief Appraiser, from the Conditions of Sale
Note Concerning This Copy
Entered in the Register of Presentation Copies of this house. This copy was made up for the registry, lay upon the third table of the Presentation Gallery through the days of view, and was returned to the registry with its boards damp. It carries three hands besides the printer's.
- A red ink, in the margins, in the hand of Casimir Ohl, dealer, of the Wolfsgat, formerly antiquary to this house. He had the run of the gallery on all three days of view, as any dealer of the city has, and he wrote where he was standing. Some of his notes are dated; most are signed with his letters.
- A small italic under the plates, being the draughtswoman's own captions, written into the made-up copies by her hand before the engraver's register was set in type.
- A pencil. Soft, smudged in three places, nowhere dated and nowhere signed.
The pencil has been shown to the clerk of the sale room, to the night clerk, to the head porter, and to the printer. It is not the hand of any of them. Nothing has been erased. Writing found in a catalogue of this house is not corrected; it is dated where a date can be had, and left where it stands.
The Hall
The hall of Corvisser & Lutt stands in Rope Street, on the last dry ground before the street goes down to the customs cut, and it was a salt warehouse for ninety years before it was anything else. The salt has not left. In wet weather it comes through the whitewash of the lower storey in a fine bloom that the porters brush off with a hand and do not mention, and the cellar under the hall tastes of brine when a man breathes through his mouth. From the ropewalks behind the building the wind brings tar and hemp. From the cut it brings the rest.
The Long Room seats one hundred and eighty, with three windows to Rope Street and the rostrum against the north wall. The pay table stands at the left hand as the room is entered. Beneath the rostrum is the presentation table, upon which each lot is set as it is called. Above the Long Room the roof was opened in 1614 and glazed in lead, and the light that falls on the presentation table falls through it. Buyers should be told once that rain on lead glass is louder than rain on slate. The crier of this house is used to it and raises his voice at the first drops without being asked, and in a hard shower the room hears the numbers and not much else. On foggy days the light comes down grey and even, and the porters call it good light, because nothing shines and every ground and file-stroke can be seen.
The Presentation Gallery is on the first floor, three tables the length of the room, and is open for the three days of view from nine until the light fails. The strongroom is below, in the old brine cellar, behind an iron door. The keys of it are held by the partners of this house and by no servant of it.
Carriage within the hall is done by the head porter, Hanne Brust, eleven years in this room, and five men under him, with four hand-barrows tyred in hemp so that they make no mark on the boards, and a crane in the gable over the loading door, which is greased on Sunday. Buyers are asked not to lift. A porter who is asked to let a buyer take an end of a thing will refuse politely and will fetch a second porter instead. This is not courtesy. It is the sixth clause of the house's bond with the Waterbailiff.
Accreditation of Bidders
No bid is taken from a person not entered in the book. The book lies open on the pay table from the first day of view and is closed at the fall of the last hammer of each day.
- A bidder known to this house is entered on his word and his name.
- A bidder not known to this house is entered upon a reference from a merchant house of the city, or upon a deposit of ten marks, which is returned at the close of the fourth day or set against his account.
- An agent declares his principal at the book. The house does not require the principal's business and does not print his name; it requires that a name be written. A bid is not taken from a man who declines to be named at the book, however he is dressed and whatever he offers.
- Absent bidders are represented by numbered paddles held by this house. The numbers are published in the sale room. The names are not published at all.
- Wards, minors, and persons under the hand of the Court of Wards bid through the clerk of that court and not otherwise.
- A bidder who intends to take a lot out of the city gets his own stamp at the Waterbailiff's shed on the Customs Quay. This house does not get it for him, does not hold his lot while he gets it, and does not warrant that he will get it.
The Ordinance of Bidding
The following is the ordinance of the Chamber of Ordinances, which also seals the candles. It is printed here as it stands, being the same for every sale in this city, and is not varied for this one.
- Candle bidding. Every lot is open while a sealed candle burns down one notch, which is about the time a clerk takes to read a page aloud. The hammer falls at the notch. It does not fall at the pleasure of the crier, and it does not wait for a hand that is still coming up.
- The advance. The least advance is a twentieth part of the standing bid, rounded up to the whole mark.
- Paddles. Absent bidders are represented by the numbered paddles of the house. The numbers are published; the names are not.
- No bidding on one's own goods. A vendor shall not bid upon his own property, by himself or by another. The penalty is forfeiture of the lot and a fine of three times the price at which the hammer fell.
- Reserves. Where a reserve is set upon a lot, it is lodged with the Court of Wards before the first day and is not altered afterwards.
- Payment. The premium is one stiver in the mark, paid at the table with the price. What is not paid by the close of the fourth day is offered again, and two marks are charged to the defaulting buyer for reinstatement.
- Withdrawal. A withdrawn lot is announced from the rostrum on the day on which it would have been offered, with the reason.
Bidding at Corvisser & Lutt
| Sign | What the house takes it for |
|---|---|
| Paddle raised | A bid at the advance, for the man holding it. |
| Paddle raised, number turned outward | A bid for the absent principal named at the book against that number. |
| Two fingers laid across the paddle's rim | A bid at two advances. Three fingers is not a sign and will be read as two. |
| A nod, from a bidder the crier has named aloud | A bid. From any other person, nothing. |
| Catalogue closed and laid on the knee | The bidder is out of that lot. The crier will not look at him again until the next number is called. |
| Paddle laid face down on the seat | The seat is held and the bidder is out of the room, not out of the sale. Porters do not move a paddle laid face down. |
| Open palm raised toward the rostrum | A question, not a bid. The crier will say so aloud before he goes on, and the candle burns while he says it. |
| The crier's hand laid flat on the book | The lot is not sold and goes back to the room. |
| The hammer down | The sale. The buyer's number is called and written before the next lot is set on the table. |
| A cough, a lifted glove, a turned page, a raised eyebrow, a word to a neighbour | Nothing. The house recognises no sign that is not in this table, and has twice had that upheld against a gentleman who thought otherwise. |
[in red ink] Read the sixth rule twice. The house is paid when a thing sells and paid again when the sale fails, and it is the same two marks either way. I have watched one seven-branched thing pay its own carriage out of this hall six times over. Nobody in the room has ever called that a defect in the thing. C.O. (Lowmonth 1637)
Knock-Down, Premium and Payment
Accounts of this house are kept in marks. One mark is twenty stivers; one stiver is twelve penning. Foreign coin is taken at the Weighhouse rate of the morning and not at the rate a buyer has in his head.
The premium is one stiver in the mark upon the price, payable at the table with the price, in coin, and receipted by the cashier under wax. The vendor's commission is two in twenty and is deducted from the account rendered after the fourth day.
Risk in a lot passes at the fall of the hammer, and not at the moment of carrying. The porters of this house will carry a paid lot as far as the loading door and no further. Carriage beyond the door is at the buyer's charge and by his own men or by a carter of his choosing; the house recommends none and receives from none. A lot left in the hall more than three days after payment is charged porterage at six stivers the day, and is counted with the hall at night.
No lot leaves the hall before it is paid. No lot leaves the hall after the last candle, for any price, on any day, and buyers who have travelled far are asked to make their arrangements around this rather than against it.
The Three Offices
An estate in this city passes through three offices before it can be sold, and a buyer who understands the three will understand why some lots in this catalogue carry more paper than substance.
The Court of Wards, three commissioners and a clerk, takes the estate of a deceased person into its hand, seals the house, admits the certificates of death, hears claims upon the movables, and lays embargo where a claim is arguable. Nothing in this catalogue is offered without its order. A lot under embargo is not sold, and the reader who wonders why a thing is described at length and then not offered has his answer in that word.
The Sworn Weighers, in the Weighhouse under the copper roof at the Staple Quay, weigh and assay all plate, bullion, and worked silver, and stamp the piece and the paper. Where a weight in ounces appears in these descriptions against silver, it is their weight and not this house's. The room smells of hot metal and vinegar and the master weigher is a woman of few words. Buyers may see the stamped paper at the pay table on request.
The Waterbailiff, whose shed stands on the Customs Quay among the wet coir and the pepper, holds the customs of the port, licenses the sale of anything seized off a vessel, and holds this house's bond. Six customs men serve him. Where a lot came ashore under seizure, his licence is lodged with the sale and his stamp is on the ticket. He attends the sale on the second day, as is his practice, and stands at the back, and buyers are advised that he will answer a question of title in the room, aloud, and that the answer will be the law whether or not it is the truth.
Warranty
The house warrants two things and no third. First, that the lot delivered is the lot described. Second, that every description in this catalogue records what the chief appraiser of this house believed at the hour of writing it, having had the thing in her hands and a glass upon it.
The house does not warrant the maker, the date, the workshop, or the hand. It does not warrant a chain of ownership beyond the papers lodged with the sale, and where a link in such a chain rests upon nothing but the word of a former owner, the description says so in the words set out below. It does not warrant the accounts former owners give of what a thing has done. It does not warrant a thing against the consequences of having been owned.
Measurements are the house's own, taken twice, in inches, ells, ounces, and pounds. They are exact. A buyer who finds a measurement wrong has a claim; a buyer who finds an attribution wrong has an opinion, and this house will be glad to hear it after the fourth day.
Of the Words Used in These Descriptions
The house uses a small number of set phrases and always uses them in the same sense. They are printed here so that no buyer may say afterwards that he was not told.
- said to be — the account is another's and the house does not adopt it.
- so described in the earlier list — the attribution is taken over from an earlier catalogue or inventory without re-examination, examination being expensive.
- the vendor's account is not before us — the house has not been shown the paper it would need to write anything at all, and writes nothing.
- not recovered — not recovered.
- taken from the water — the phrase of the Watermen's Guild, used here as they use it, without addition.
- Condition: — what can be seen at arm's length in the light of the gallery, by a person who is looking. Nothing under a mount is warranted, nothing behind a lining is warranted, and no ground beneath a top ground has been lifted.
Lots of Reported Quality
A number of lots in this sale are described with the properties reported of them by their former owners, their households, or the offices that had them in charge. The house prints such reports because they belong to the history of the thing, because they are frequently the reason the thing was kept, and because a buyer who is not told cannot be said to have bought with his eyes open. The house does not warrant them, does not undertake to demonstrate them, and does not undertake to arrest them.
No lot is returnable on the ground of its history. A lot brought back for any cause whatever is treated as a default under the sixth rule of the ordinance, is offered again, and the two marks are charged. Where a lot has been offered by this house on previous occasions, the description states the number of occasions and no other particular.
Buyers are asked not to try the properties of any lot in the Long Room or in the Presentation Gallery. Where a buyer wishes a thing tried, he applies to the clerk of the sale room; the trial is made in the yard, by a porter, in daylight, at the buyer's risk and at his charge of two stivers. Three lots in this sale will not be tried in the yard or anywhere else, and the clerk will not discuss which three.
Withdrawn Lots
A lot may be withdrawn by the vendor, by order of the Court of Wards, or by this house upon a defect of title discovered after printing. A withdrawn lot is announced from the rostrum on the day upon which it would have been offered, in its place in the order, with the reason, and the announcement is entered in the day-book of the sale. It is not shown in the gallery after withdrawal. A bid upon it is void. Any deposit made against it is returned at the table without deduction. Beyond the reason announced, the house says nothing further about a withdrawn lot, then or afterwards.
[in pencil] read the seventh rule again on the fourth day. a reason will be read from the rostrum. it will not be the reason.
Custody and the Hours of the Hall
The hall is opened at eight and the doors to Rope Street are shut at the last candle. Candles are the house's own and are sealed by the Chamber; no buyer brings a light into the gallery, and no porter carries one into the strongroom, where the lamps are fixed.
The hall is counted at eleven o'clock at night. The count is made by the head porter and one other, ticket by ticket and shelf by shelf, in the same order on every night, and is entered in the book of the night inventory with both men's marks. No man counts alone. If a man's second is sick, the cook is woken. Where the count read at eleven does not agree with the book, the count is made again by the same two men, in the same order, and both counts are entered.
Paid lots left in the hall overnight are counted with the hall. Buyers who would rather their property were not entered in the house's book are advised to remove it before the last candle.
[in red ink] The count is eight years old and the reason for it is not printed here. Ask which of the porters was in this hall in 1629 and is not in it now. They took a bond with the Waterbailiff instead of taking out a warrant, and now they call the bond a custom of the house. C.O.
Customs of the Hall
Interleaved at this place in the hand of the clerk of the sale room: a copy of the list kept on the inside of the porters' cupboard door. It is numbered for two dice, the left die read first, and the men cast for their duties and read the custom that falls with them. The house does not enforce this list and has never taken it down.
| d66 | Custom of the hall |
|---|---|
| 11 | The first candle of the day is lit from the crier's lamp. Never from a buyer's. |
| 12 | No man counts the night inventory alone. If your second is sick, wake the cook. |
| 13 | A paddle laid face down holds the seat. Do not move it, do not turn it over to read it. |
| 14 | The word return is not said in front of the seven-branched thing before it is carried out of the room. Say that the lot goes back to the room, if anything must be said. |
| 15 | Sweep towards the door, never towards the rostrum. |
| 16 | On a fog day, chalk your barrow before you load it. |
| 21 | Do not eat above the strongroom stairs. |
| 22 | If a ticket is wet, copy it and burn the wet one. Do not dry it and hang it up. |
| 23 | Nobody whistles in the Long Room after the last candle. The boys are told once. |
| 24 | A lot that has been sold twice is carried by two men, even where one could lift it. |
| 25 | The lead glass is washed from the inside only. The rain has the outside. |
| 26 | The third window on Rope Street is left unlatched a finger's width. It has always been so left. |
| 31 | Do not lend your knife to a buyer. |
| 32 | A ticket with no number on it goes in the box under the pay table and is told to the night clerk, not to the head porter. |
| 33 | Never carry a mirror or a polished breast through a doorway face first. |
| 34 | Say the number of a lot aloud when you set it down. |
| 35 | No clock and no automaton is set on the presentation table facing the rostrum. |
| 36 | The man who drops a lot buys the beer, whatever the lot cost the house. |
| 41 | A paddle is not handed to a man who has not been named at the book, whoever he says he is and whoever he says sent him. |
| 42 | Boys do not go up into the gallery in twos after dark. Go three or go in the morning. |
| 43 | If a bell sounds in the hall and no hand is near it, enter the hour in the book. |
| 44 | Do not repaint anything. Not the shelves, not the barrows, not a lot. |
| 45 | Grease the crane on Sunday. This is not a custom, it is an order, and it is on this list because this list is what the boys read. |
| 46 | The salt in the cellar walls is not scraped for the kitchen. |
| 51 | A stranger who asks what the fog costs is a customs man. Answer him politely and fetch the clerk. |
| 52 | No dog in the Long Room on the third day. Paper. |
| 53 | Writing found in a catalogue is not rubbed out. The catalogue goes to the registry. |
| 54 | A coat left in the hall is hung up, not folded. |
| 55 | Do not count aloud past a hundred where buyers can hear you. |
| 56 | Keep the day-book dry. It has been wet once. |
| 61 | The pay table is not swept until the last buyer is out of the room. |
| 62 | Nothing stands on the strongroom floor. Everything on a shelf or in a crate. |
| 63 | If the number you read is not the number on the shelf, write both, and write which was which. |
| 64 | Do not answer the crier when he is not calling you. |
| 65 | The last man out fastens the gallery shutters from the inside and comes down the front stairs, not the back. |
| 66 | Where the count comes out above the book, count again as written above and enter both. Do not send for the appraiser at that hour. |
Complaints
Complaints are made in writing to the clerk of the sale room within eight days of the close of the fourth day, and are answered in writing. After eight days the sale is the record, and the record is what this house will produce, in this city, before any office of it.