Rare Book Monthly
Remembering Rad Curdy, an Exceptional Collector
In 1968 I brought a collection of old stove posters from Rad.
On Saturday April 2nd I predict he'll be back in the rooms for on that day, his long hidden collection of Revolutionary War material goes up for sale at Absolute Auctions in Pleasant Valley, the same place, though the name has changed, where I first met Rad almost forty years ago. It's bound to be very good material. Rad was obsessed and in a collector that can be a beautiful thing.
If you live close enough to attend the auction the location is 45 South Avenue. Pleasant Valley is located about 10 miles due east of Poughkeepsie in the mid-Hudson valley of New York State - about an hour and a half north of New York and maybe three and half hours out of Boston. It starts at 5:00 pm and you can view material before the sale. If you see Rad say "Hi." Saturday many of the high-points of his collecting experience will move on to museums and serious collectors.
The auction house has provided a biography which I link you to here: www.absoluteauctionrealty.com/galleries/040205radbio/RadBio.pdf Give it a minute or two to load as it is a PDF file.
Finally here is a link to Absolute Auctions: www.absoluteauctionrealty.com/auction_detail.php?user_id=83@auction_id=53921 Scroll down the page for information about what is being sold.
Editor's Note. The sale was very successful realizing more than $130,000 plus hammer, an excellent outcome according to an auction house representative. Some of the highpoints were two revolutionary war swords, one of which realized $13,000. There wasn't however a great deal of printed and manuscript material in this sale.
There will be another sale on April 23rd. The focus will be on 19th century material and there will be 500 lots.
