Leigh Keno Launches Auction House

Antique dealer Leigh Keno will be opening a new aution house, although the location has not yet been revealed. The new auction house will be called Keno Auctions and will hold its first sale in May of 2010.

The Keno Auctions website states Keno is actively seeking furniture, folk art, paintings, and decorative arts to include ceramics, silver and jewelry. From what the website states, it appears Keno Auctions will be a full service auction house. According to Keno he will sell anything valued at $100.00 and up, and hopes to get items that do not meet the thresholds at Sotheby's and Christies. With that strategy, it appears Keno is looking to compete more with Doyle and other metro New York City auction houses.

Leigh is actively seeking quality consignments of furniture, folk art, paintings and decorative arts (including ceramics, silver and jewelry).

To vist Keno Auctions website, click HERE.

Lita Solis-Cohen of Maine Antqiue Digest reports:

"We will have no estimates, no reserves," Keno went on. "We will sell anything made anywhere worth one hundred dollars and up; we want to be a full-service auction that wants lots under five thousand dollars and those over one hundred thousand.

"We already have a Goddard table in its original finish, the crib Duncan Phyfe made for his own children, a Daniel Munroe clock with a kidney-shaped dial, four French bureaus, some Chinese export porcelain, gold coins, American Colonial silver, and some jewelry."

Keno said he will continue as a dealer, selling paintings and furniture privately, bidding at auctions for clients and for stock, and exhibiting at the Winter Antiques Show in New York City in January and at the Philadelphia Antiques Show in April. Now, with the auction house, he can give sellers a choice: sell the piece to him; consign it for private sale; or consign it to a public auction. "For example, I have an eight-eenth-century Salem secretary bookcase consigned for the Winter Show, but the owner of a Hadley chest is leaning toward auction," he said.

Leigh's twin brother, Leslie Keno, a Sotheby's director of American furniture and decorative arts, said he wishes his brother good luck. Leslie Keno will remain at Sotheby's where he is gathering material for a January sale.

Leigh Keno said competing with his brother is something he is used to. "When I was at Doyle and then at Christie's from 1984 to 1986, we were always competing head to head, but we never talked about it. When we went home at Christmas, it was really tough because we would never talk about where we had been. We talked about girls, music, and cars but never antiques."

Leigh Keno said he hopes Sotheby's and Christie's will think about referring lower-priced items from estates to him. "Sotheby's and Christie's send things they don't want to sell to other auction houses. I hope they will put me on their list. With low overhead and a small staff, I will be able to cut a good deal."