Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/438368
160 Frank Kaminski gaveled off objects as varied as 18th-century French furniture, movie posters, 19th-century American art, and Winfrey-signed memorabilia to raise over $600,000 for Oprah Winfrey's Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa. The event also provided an article about de-cluttering for Winfrey's O, The Oprah Magazine, and for over 4,000 visitors, a splendid day of entertainment, celebrity ogling, and bar - gain hunting at the Santa Barbara Polo and Racquet Club. The two days previous saw over 200,000 hits from 170 countries and all 50 states on the Kaminski Auction web page for the collection. Likewise, when Beverly's beloved and venerable Le Grand David Spec - tacular Magic Show shut its doors for good, Kaminski Auctions sold the company's props, memorabilia, original artwork, and posters at a memorable event at the magic company's home, the Cabot Street Cinema Theatre. Here is what we all want today: We want to be green, to lessen our carbon footprint, and to create less waste. We want to have stylish, individual, comforta - ble, and beautiful homes. Ditto for us: We want to be chic and gorgeously unique. We want superb quality. We want to be entertained. And we want bargains. We can have all of these, and more, in one fell swoop, says Diane Riva, director of marketing and publicity at Kaminski Auctions. "The best value for anything you want to buy is at auctions," she says. "At auc - tion, you can buy something of real value for very little. You are reusing, recycling. And people who go to auctions have fun, and they derive so much pleasure from the things they buy." The answer to the discouraging dilem - mas of wasteful consumerism, of mass- produced sameness, and of overpriced mediocrity, she says, is to shop at auctions. "If you buy a piece of furniture, for ex - ample, in a big-box store," Riva explains, "its value decreases to almost nothing the moment you take it out of the store; it's just like buying a new car. But an antique bought at auction can be a real bargain with inherent value." Auction houses were established in Sweden and England in the 17th and 18th centuries as a favored way to sell works of art; Christie's, now the world's largest auction house, published its first auction catalog in When Oprah Winfrey decided to clean house at her residences in Indiana, Maui, Chicago, and Santa Barbara, she contacted Beverly's Kaminski Auctions to help her find new homes for the things she didn't want anymore. Frank Kaminksi at auction Opposite page, the vernerable action house has a vast collection of one- of-a-kind items.