When I met Herb Bridges and

his "Gone With The Wind" collection over three decades ago,

it never entered either of our minds that it would one day bring us to

Christie's in Manhattan, in the heart of New York City.

Like Topsy, the collection

just grew and grew. Bridges has tried for several years to find a home

for the 5,000 items in Georgia, where it could stay intact. Unfortunately,

corporate heads are no longer from the South and have no understanding

nor appreciation for this unique memorabilia.

He has known that his three

children have other interests, and so the only thing left was to hand

it all over to Christie's. He had served as their source of authentication

on like items for some time.

Last fall the famous auction

house began sending its various experts to Sharpsburg to inventory the

books, posters, dolls, etc. Everything was put into lots 348 of them in

all.

Promptly at 10 a.m. last Wednesday,

the auction was open and the audience of approximately 120 people, plus

those dozen or so that were calling in, began the bidding process. The

morning session, from 10 a.m. to noon, covered the first 181 lots and

the afternoon session, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., saw the hammer fall on all

of them.

The morning auctioneer was

a delightful person, probably in his mid-30s, and kept the audience relaxed

and glad to be there. A large video screen sat high up on a wall facing

the audience, and each lot was shown until the hammer fell on the final

bid.

A large board on the other

side of that wall reflected the bidding price as it was progressing, not

only in U. S. dollars, but in British pounds, Hong Kong dollars, Euro

dollars, Japanese yen and Swiss francs. Lot #15, for instance, was an

American poster, selling for $3,000 U.S., but was 348,690 in Japanese

yen.

I noted that bids starting

out in the hundreds of dollars were increased by $50 at a time. Bids that

got up into the thousands were increased by a hundred dollars or more

at a time.

One man, probably in his early

70s, bought three posters. After the hammer fell on his third purchase,

he got up to leave. The auctioneer commented he could stay longer and

the reply came, "I got three kids and three posters, and I'm leaving."

I learned that there are two

prices per lot, the hammer price and the premium price. The hammer price

is the highest amount bid in the room. However, when the party actually

paid for it, a premium fee going to Christie's was added, plus 8.5 percent

New York tax. A sweater worn by "Melanie" went for a hammer

price of $14,000, but the premium price was $16,730.

All in all, it was an awesome

experience at 20 Rockefeller Plaza.