SONDHEIM

In early June I saw an ad on a Sondheim facebook group promoting the Doyle auction of Steve’s estate. Like so many of you that I’ve corresponded with, I fantasized about acquiring “just one little thing”— even a pencil would have been a thrill! I wouldn’t be able to afford very much but I set a budget that I could rationalize and logged into the auction on June 18th. When Sondheim’s 4 thesauruses went for $20,600 and the Fabergé box went for $74,000, it became clear that even a pencil might be way above my pay grade, but I hung in there. (The pencils sold for $6400!) Eventually, I bid on a book. The auction platform showed that I won it but when I checked my Doyle account there was nothing there. No book. No sign of any bids. Nothing. Maybe I was outbid in the final milliseconds by someone on the phone. I shrugged it off and tried again 4 more times. Same result; I won, but I didn’t. I tried one last time to acquire a small bookcase with about 190 of Sondheim’s puzzle books. Same result. So, I gave up and just watched the auction for another hour or so. I was dejected but also understood that I was swimming in waters way, way over my head.

The next morning, I was greeted by a 5-figure invoice from Doyle. Not only did I not come away empty handed, I had purchased 5 lots of auction items including 2 antique games and 200 books. As it turns out, there’s a 12-hour lag between when one bids and when the item lands in their account. Who knew? I could hear my high-interest credit card’s muffled moans from inside my wallet. It gets better. The Sondheim auction items had to be picked up on West 87th Street in NYC within 48 hours in order to avoid storage fees. I live in NH. Just. Kill. Me. The next day, I pulled a 10-hour round-trip and lugged everything home in my car.

Boxes and boxes of books…

That night, I spread Steve’s 200 books out on the floor of my apartment and typed a manifest of everything I had purchased. I started to page through each book looking for signs of Sondheim. Doyle apparently had not closely examined them as there were 15 or so books with personal inscriptions to Steve, completed crosswords, notes, and the like. One coffee table-sized book in a slipcase turned out not to be a book at all, but rather a beautiful old French board game. Bonus! There were also small collections of books by Sondheim’s friends and colleagues, including Mary Rodgers, Jules Feiffer, Will Shortz, Martin Gardner, and others. Thanks to Google, I found a photo of Steve’s apartment in which I spotted one of the spinning games I purchased in a display case! My anxiety about the money I spent dissipated as I realized that I’d likely recoup my “investment” by selling most of this stuff and still be able to hang on to a game and a few special books to pass down to my daughters.

sharing …

My first instinct was to share. Since June, I have gifted or donated about 15% of the Sondheim books. I posted a photo of one of the games on a Broadway facebook group. A number of people commented on how they “never stood a chance” at the auction or “could never afford to bid”. I contacted several of these folks and gifted them each a crossword puzzle book. Giving some of this haul away has been the most fun and rewarding part of all of this! Two very nice people—an author of an upcoming book on Sondheim and his passion for games, and a long-time friend of Steve’s—reached out and helped me identify many of the inscriptions. I happily thanked them with several books each. I also plan to make a gift to the Musical Theater Department at The University of New Hampshire, my daughters’ alma mater. The rest are being offered for sale here.