300 stocks being sold at T. J. Albright’s 1844 auction

[Dietle]

I just ran across this ad in the April 18, 1844 issue of the “Jeffersonian Republican” (Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania). I am shocked that “300 good seasoned Maple Gun stocks” were being sold at T. J. Albright’s May 7, 1844 auction. That’s a whole bunch of gun stocks!

[Avlrc]

  interesting. Thanks for posting.

[smylee grouch]

Yes, it would be fun to know what they sold for. 

[Avlrc]

Yes, it would be fun to know what they sold for. 

Yeah, where are the results?  I bet they did not have a 30 percent premium added,

[120RIR]

Never mind just the gunstocks, that would have been one heck of an auction by present-day standards.  Concerning auction fees, I wonder what was common practice at the time.  Assuming the sale was conducted by a professional, there had to have been some kind of fee but as stated, it likely wasn't the 30% that seems to be about standard these days.

[spgordon]

Assuming the sale was conducted by a professional, there had to have been some kind of fee but as stated, it likely wasn't the 30% that seems to be about standard these days.

I don't know whether an auctioneer's fee, at this time, depended on the value of the items sold. I think they may have received just a flat fee for their service.

When William Henry descendants sold his home in Lancaster in 1809, the auctioneer received $4.00 for "crying the sale of the House & Lot of the late Wm Henry Esq.” The Henrys preserved the receipt, as well as a receipt for the cost of a jury ($10.00) that had to inquire into how Henry's property should be disposed, since he died without a will. It never occurred to me, to be honest, that the auctioneer's fee depended on the sale price of the property. (The receipt doesn't indicate any calculations to that effect.)

[spgordon]

BTW, the Henrys and Albrights--who had been associated since the early 1770s (when William Henry II apprenticed to Andreas Albrecht) and later after Henry Albright's daughter married William Henry III--stayed in touch via letters throughout the nineteenth century.

In 1885, James Henry wrote to another family member: "I am just now endeavoring to entertain Tho. J. Albright who lives at the Water-Gap with his daughter Maryann. He is without the least doubt an extraordinary oddity, and excels all oddities I am at present acquainted with."

I wonder what was so odd about him?!?