Operation Auntie Fannie

The line on Manhattan's Madison Avenue started forming before 8 a.m. each day. By 10 it had reached the proportions of a queue for The Exorcist or a new Linda Lovelace flick, except that there was something different about these people: everyone seemed to be clutching some kind of precious bundle. In fact, bundles of cash are what many of those in line now expect to get.

The occasion was a four-day "Heirloom Discovery Week," mounted by Sotheby Parke Bernet, the world's largest art auction house. Its purpose: to lure out of attics and dusty desuetude valuables deemed worthy of sale on Parke Bernet's prestigious block. "Operation Auntie Fannie," as one participant dubbed it, in reference to the genealogical source of many of the heirlooms, attracted 18,000 hopeful owners of treasure. They brought in coins and cutlasses, paintings and pottery, silverware and schlock, for evaluation by the company's 40 Manhattan experts. At least one in four visitors hit attic gold.

An 81-year-old Long Island widow came in with a scabrous painting that turned out to be an 18th century Italian portrait. A Westchester woman brought in a goblet that her family had bought at Tiffany's for $300 in 1894. Present value: around $12,000. A landscape owned by a man from Long Island turned out to be the work of the 18th century English painter Thomas Patch, worth a patch above $30,000. A Connecticut man brought in a trifle inherited from his Uncle Harold that was diagnosed as a contemporary portrait of George Washington on glass ($300). A man from New York brought in a musty print by Albrecht Durer ($2,000).

Most of Auntie Fannie's legatees, of course, came in with items that were what an auction house employee delicately called "more decorative than collective"--meaning junk. One elderly couple thrust a collection of cups and dishes at Porcelain Expert Armin Allen and proclaimed, "These, young man, are very, very old." After examining the china, Allen observed diplomatically that "it says 'Made in Germany,' and it was not until the beginning of the 20th century that such a marking appeared." Another Parke Bernet diplomat, after examining a ring that its owner believed to be antique amber, said, "I'm sorry, madam, but it's plastic." He gently added: "Early plastic."

A number of visitors, by contrast, were astounded to find that possessions for which they had little regard were worth thousands. A building superintendent who fished a landscape out of a garbage can ten years ago was assured by the experts that it was worth $6,500. A Brooklyn couple who brought in what they thought was a "Communion tray" learned that it was an enamel punch bowl crafted by a czarist court silversmith, worth up to $15,000. A Manhattan secretary who produced a battered pottery dog used as a plaything by her children was informed that it was Ha'n dynasty (206 B.C.A.D. 220) porcelain, worth $5,250, which might have fetched $25,000 if it had not been damaged.

All told, the attic lode panned out to more than $5 million, of which about $1 million worth will be turned over to Sotheby Parke Bernet for auction. That will enable the sponsors of Operation Auntie Fannie to benefit too. The auction house's average commission: 22.5%.

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