VINELAND, N.J. — Bertoia Auctions’ March 11-12 sale of the Monique Knowlton Collection got off to a racy start when a Tipp & Co Mickey and Minnie Mouse Motorcycle realized $222,000, multiplying the lot’s high estimate by almost a factor of five. The circa 1932 piece measured 9 inches long and depicted an edgy design that gave Mickey and Minnie big teeth and five fingers on each hand, a feature only the earliest of German toy makers were able to present. Tipp & Co. got their license not from Disney but from Ideal Film Co., Ltd., which owned the rights to distribute Mickey Mouse films in the United Kingdom.
Provenance on the piece included the Wengel Collection and the Donald Kaufman Collection; when Knowlton acquired it in 2010 from the Kaufman collection, it had been estimated at $23/28,000 and Knowlton paid $65,000 for it. When it crossed the block, it saw competition from the room, the phones and online; Michael Bertoia, auctioneering, had bids that took him to $32,000, and it slowly grew by $5,000 increments before a bid jumped it to $90,000. In the end, a phone bidder prevailed against the underbidder in the room. After Bertoia brought the gavel down, he said it was a new world record and the salesroom erupted in applause.
