A PEEK INTO THE HERITAGE AUCTIONS ARCHIVES REVEALS WHAT THE WORLD WAS READING, WATCHING AND APPRECIATING 100 YEARS AGO
In this edition of “Looking Back,” we turn back the clock a full century, to the year we watched jazz legend Louis Armstrong begin recording with his Hot Five in Chicago and the year we first tuned into Nashville’s WSM Radio for the Grand Ole Opry. 1925 was also the year Benito Mussolini declared himself dictator of Italy and Adolf Hitler released the first volume of Mein Kampf. Below, we look back at some of 1925’s other major moments in literature, film, sports and more.
BOOKS
Set in Jazz Age New York, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby might not have been the commercial success the author hoped for upon the novel’s 1925 release, but today it is considered his greatest work and an American classic. This inscribed first-edition copy of the book that introduced Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan to the world realized $425,000 in a June 2024 Heritage auction.
ILLUSTRATION ART
Joseph Christian Leyendecker was one of the most sought-after artists of the Golden Age of Illustration, completing 322 illustrations for The Saturday Evening Post alone. Between 1899 and 1943, he was the magazine’s go-to artist for the holidays. In addition to his 36 New Year’s baby illustrations, Leyendecker did more Christmas covers, Thanksgiving covers and Fourth of July covers than any other Post artist. One such work was Town Crier, created for the magazine’s July 4, 1925, cover and featuring the titular figure spreading the news of America’s independence. The painting fetched $423,000 in a November 2022 Heritage auction.
SPORTS
One of the greatest golfers of his era, Walter Hagen won 11 major championships during his illustrious career, including two U.S. Opens, four British Opens and five PGA Championships. Only Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods have won more majors than Hagen, and he shares the record for most PGA Championships with Nicklaus. In September 1925, at Illinois’ Olympia Fields Country Club, The Haig defeated Bill Mehlhorn to take home his third PGA Championship title, an achievement commemorated by this diamond-studded gold medal, which sold for $62,737 in a November 2011 Heritage auction.
MOVIES
Universal Pictures scared up a hit when it released its silent movie adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera in 1925. The success of the legendary horror film, adapted from Gaston Leroux’s 1910 novel, was due in large part to the talents of its leading actor, Lon Chaney, who famously devised his own makeup for his role as the Phantom. To keep Chaney’s final look a secret before the film’s premiere, Universal obscured and misrepresented the Phantom in every advertisement and movie poster, including this rare one-sheet, which hailed from the collection of Nicolas Cage and sold for $203,150 in a July 2014 Heritage auction.
DESIGN
Arguably the most influential of the artists working with ceramics in Paris during the 1920s, René Buthaud remains one of the most significant figures in the history of French Art Deco. Buthaud was formally trained in painting at the École de Beaux-Arts, but by the early 1920s ceramics had become his focus. For the seminal 1925 Paris Exposition, he created several works of simple classical forms featuring the stylized figures that would become so prominent during this period of decorative arts. Nearly a century later, in an October 2020 Heritage auction, this circa 1925 vase by Buthaud realized $40,000.
U.S. COINS
Although the 1925-S Saint-Gaudens double eagle claims a substantial mintage of nearly 3.8 million pieces, author and numismatist Roger W. Burdette estimates a surviving population of only 1,500, with more than half of those coins in circulated grades. The great majority of the mintage, the third largest of the series, was destroyed after the Gold Recall of 1933. This example, graded MS65, realized $384,000 in a May 2023 Heritage auction.
AMERICAN ART
Rocky Mountain National Park – one of the most visited parks in the United States – had been established for only a decade when Birger Sandzén completed this scene in 1925, 10 years after President Woodrow Wilson signed the Rocky Mountain National Park Act. Titled The Gate, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, the vibrant oil-on-board painting captures the scenic views and tall mountain peaks for which the park is known and exhibits the artist’s signature impasto brushwork and bold palette. The work sold for $37,500 in a November 2021 Heritage auction.