Herman Darvick (1938-2024): his auctions will be remembered

Herman Darvick was a Brooklyn, New York third grade teacher at P.S. 248 in the 1960’s who found documents and signatures interesting. In time he entered the auction field after Charles Hamilton’s sales ended in 1984 (1964-1984). He ran his from 1986 to 1996 as Herman Darvick Autograph Auctions. I’m writing about him now as he passed away on May 16^th.

During his auction career he ran 54 sales, 52 of them are in our archives, 32 priced. We’ll add them to Transactions+ by late summer. As to his background we know surprisingly little.

We have no record as to how and when he first became involved in collectible paper. As to his core business, his emphasis appears to have been fame and notoriety while making room for the historical. So you could find Ronald Reagan’s high school yearbook in Sale No. 7, lot 176 on June 11, 1987 and then browse further in the same sale to find James Garfield, William Henry Harrison and Rutherford Hayes nearby.

While focusing on historical paper he occasionally handled objects. If you are above a certain age, you read about one item in his 1991 sale No. 30, lot 36. It was Jack Ruby’s gun that he used to shoot Lee Harvey Oswald. It was sold for $220,000. A story about this sale made it into the API news services where more than 600 newspapers carried it. Yes, he primarily, no, overwhelmingly, sold paper but was open to sell objects. Whatever he was offering, his lots sold 95%+ of the time.

In Sale No. 31 you could find collectible paper of all description in the first few pages relating to; Tennessee Williams, Chagall posters, Fred Astaire, Lionel Barrymore and a signed sheet of stationary from the Hotel Royal Palm, Fort Myers, Florida, signed by members of the 1929 and 1930 World Champion Philadelphia Athletics including Hall of Famers Connie Mack, Lefty Grove, Eddie Collins, Mickey Cochrane and Jimmy Fox and 13 others (sold for $450).

In Sale No. 48, December 29, 1994 you could find playbills featuring emerging stars, in other cases their photographs, then a few pages further in to find Gerald R. Ford, Clark Gable, Hermann Goring, Red Grange, Cary Grant, Horace Greeley, W.C. Handy and John Scott Harrison (1804-1878), the only man to be the son and the father of a US President. It sold for $450.

After he closed his auctions he went on to be an authenticator, working for others and sometimes on his own. He went to work for Gallery of History in Las Vegas and in his later stages for John Reznikoff at University Archives (2012-2019), completing his career selling on eBay.

The unifying factor was he was an auction man.

Mr. Darvick has passed away but we’ll have his auction history to remember his involvement.

May he rest in peace.