At Threadgill’s auction, a wealth in art and memories
Original Post: https://www.statesman.com/news/20181208/at-threadgills-auction-wealth-in-art-and-memories
The Armadillo World Headquarters has been closed for almost four decades, but on Saturday, Eddie Wilson saw the audience seated shoulder to shoulder again, waiting eagerly for Freddie King and Commander Cody and Doug Sahm and many more to be announced onstage.
This time, though, the crowds came for the memories, not the music.
In the nearly 38 years the Armadillo has been gone, a lot has changed. Threadgill’s World Headquarters — the demise of which spurred Saturday’s auction — arrived 22 years ago and left just last weekend. Now cleared of tables and vegetables, hundreds of bidders packed the former restaurant’s main dining room to clear the walls as well.
Alas, prices have changed a lot, too. Posters that could have been pulled from walls back in the days of the Armadillo sold in for $300 (B.W. Stevenson), $500 (Frank Zappa), $800 (New Riders of the Purple Sage) and much more ($2,200 for a large March concert calendar for the Armadillo).
Wilson — who was founder of the Armadillo in 1970 and who is known these days as the man behind Threadgill’s restaurant — spoke to the audience before the auction began, at times letting the emotion of the day bubble to the top. “How many people get to put on their own funeral?” he said wryly. “What a life I had …”
As he trailed off, the crowd jumped in: “God bless you, Eddie,” one yelled. “We love you, Eddie,” another said.
Wilson spoke lovingly of the artists and musicians he’s lived his life around. Occasionally, he interrupted the auction to praise someone who he felt deserved the same praise he has received.
“Everything I have ever done has been in tribute to the people I worked with or have been influenced by,” he said.
One of those artists was right there: Jim Franklin. He spoke up during the auction of a Burton Wilson photo showing Zappa admiring a horns-and-armadillo-shell creation of his. “That’s the moment I met Frank Zappa,” Franklin said.
Auctioneer Robb Burley didn’t miss the chance to pump up the excitement for that photo: “Think of all the weirdness in that room,” he joked. The photo ended up selling for $1,000.
The auction, slowed by stories, was in no hurry. Though Burley had said he averages 100 items an hour at his New Braunfels headquarters, only 220 items had sold after four hours at Threadgill’s. And there were still 300 items to go.
The restaurant had been stuffed Friday with treasures, more than 470 items inventoried and tagged. Then more was found in a storage shed out back. And, hey, why not sell these bar stools, too? And the bleachers in the beer garden? When all was said and done, well over 500 lots sold, ranging from a $150 Burton Wilson snapshot of a buffet line at the Armadillo to more than $10,000 for a purple neon sign spelling out ‘World Headquarters.’
On the cold, gray Saturday, Threadgill’s was warm and awash in neon lights. Burley’s auctioneer’s chant rolled and bubbled. There were bargains for the high rollers: $4,000 for an original Franklin painting, $1,750 for a pair of antique glass Coca-Cola fountain signs, $1,300 for a collection of Freddie King posters and photos.
One of the stranger auction battles happened when two bidders would not give up on a photo of Kenneth Threadgill and former University of Texas coach Darrell Royal. A rather nondescript photo taken from an awkward angle, it sold for $1,600 — four times as much as a very early Armadillo poster for the Hub City Movers by Franklin.
Some Threadgill’s icons: The first set of five armadillo sculptures that went up for bids sold for $3,000 to $4,000 each. The Jake’s Beer neon sign sold for $9,500. And the neon star in the center of the dining room went for a surprising $3,000.
Among the more popular items were the original Burton Wilson photographs, including some iconic shots. The Bruce Springsteen “Rosie” photo sold for $3,100. The photo showing Doug Sahm holding a Pearl Beer sold for $1,200. And the Big Joe Williams photo that Burton Wilson referred to as “my Mona Lisa” sold for $1,000.
The atmosphere grew more relaxed as the afternoon wore on and the crowd thinned — and beers started moving across the bar in the back. But it was hard to expect where the prices would go. Posters that would sell elsewhere in the low hundreds quickly shot into the high hundreds.
Even as he had decided to close Threadgill’s World Headquarters, Wilson had been undecided whether he would even hold an auction. But “when you stand on the ledge long enough, the wind blows up,” he said, “You get tired of looking down, and you just want to get it over with.”
And he had been particularly happy with Burley and his first auction in January 2015. “It’s the only thing I have ever done that worked the first time,” he told the crowd.
And the second time, too, it seemed. As the crowd waited for the auction to start, strangers sat side by side. After a while, many started sharing stories with one another, comparing tales of their days at the Armadillo, at Threadgill’s. Wilson sold a lot of things Saturday, but the memories he helped create flowed freely.