Sold!

The McNallys launch a new estate auction venture

From a $10,000 designer bed to a sports car once driven by Clark Gable, antique dealers Connie and Bill McNally have discovered you never know what treasures may come to their door. Longtime owners of The McNally Company Antiques in Rancho Santa Fe, the couple is launching a new venture, McNally’s RSF Estate Auctions. “People love auctions,” says Bill. “They love the idea of finding a bargain.”

 
The first auction is June 21-22 at the Rancho Santa Fe Garden Club, with Steve Lewandowski as auctioneer. While auctions have been around since the 16th century, the McNally’s estate auctions will have a decidedly 21st century twist, with bidders in the audience competing in real time against prospective buyers around the world who can peruse catalogues on the Internet prior to sale.

 
The McNallys decided to launch the new business to keep up with changing times. More customers are buying items online rather than in traditional brick-and-mortar shops, and more sellers, especially in affluent areas like Rancho Santa Fe, want to downsize. They have rooms filled with furniture that their children, because of different lifestyles and tastes, may not want. Selling items at auction is a way to find “a good home,” the McNallys say, for treasured furnishings, paintings, and objets d’art from the past. “There’s a season for everything, a time to buy and a time to sell,” says Connie.

 
Connie McNally opened her first antiques business in 1976 in Palm Springs, California. Two years later, she and her husband Bill formed the McNally Company Antiques. They opened their shop on Paseo Delicias in Rancho Santa Fe more than 22 years ago. It offers exquisite antiques from the 17-20th centuries including furniture, paintings, and objets d’art, as well as one of Southern California’s finest collections of antique silver. Connie is the former publisher and editor of the respected Silver Magazine, where she still serves as editor emeritus. The McNallys are members of the Antique Dealers Association of California, the New York Silver Society, and the Society for American Silversmiths. (858.756.2701, mcnallyauctions@gmail.com)   Andrea Naversen