Local woman buys Strawbery Banke boat at eBay auction
PORTSMOUTH – A rare wooden sailboat built decades ago at Strawbery Banke Museum was sold on eBay by a Cincinnati man, to a Kittery woman, who bought it for her father in Cincinnati.
The online auction of the sailing dory skiff, with the classic “Strawbery Banke Boat Shop Portsmouth New Hampshire” brand stamped into the stern, ended Friday night. Five bidders battled for the boat which sold for a high bid of $1,011.
The Cincinnati seller who goes by “Zonk” sold the skiff as a package deal, pairing the 14-foot skiff with a trailer. After the auction, Zonk said the buyer told him she read about the skiff sale on seacoastonline and bid on behalf of her father who lives in Cincinnati, but was away on business.
“So everything is coming full circle I guess,” she told him.
Zonk said the boat has been in Ohio for about 22 years and that he sold it for a friend who never used it.
“Once these older items are gone, they’re gone forever,” he said.
“It’s a sweet-looking little boat,” said Nicholas Brown of Eliot, Maine, who was the last boat builder at Strawbery Banke.
Brown dates the skiff to the 1970’s and said it’s importance wouldn’t be historic, but more “in terms of Strawbery Banke.” Historically significant wooden boats in the area include water taxis that were built over 100 years ago and used to transport passengers before the bridges were built, he said.
“But it is funny to get on craigslist and see it out in Ohio,” he said. “It shows the range of influence of both the museum and historic watercraft.”
The Strawbery Banke boats were made by salaried builders like Brown so visitors to the museum could watch how they were constructed. Once made, they were sold “pretty inexpensively,” usually for about $250, said Brown.
Value today depends largely on condition, he said. But a 14-foot sailing skiff with a centerboard and sailing rig like the one Zonk sold, if built today at Lowell’s boat shop in Amesbury, Mass., could fetch as much as $15,000, he said.
via：AuctionTimes.co.uk
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