|
This coming Sunday, Feb. 17, at 2 p.m. in Rehoboth’s convention center, Butch Emmert will sell the most valuable piece of personal property he’s ever been consigned in 30 years of auctioneering.
Emmert expects the No. 6 Delaware license tag owned by the estate of Milford surveyor and land planner Charles Murphy to bring a winning bid in the range of $500,000. “This tag is going to bring more than Mr. Murphy’s house in Milford is listed for,” said Emmert this week. Murphy, a mentor and longtime personal friend of Emmert, passed away in December 2007, with instructions in his will to auction off the tag through his longtime auctioneer friend.
Emmert said he expects six or eight people bidding for the tag, all of whom have had to submit a certified check for $50,000 to Emmert Auction to authenticate their ability to be in the high stakes bidding. The last time Emmert sold a single digit tag was in 1993 when he sold Murphy’s No. 9 tag to Anthony Fusco. The New Castle County developer paid $186,000 for the tag – double what Emmert expected at the time - and Emmert expects him to be one of the players in Sunday’s bidding. He said there are at least three individuals “hot” for the tag as well as a few investment groups. “I really think it will be an individual who gets it,” he said.
The bidders aren’t the only ones showing great interest in Sunday’s uniquely Delaware sale. Emmert said Katie Couric’s Eyes on America news team from CBS has booked three rooms at The Avenue Hotel in downtown Rehoboth Beach for coverage of the sale. “I remember when I sold that No. 9 tag. AP and UPI picked it up and David Letterman called me up for an item on his show.”
Charles Murphy Jr., according to Emmert, was a smart and proud Delawarean who came to ownership of the No. 6 tag through family connections. “He had his undergraduate degree from Yale and his graduate engineering degree from Harvard,” said Emmert. “He was a stalwart Democrat and moved with all the Delaware power brokers of his day. His stepfather, J. Gordon Smith, held the first General Motors dealership in Delaware at Kent County Motors and was also director of the Department of Motor Vehicles. One day John Mulholland, who was Charles Murphy’s father-in-law, walked in Smith’s office and saw the No. 6 tag lying on the motor vehicle department director’s desk. Smith told Mulholland that the tag’s owner was moving to Maryland and turned in the tag,” said Emmert. “Smith then asked Mulholland if he wanted the tag and of course Mulholland said yes.”
Mulholland had intended to bequeath the tag to his daughter – Murphy’s first wife – but she died before Mulholland so it went instead to his son, John Mulholland Jr. The Mulholland family, said Emmert, made its money through its contract with the Breyer Ice Cream company and the federal government to supply all of the wooden spoons supplied with the Dixie cups so popular with American troops. The spoons were made at a facility in Milford.
“When John Mulholland Jr. moved to Denton, Md., he gave the No. 6 tag to his brother-in-law, Charles Murphy. That was in 1972 and he had it on his car up until the time of his death,” said Emmert. “I asked him just last fall how often people commented on the tag,” said Emmert. “He told me that people as varied as the governor and garbage men on his street asked him about the tag at a rate of not less than five times a day.”
Delaware’s tags are registered to their owners so they are of no value to anyone else. Only the owner can display the tag on his or her car so there is no reason to fear theft. Even if the tag is stolen, it’s the number that has the value and can be easily replaced.
In Delaware, tags No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 are registered respectively to the Governor, Lt. Governor and Secretary of State. Emmert said No. 4 is registered to New Castle County’s Peggy Dean, widow of deceased bank tycoon J. Tyler McConnell, while No. 5 is owned by the family of Sussex County’s deceased millionaire contractor Melvin Joseph.
“It’s a Delaware thing – a sign of Delaware patriotism,” said Emmert. “It says a lot about being a good Delawarean and being a good investor.”
Contact Dennis Forney at dnf@capegazette.com
|
