From the Sack volume –Volume III – Brochure #13 – November, 1970

In 1936, C. K. Davis, President of Remington Arms Company, walked into our shop and introduced himself to Harold sack. He said that in perusing Nutting’s “Furniture Treasury” (sic) he liked the quality of the items in those volumes accredited to Israel Sack and decided to turn to us to furnish his home with American antiques of the highest quality.

During the next 10 years he selected some of the finest pieces we acquired—his collection of furniture when completed was virtually all purchased from us and recommended by Harold Sack as worthy of his collection.

He wisely turned to the most qualified dealer in each category of his collecting—furniture, silver, pewter an paintings—to round out an outstanding collection in each of those fields.

Mr. Davis was an executive of the first rank. As president of Remington Arms Company, a DuPont corporation, he built up that company to a prospering firm of 22,000 employees and organized the Wild Life Preservation campaign which is the model for present U.S. policy.

In approaching antique collecting he applied the same principles he used as a top executive. He investigated and selected the most qualified dealers in their respective fields and relied on their judgment in forming his collection.

Time proved dramatically the correctness of his approach. A number of his pieces were loaned through the years to important Exhibition and illustrated in various books and articles. He donated a great McIntire sofa to the Metropolitan Museum and certain pieces of furniture and silver to the Henry F. DuPont Winterthur Museum of which he was a trustee.

After his death, Winterthur Museum purchased a number of masterpieces from his collection. Among them were the matching highboy an lowboy signed by Benjamin Frothingham, a great William and Mary burl veneered desk and other outstanding items of furniture. That museum also acquired a masterpiece of silver which we furnished Mr. Davis—a pair of silver candlesticks with snuffer and try by John Burt—the only known such combination.

In 1969 we acquired from the estate the supreme William and Mary slate top table which belonged to governor Hineley of Barnstable, Mass.

It is, therefore, with special pride and sentiment that we are offering three outstanding pieces recently acquired from the C. K. Davis collection. These pieces were sold by us to Mr. Davis in the 1930’s and were repurchased from the estate at several times their cost to him commensurate with their increase in value.

In these days of economic turbulence the financial stability of the choice pieces of Americana gives us a reassurance that the fundamentals do not change. If one pursues the basic concepts which Mr. Davis applied then, there is every reason to believe that the present has opportunities which should be fruitful for the future.

Editor’s Note: The observation voiced by the Sack brothers in the last paragraph of the “Introduction” of November, 1970, is as valid today as it was then.