An Important Recent Quilt Sale: PART I

This important TVA quilt just sold at auction a few weeks ago.

Appraised value:  $2000-2400.

Knocked-down price:  $50,400.

I saw this quilt first in Soft Covers for Hard Times, a very thorough coverage of Depression Era quilting by Merikay Waldvogel. (If you're a textile history enthusiast, this book should be in your permanent library.) Ruth Clement Bond's husband was an official for the TVA, otherwise known as the Tennessee Valley Authority. Building dams in the area provided work for the unemployed, and power for households -- at least, that was the strategy.
    Bond designed more than one quilt in this theme to promote the idea of freeing oneself from bad decisions (drugs, drinking, womanizing, etc.) through hard work and responsibility. This is especially interesting, given the recent poster at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African-American Culture and History. This is one of five quilts known to have used the pattern. (Quiltmaker is unknown.)
    It's been designated one of the top 100 quilts of the 20th century. That list identifies the quilt as "Lazy Man," by Grace R. Tyler and Ruth C. Bond. No guarantees this quilt is the exact one on lthe list, though the pattern is the same.

  I wonder if the appraiser realized the quilt's inclusion on this important list. 
                   Apparently not...or did they??  
                        See PART II  for more discussion on how to set an appraised value.

Thanks to Jerry Roy via Julie Crossland for mentioning the quilt's recent sale on the AQS listserv.