Turner Auctions + Appraisals is very pleased to present The Pebble Beach Estate of Norman Lausten on Saturday, April 22, 2023. Reflecting Mr. Lausten’s passion for collecting that spanned more than seven decades, this online auction features an eclectic array of over 330 lots in diverse categories, reflecting the wide range of items in the estate. Among the antique, vintage and/or contemporary items are books, directories and other printed material; jewelry, clothing, shoes, and accessories for women and men; objects related to automobiles and bicycles; knives; silver certificates; artworks; Asian collectibles; musical instruments; war items; and a variety of mechanical devices such as cameras, radios, steam engines, telescopes, and more. Some lots from other collections or estates round out the sale.
About Norman Lausten and His Collection
Born in San Francisco, Norman Lausten (1942-2023) was the only child of Charles and Winifred Lausten. Young Norman spent his early years at the family ranch in Williams, California, where his great-great grandfather, and his grandfather and two brothers were pioneer rice farmers in Maxwell, northeast of Sacramento. Later, his family divided their time between the family ranch and their Carmel home, moving there permanently in 1956. Norman graduated from Carmel High School in 1960, then attended Monterey Peninsula College. He became an automobile mechanic, and eventually was promoted to mechanical supervisor for the City of Pacific Grove, repairing city vehicles.
Norman’s passion for automobiles started as a baby: his first word – at 10 months! – was “car.” Likewise, his interest in collecting began very early: at age four, he found a carbide bicycle lamp in his grandfather’s basement, setting in motion an obsession for early automobile items and many other antique collectibles. As Norman would later say, this happenstance discovery as a young child “was the impetus for the whole madness.” Over the next 70+ years, he would build a literal museum in his Pebble Beach home, filled with antique radios, books, paintings, headlamps, other auto memorabilia, and much more – welcoming friends and other automobilia aficionados to enjoy his collections. Along the way, according to his cousin Richard Lausten, Norman became an antique automobile historian and “walking encyclopedia” of the early automobile up through the 1930s. His collection’s pride and joy were his 1913 Simplex and 1922 Locomobile. Not surprisingly, from 1958 on, he attended every Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, the world’s most prestigious car show.
Other aspects of his life are very interesting as well. Norman was a gifted musician, playing guitar, banjo and fiddle. He inherited a beautiful tenor voice from his father, an opera singer; his mother taught piano and organ. His wife Jeanne Richelieu DuCasse (1945-2000) was the granddaughter of famed early California artist Xavier Martinez, whose family was showcased recently in a very popular and successful sale at Turner Auctions. Jeanne was an avid collector as well, of antique clothing and jewelry. Together the couple enjoyed traveling, vintage car club rallies, and picnic gatherings.
Norman Lausten was a proud fifth-generation Californian, whose family has a notable history. His great-great grandfather Francis Drake Brown (1823-1903) was one of the earliest California Pioneers. Born in Missouri, he joined a 15-wagon train with 150 others, in 1846 at age 23, working as a scout in payment for his food and shelter. The trip, usually four to six months long, was said to be uneventful until the foot of California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range, where “they hit up against a hard hill to climb,” according to Mr. Brown’s diary as reported in the 1911 Grizzly Bear magazine. Then after several days of unsuccessful attempts, they finally prevailed. Thanks to the good plans of a Methodist preacher and Buffalo Jones, long pine poles lashed together, 16 yoke of cattle, “and no furlough on “cussin’”, they reached the top in one day.
Brown’s diary continued: “Three weeks later, the ill-fated Reed-Donner Party were snowed in at this camp” – “the saddest thing I ever looked upon…” While a party of 81 pioneers began the trip, only 45 were able to walk out alive after the horrific winter in the Sierra Nevada. The party was trapped by exceptionally heavy snow; when food ran out, some members of the group reportedly resorted to cannibalism of those already dead.
However, several weeks ahead of the snows that caused that tragedy, Brown’s weary party joyfully took sight of the Sacramento Valley on October 4, 1846: “There it lay in its beauty, the grandest valley in the whole world.”
Francis Brown’s remarkable adventures and achievements continued. Also in 1846, he fought in the Bear Flag Revolt under Colonel John C. Fremont; made his fortune in the 1949 Gold Rush; and became the first sheriff of Solano County in 1850. Over his lifetime, Brown made six subsequent trips back to Missouri buying and selling land, including one in 1848 to marry his sweetheart Frances, who bore him 10 children. In 1876, he settled in California and set up a 3,000-acre farming operation in Colusa County, where Francis said the Browns were “useful, true citizens.”
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