Watch List notes:

SOLOMON ISLANDS: Santa Cruz Islands, feather coil money (3519g), 19th to early 20th century, Opitz p.142-43, Knox p.50, ca. 8.17m (26'-9½") long and 5cm wide (2"), rolled into a 5-layered double-row coil ca. 35cm in diameter (14"), fully intact and covered in feathers, decorated with strings of coix seed money and shells, a first-grade example (#1) in the traditional 10-tiered system, EF, RRR, ex Charles Opitz Collection. Tevau (teau) feather coil money is composed of some 50,000 to 60,000 red feathers of the scarlet honeyeater bird (Myzomela cardinalis). It was used as a currency in bridal transactions and for other large expenditures on the Islands of Santa Cruz in eastern Melanesia. Depending on the condition and the visibility of the red feathers, the coils were valued differently. A first-grade coil had to be brilliantly red. Until the mid-20th century, the bride price was ten coils of different grades. For that, some families ran up debts for the rest of their lives. Only hereditary currency binders were authorized to make feather coils. A full coil could take them 500 to 600 man-hours, making it prohibitively expensive. It ceased to be used as money in the late 1970s, but continues to serve as indicators of value and objects of prestige to this day.Visit www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/320699 for a similar example at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Estimate: 4,000-6,000 USD