Omro – John L. Freund, 94, of Omro, passed away peacefully with family by his side, on October 13, 2021 at Evergreen Retirement Community. He resided at Arborview Manor until recently. John was born on the family farm in Omro on January 19, 1927. He was the youngest child of John J. and Rose B. (Schrage) Freund.
John graduated from Omro High School in 1944 and Oshkosh State Teachers College in 1949. He married his high school sweetheart, Lucille J. Neary, on December 1, 1945, at St. Thomas Catholic Church in the town of Poygan. John and Lucille worked together, loaded up the family car and traveled together, and enjoyed activities and time spent with friends and their families. Lucille preceded him in death on September 17, 1992.
John was a life-long member of St. Mary Catholic Church in Omro, serving as a lector, usher, and parish council member.
John joined his eldest brother, Ernie, to begin his passionate lifetime career in real estate and auctioneering, which also later included insurance sales. Freund auctions were well known and were a weekend family event in the Omro/Oshkosh areas. The family always enjoyed closing out an auction with dinner, old fashioneds, and fun. John was a founding member of the Wisconsin Auctioneers Association. He served as its president in 1973 and 1974 and was named 1980 Outstanding Auctioneer of the Year.
John was an active community member. He served on the Omro Board of Education. He was a charter member of the Omro Kiwanis, actively serving that organization for over 50 years. John served as a Director of Winnebago County Bank for over 25 years. He was a member and past president of the local Board of Realtors and was Realtor of the Year in 1965. He was a member of the National Association of Farm and Land Brokers. John was also a member of the Omro Jaycees and Oshkosh Elks.
John enjoyed many years of bowling and golf leagues. He also enjoyed deer hunting and was a proud member of the Sawyer Swampers Hunt Club. John enjoyed many winters vacationing in Florida. He especially enjoyed fishing there with his Omro friends, fish fry’s, and socializing. It was never determined if it was John or his friend, Judd, who caught the biggest bass.
John is survived by his daughter, Janet Abalan, and son, Michael (Mona) Freund; grandchildren Kathryn Freund (Roger Baron) and Kristin (Andy) Duda, and their mother, Mary Morelli, Ryan (Kimberly) Abalan and John Abalan, Lauren Price and Andrew Freund; great-grandchildren Nicholas and Owen Duda, Lucy and Claire Abalan, and Lily and Trenton Price.
In addition to his wife and parents, John was preceded in death by his son Robert; siblings Ernest Freund, Naomi Ziebell, Adell Lesniak, Alyce Freund, Alvin Freund, and Frances Blount; and infant grandchild Meghan Abalan.
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History of Auctioneering
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The most valuable diary in the world is a journal kept by Dr. Alexander Macklin, a surgeon on Sir Ernest Shackleton’s legendary Endurance adventure of 1914-1917, which was sold at Christie’s, London, UK on 25 September 2001 for £104,950 ($153,573).
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The highest price ever paid for a single piece of furniture is £19.045,250 ($36,662,106) at Christie’s, London, UK on 9 December 2004 for the 18th-century Italian Badminton cabinet purchased by Dr. Johan Kraeftner, Director of the Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna, Italy on behalf of Prinz Hans Adam II of Liechtenstein, to be exhibited in the museum.
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The most expensive musical instrument sold at auction is the ‘Lady Blunt’ Stradivarius violin and was sold at £9,808,000 ($15,875,800) by Tarisio Auctions (USA) in London, UK, on 20 June 2011. The auction was organised online on behalf of the Nippon Music Foundation and the proceeds went to the Northeastern Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund.
The authenticity of the violin was certified by the firm W.E. Hill & Sons.
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The most expensive baseball jersey sold at auction was sold for $4,415,658 (£2,789,860), by SCP Auctions (USA) of Laguna Niguel, California, USA, on 20 May 2012.
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A near-complete skeleton of a dodo (Raphus cucullatus) sold for £346,300 ($404,192) with buyers’ premium at Summers Place Auctions in Billingshurst, West Sussex, UK, on 22 November 2016. It was bought by a private collector, who made the winning bid by telephone. Errol Fuller, Natural History curator at Summers Place, said that the piece was an “amazingly rare”, being the first “relatively complete” skeleton to have come up for auction since the 1920s.
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Most expensive hockey jersey sold at auction was sold for $1,275,707.91 (£860,975.26), by Classic Auctions Inc. (Canada) of Delson, Quebec, Canada, on 22 June 2010.
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The most expensive sweater or cardigan sold at auction is a grey mohair five-button cardigan once worn by Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. On 26 October 2019, the cardigan sold for $334,000 (including buyer’s premium) at a Julien’s Auctions event at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York, USA.
This stained, saggy old cardigan became an unlikely fashion icon after Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain wore it during the taping of his band’s acoustic special MTV Unplugged in November 1993.
The cardigan was made by the Manhattan Shirt Company – a mass-market apparel retailer and manufacturer – probably in the early 1960s. The fabric is a blend of acrylic, mohair and Lycra, and its original retail price was probably somewhere around $15 (equivalent to around $130 in 2019). Kurt Cobain likely bought it from a thrift store in Seattle, which was where the famously fashion-averse grunge star did most of his shopping.
During the last year or so of Cobain’s life, he reportedly wore this cardigan frequently, both in public and while at home. As a result, it is worn and damaged, with a missing button, cigarette burns and a mysterious crunchy brown stain around the right front pocket.
After Cobain’s death in 1994, his wife gave it to their daughter Frances’s nanny, Jackie Farry. Farry had intended to give it to Frances when she got older, but in 2014 she was forced to sell it to pay medical bills. When it first went up for auction, it fetched a price of $137,500 – more than double the expected value.
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The most expensive durian fruit sold at auction was 1.5 million Thai baht ($47,784; £37,635), and was achieved by Maliwan Han Chai Thai, Pa Toi Lung Mu farm and the King Of Durian festival (All Thailand) in Nonthaburi, Thailand on 7 June 2019.
The rare kanyao durian was handpicked just a day before it was sold from a nearby farm where the minimum price of the fruit is 20,000 baht.
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The most expensive pork carcass sold at auction is JPY 1,394,690 ($12,756, £9,964, €10,809) which was produced by Hitachi Farm Co., Ltd. (Japan) and sold at Tokyo Meat Market in Minato, Tokyo, Japan, on 25 August 2017.
The pork breed is Bunabuta (mixed breed of Landrace, Middle White, and Duroc) which is known for soft meat with white fat, resulting in sweet and pure taste. Hitachi Farm is located in Kuji, Ibaraki, Japan.
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