https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/11/us/t ... sContainer
But last fall, he decided to buy two large round windows that were covered in grime and encased high in the stone walls of a dilapidated Gothic Revival church in West Philadelphia, which was built in 1901 and had originally been named St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church.
The church’s new owner, the Emmanuel Christian Center, planned to get rid of the windows to convert the building into a worship space and youth center for its 400 members.
It's my understanding that Tiffany stained glass windows are rare. The company is better known for its lamps.Mr. Brown said he paid $6,000 for the windows, as well as some wooden pews and doors, and hired workers who spent weeks on scaffolds, grinding and cutting the glass out of the wall.
He packed the pieces in moving blankets, put them in the back of his truck and took them to Freeman’s, a Philadelphia auction house, to have them appraised, he said.
What the auction house told him days later was a shock, he said.
According to Freeman’s, the rose windows, roughly eight feet in diameter, had been crafted in about 1904 by Tiffany Studios, the renowned New York firm founded by Louis Comfort Tiffany, the Gilded Age designer known for his ornate leaded-glass lamps.
Both windows are slated for auction on May 18, and have an estimated value of $150,000 to $250,000 each, Freeman’s said.
