My Tynietoy Townhouse saga has come to a satisfying end. The auction house was fined for violation of ethics.

If you have been following my blog for a couple of years you may remember the terrible time I had with a certain auction house in Maine when I put in the winning bid on a Tynietoy Townhouse in February 2012.

(See pictures of my beautiful, hard-won, house throughout this post.)

You can catch up with the saga on my post of June 21, 2012 - The house is mine!!.

I got it for a very low price. I was so excited. I paid for it and waited for it to be sent to me. It didn't come. After repeated attempts to find out when it was being sent I finally got the auction house manager on the phone (he had been refusing to talk to me, but I kept insisting). He told me they wouldn't give it to me, saying that it was in the auction by mistake. That it had been smashed up by careless employees and they couldn't sell it.

But, they put it up for auction again 4 months later.

Below I quote from the post - The house is mine!!

"My dear friend, CM, went to bat for me when this house came up for sale again... She posted about it on her blogs. She called and emailed all the dollhouse collectors and dealers we know. And she had me file a complaint with the Maine Attorney General.

While none of these valiant efforts stopped the re-sale of the dollhouse, CM got the support of the dollhouse collectors world and no one bid on the house except her. And she bought it for me!!!"

Today, over a year later, I received a letter from the State of Maine Department of Professional and Financial Regulation and Auction Licensing Board.

They have fined the auction house $900.00 for a violation of contract requirements, failure to account for property, incompetence ... gross neglect or violation of applicable code of ethics, and violating Auction Board Licensing rules like "an auctioneer shall not commit gross negligence, incompetence or misconduct in the practice of auctioneering".

The auction house also received a warning from the State Board that they would be keeping an eye on them about ethical practices.

I feel somewhat vindicated. It just proves that consumers can fight against unfair practices and stand up for themselves.

I bet the auction house now wishes they had let me have the dollhouse back then, when I bought and paid for it.

The story has a happy ending anyway, as the Tynietoy Townhouse ended up with me after all, thanks to my wonderful friend and fellow blogger CM at My Realitty!!

VIKTOR&ROLF DOLLS on the catwalk at the Royal Ontario Museum

Last Sunday, fearing a continuation of the thunderstorms we had experienced on Saturday, my daughter and I decided to go to the museum instead of taking our planned bike ride to Toronto Islands.

We had gone to the ROM to see the exhibit on Ancient Mesopotamia, but before we had even come to the ticket counter my attention was caught by an incredible display of dolls.

This haute couture display from VIKTOR&ROLF, an Amsterdam-based fashion house, was part of this year's Luminato Festival, an event each June "where the best artists in the world and the best artists in Canada fill the stage that is Toronto with new and wonderful creations."

The ROM website tells us " VIKTOR&ROLF DOLLS features 31 Victorian porcelain dolls, dressed in impeccably crafted, miniaturized versions of Viktor&Rolf's historic couture designs, parading on a scaled catwalk.  The Dutch designers have styled these iconic dolls, roughly 65 centimetres tall, as hand-crafted archival replicas of their creations, right down to eye colour, hair, and makeup. For this show, the designers created a new and unique platform and environment specifically for the ROM's Thorsell Spirit House."

(Editor's Note; These appear to be reproduction dolls made from antique moulds. I am not sure why they called them "Victorian dolls")

Hav a look at their site here http://www.rom.on.ca/en/exhibitions-galleries/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/viktorrolf-dolls
There is more information and a short movie about the dolls

I have added most of the pictures I took of the dolls below. There are a lot, so it is up to you whether you see them all or not, but I didn't want to leave any out, as each doll is unique.

Today is the last day for this exhibit in Toronto. Read more about the exhibit here: http://www.rom.on.ca/en/blog/viktorrolf-dolls-come-to-the-rom

Pictures of the dolls from 2010 can be found at this link.

Several of the dolls were wearing porcelain shoes like the delft pattern ones shown here.