A rare and exceptionally well-preserved silk-on-linen sampler stitched by Sarah Ann Gibbons in 1834 in Harrisonburg, Virginia, its colors bright and clear, opened at $9000 and quickly moved past the $20,000/30,000 estimate last July. Virginia auctioneer Jeffrey Evans brought the hammer down at $48,875 (includes buyer's premium), setting an auction record for a southern sampler. The world record for a sampler is $465,750, set last August for a Boston needlework, at Maine's Thomaston Place Auctions.