Press Release

Reno, NV, USA, February 7, 2024 -- A John E. Smith’s Pharmacy (Victor, Colo.) 32-ounce teal drug store bottle sold for $6,250; an early 1900s 14k Klondike, Alaska gold headed walking stick also realized $6,250; and a pair of mint state $25 U.S. Gold Eagle coins (1994 and 2008) fetched $4,700 at a four-day Marvels of the West auction held Jan. 25-28 by Holabird Western Americana Collections, LLC.

Holabird’s original plan was to have two auctions in January – a timed online-only sale in the middle of the month and a live auction (with online bidding) at the end of the month. That idea was scrapped, however, and both sales were combined into one catalog – the timed online sale on Jan. 25-26 and the live auction on Jan. 27-28, online and live at the gallery in Reno, Nevada.

The two auctions were aptly named – Marvels of the West – considering their contents. Both contained about 500-600 lots per day, in the categories collectors have come to expect from Holabird: Western and Native Americana, Gold Rush, mining, coins and currency, railroadiana, tokens, philatelic, bottles, ephemera and more. Start times all four days were 8 am Pacific time.

The 10 ½ inch tall, quart-size John E. Smith’s drug store bottle was a stunningly beautiful teal example from the Ron Reed collection. “Reed specialized in giant 32-ounce Colorado drugstore bottles, and every Colorado collector knew he had this beauty, one of the prizes of his collection and a true prize for any American colored drugstore bottle collector,” remarked Fred Holabird.

When Mr. Reed, a longtime friend, passed away last year, his family asked Mr. Holabird to sell his collection of Colorado embossed bottles. Ron had purchased a number of key pieces out of the previous Gary Bracken sales, and a few “ringers” in the timed sale were snuck in, to entice new collectors into collecting Colorado bottles. A few other bottles that also did well were these:

- A Cyrus Eaton & Co. (Denver, Colo.) early medium to dark amber quart whiskey bottle (“You Bet”), with an applied top, circa 1880-1885, 12 inches tall, in fine shape ($2,500).

- An A. K. Clarke & Co. (Denver) nice and clean amber whiskey quart bottle (“You Bet”), with a tooled top, Prebble W32 and Barnett 164, comes with two documents ($2,125).

- A Gun Wa's Chinese Remedy pint bottle, light yellow amber with a touch of green (“Warranted / Entirely Vegetable / And Harmless”), whittled, lots of bubbles ($2,000).

The early 1900s 14k Klondike, Alaska gold headed walking stick was very fancy, and came with a leather case and a book about the family who owned it, titled The Bushes and the Berrys by Alice Edna Berry. The cane measured 35 ½ inches in length, with a four-inch curved gold handle. There were two buttons of gold quartz, each one measuring one inch by one inch.

To learn more about Holabird Western Americana Collections, LLC, visit www.holabirdamericana.com. Updates posted often.

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