Press Release

Reno, NV, USA, May 7, 2024 -- Capitalizing on the recent success of their timed online auctions – in which rare but lesser expensive items in a multitude of collecting categories come up for bid with a starting price of just ten dollars on every lot in the sale – Holabird Western Americana Collections, LLC will hold such an event on May 11th and 12th, beginning at 8 am Pacific time both auction days.

The two-day auction will be hosted exclusively on iCollector.com, Holabird’s preferred online bidding platform. Categories will include Western Americana, bottles, ephemera, art, jewelry, mining, numismatics, philatelic and dealer specials. “Get ready for two exciting days packed with an array of remarkable items awaiting new homes,” said company president Fred Holabird.

Day 1, on May 11th, boasts 785 lots in categories that include art, jewelry, souvenir plates, china, flatware, houseware and décor, advertising, electronic devices, medical and professional equipment, antiques, wood boxes, salvaged items, grocery display, kitchen, pantry, bottles, saloon, gaming, tobacciana, cowboy and Old West, hunting, fishing, sports and photography.

Other Day 1 categories will feature toys, model railroading, entertainment, Hollywood, theater, music, World’s Fair and Expos, maps, travel, automotive, school yearbooks, diplomas, degrees, education, books, postcards, philatelic, Express and Wells Fargo, general ephemera by locale, NASA and space, Boy Scouts and fraternal organizations, political, militaria and weaponry.

A Day 1 highlight lot promises to be a Wells Fargo & Co. Express wax seal hand stamp from 1885, brass with a wood handle, about 4 inches long and accompanied by an antique wrought iron carousel-style stamp holder commonly used in post offices of the time (est. $400-$1,000).

Bottles will be led by a purple embossed Goldfield Bottling Company bottle. G.B.C. operated from 1904-1915, selling to saloons, stores and the public. The bottle should bring $400-$600. Also, a turn-of-the-century collection of medical devices, weighing about 25 pounds and featuring hemostats, a glass syringe and other items, has a pre-sale estimate of $500-$2,000.

Stone lots will include two specimens from the China Chunlin Collection: a large pink calcite crystal mass, 12 inches by 16 inches on a 10-inch base (est. $400-$900); and a visually arresting sculpture made from the polished roots of a Chinese boxwood tree that had grown around a rock, with a carved eagle (or falcon), measuring 17 inches by 15 inches by 26 inches (est. $400-$600).

Day 1 art will include a group of two original Far Eastern pieces plus a print, all three beautiful and each one 19 inches by 22 inches, formerly the property of Bell Northrop, an art professor at Columbia University who was a victim of McCarthyism (est. $400-$2,000); and a lovely 1946 framed watercolor of a house in Altadena, Calif., painted by Martin Mondras (est. $300-$500).

Up for bid will be a playbill broadside advertising the play The Heir at Law, written by George Coleman the Younger in 1797 and performed at the Selwyn Theatre in Boston on Feb. 11, 1869 (est. $500-$800); and a group of 33 mostly pre-1912 real photograph postcards of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, depicting street scenes, landmark buildings, roads, bridges, etc. (est. $50-$2,050).

Anyone owning a collection that might fit into a Holabird Western Americana Collections auction is encouraged to get in touch. The firm travels throughout the U.S., to see and pick up collections. The company has agents all over America and will travel to inspect most collections.

To learn more about Holabird Western Americana Collections, and the two-day, online-on

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