Auction Details
Welcome to our "December Dreams" Premier Auction, our final sale of 2021!
December Sale Highlights
This December Sale includes many highlighted collections, including parts of the Ken Prag Postcard Collection, Bill McKivor Token and Medal Collection, MacKenzie Montana Collection, and the Ron Lerch Western Directory Collection, all supplemented by some world-class great rarities from other private collections nationwide.
Fresh to the market is the Ron Lerch Collection of Western Directories. The collection numbers nearly 700 different directories, and here are presented about 200 directories as the first part of this major historic and all-important reference material collection, picked somewhat randomly from the collection. Most of the Western states have several directories offered in this first sale. Some of the key pieces in the December sale are the two very rare San Francisco Chinese business directories, as well as a number of very rare county directories of the nineteenth century. Directories are considered “primary source” material, and as such are essential in aspects of historical research. Few of the directories in the Lerch Collection have been digitized (with the Langley’s San Francisco an obvious exception).
Yes, the Prag Collection keeps on giving! This sale contains about 500 lots of postcards, but the majority, perhaps 350 lots, are from California. This large group offers some of the best and rarest postcards we’ve offered yet, from Pioneer cards (Private Mailing Cards, c1898-1902) to rare artists and themes, such as Disney (1930s cards) and the Titanic (both pre-sinking and post sinking from 1912).
Within these two massive collections is a common theme: Hawaii. The Prag Collection offers about 40 lots of vintage Hawaii postcards, and there are about 7 Hawaiian directories from the Lerch Collection.
Antiquarian photography is another key category for collectors, including many historic and possibly unique western stereo-view cards and photographs, and an absolutely fabulous Ansel Adams original photograph group from his Yosemite Series (all signed), highlighted by “Moon over El Capitan”, print No. 10, considered by many as one of his greatest photographs.
As always, we have a strong Native Americana section, with baskets (more coming in the next sale), jewelry and art. Speaking of Art, we have three early Salvador Dali signed lithographic prints, and a rather wonderful group of Japanese wood block and lithograph prints, many with original signatures.
The MacKenzie Montana Collection continues, with several hundred lots of historical Montana documents and ephemera.
The Railroad and Mining sections contain selections from several private collections with a number of rarities. This sale features premier California Gold Rush and Nevada Territory mining collections!
Our Numismatics section includes a collection of So-Called Dollars and new offerings from the Bill McKivor Nevada token and world-medal collection, not to be missed!
Make sure to use the Keyword search tool to find items in your collecting areas across the three auction days. As usual, our team is happy and ready to answer questions.
And please send us those great collections for 2022! Yours could be the next world record!
--Fred Holabird & Team--
Auction Schedule
Day 1, Friday, December 17th, 2021, Lots 1000-1610
Philatelic (1000-1527)
Military, Political, & Firearms (1528-1558)
Gaming (1559-1577)
Model Railroad & Toys (1578-1610)
Day 2, Saturday, December 18th, 2021, Lots 2000-2683
Books feat. Ron Lerch Directory Collection, Part I (2000-2229)
Mining Artifacts & Ephemera (2230-2363)
Stock Certificates & Bonds (2364-2683)
Mining (2364-2551)
Railroad (2552-2624)
Miscellaneous (2625-2683)
Day 3, Sunday, December 19th, 2021, Lots 3000-3614
Native Americana (3000-3044)
Art feat. Ansel Adams (3045-3087)
General Americana (3088-3388)
Geographically Sorted
Misc. Categories incl. Coffee Mill Collection
Numismatics (3389-3613)
Coins & Currency (3389-3397)
Medals & So-Called Dollars (3398-3447)
Tokens feat. Bill McKivor Nevada Tokens, Part II (3448-3614)