Antique Trader May 15, 2022

Collectors were so eager to get their hands on a rare Popeye and Olive Oyl Tank with original pictorial box that they pushed it way past its estimate of $30,000-$40,000 to a final price of $105,000, including premium. The tank was one of more than 60 rare Popeye toys offered at Milestone Auctions’ Spring Antique Toy Spectacular on April 9, along with rare automotive and character toys. Made by Linemar, the 11-inch, battery-operated tank is considered by many as a holy grail Popeye toy item and is in excellent to near-mint condition. “Every major collector of Popeye toys — and just about every collector of comic character toys, in general — wants that tank,” Milestone Auctions co-owner Miles King said prior to the auction. For more results, visit www.milestoneauctions.com.…

DALLAS – The most iconic concert poster of all time is now the most expensive concert poster of all time. The stunning bright-yellow slab of cardboard promoting the Beatles’ August 23, 1966, concert at New York’s Shea Stadium sold for $275,000 April 16 at Heritage Auctions to set a new auction record. The previous highwater mark of $150,000 was shared by both the Shea Stadium poster (set in November of 2021) and another advertising Hank Williams’ two concerts scheduled for New Year’s Day 1953 at the Canton Memorial Auditorium in Ohio (established in May 2021). The Beatles’ poster from the Fab Four’s final tour was untouched. The previous owner had the Shea Stadium poster for decades, taking great care of the prized keepsake. At the same event, a near-mint example of Stanley Mouse…

Back in the early 2000s, I had the pleasure of serving as the ringleader for a fun-loving group of jewelry collectors in Central Texas known as the Austin Vintage Jewelry Club. Among our members was author Mary Jo Izard who we knew as “Jo.” As a regular attendee of our group meetings, she often wore quirky wooden jewelry items or brought them with her for show and tell. Wooden jewelry was completely off my radar until then other than a few 1980s pieces I’d purchased at retail back when they were fashionable. Since then, I’ve come to greatly appreciate adornment crafted using wooden components. The flexible nature of wood allows it to be carved, dyed, painted, layered, and laminated together with other materials to create amazing designs. From ancient beads made in…

If Tiger Woods wasn’t already the king of golf collectibles, he certainly is now. The irons Woods used to win the “Tiger Slam” in 2000-2001 sold for an incredible $5,156,162 at Golden Age Golf Auctions Saturday, April 9, shattering the record for all golf memorabilia. The winning bid was almost five times higher than expected for one of the most valuable pieces of golf memorabilia ever auctioned. The Titleist irons Woods used for much of his career was expected to top $1 million. “Golf collecting has often lagged behind other sports. Not anymore,” said Ryan Carey, owner of Golden Age. “Tiger Woods is becoming his own collecting category, alongside others like Michael Jordan and Tom Brady,” Carey said. “$5.15 million shatters the prior golf collecting record, and puts the Tiger Slam irons among the…

No one saw this coming. How could they? At the time, Ed Babka was a 29-year-old electrical engineer with the Illinois Power Co. in Decatur, Illinois. It was a good job that comfortably supported his wife and two children. Only there was this itch his engineering job could never scratch. Babka wanted to be his own boss, to run his own business, to call the shots. Thing is, he didn’t know what that business could be. Then in 1955, Babka heard about a man named Crawford Snell who had started a classified advertising, mail-order publication for gun collectors called The Shotgun News. Snell would become the patron saint of the self-employed acolytes of the era. Stories circulating about said Snell was so successful he had quit his post office job and was…

1955 Ed Babka comes up with the idea to create a mail-order publication catering to antique and collectibles enthusiasts while working as an engineer in Columbus, Nebraska. 1957 Babka moves to Decatur, Illinois, in April. The first edition of The Antique Trader, a four-page tabloid newspaper filled with antique advertising, rolls off the presses. The first run is 3,500 copies, which Babka sells for $2 apiece. He gives every subscriber a free, twenty-word classified ad. The magazine’s tagline is: “The Trading Post for Anything Old” 1958 The Antique Trader grows to a 16-page tabloid newspaper, which forces Babka and his new Babka Publishing Co. to move to Kewanee, Illinois, and a bigger printing press. 1958-1969 The antiques and collectibles hobby is booming, and so is The Antique Trader, which sees its circulation grow from less than 10,000…