Antique Trader

DENVER, Pa. - Just when Star Wars collectors thought they had seen it all, along comes The Morphy Find. That's the name that has been given to a recently unveiled trove of rare, high-condition Star Wars toys that sat undisturbed in original Kenner shipping cartons, largely forgotten, since the 1970s and 1980s. The collection of more than 400 Star Wars action figures still in the original Kenner factory shipping boxes surfaced as most discoveries do - unexpectedly. Its pristine contents had been stored in a closet, out of sight and out of mind, by an Illinois gentleman who is a collector of antique coin-op machines. The collection, an absolutely fresh-to-the-market early Star Wars will be auctioned by Morphy Auctions on Wednesday, February 1. The session is enhanced by 148 select Star Wars…

Squeezed in the icy grip of winter, who among us hasn't fantasized about getting away from it all? This circa 1938 travel poster, one of the most iconic and desirable of all the early Pan Am flying boat posters, certainly offers a reprieve. The image of the Boeing 314 Flying Clipper landing in a tropical lagoon still captures the imagination of travelers. The location on the poster is an imaginary composite of several renowned bays throughout the South Pacific. Artist Paul George Lawler likely worked from photographs to create a fantasy location. The poster sold at a recent Swann Auction Galleries event for $40,000 against an estimate of $8,000-$12,000.…

My wife is amazingly organized. I am not. When we started dating, she mentioned she had her car maintenance schedule on an Excel spreadsheet so she could better track such things as oil changes, tire rotations and windshield wiper replacements. I thought she was joking. She wasn't. Sheepishly, I told her that I once pulled into a gas station and asked the attendant - remember those guys? - to fill ‘er up and check the oil. He did. Only thing is, he didn't find any oil. He emerged from under the hood with a dry dipstick in his hand. There was nothing to wipe clean. Then he glared at the dipstick behind the wheel. How many miles I had driven without any measurable oil in my car, I didn't know. The attendant, dumbfounded,…

DALLAS — By every estimation, 2022 was a monumental year for Heritage Auctions. The auction house recorded more than $1.45 billion in sales in 2022, a record high for the Dallas-based company. It also set dozens of significant auction records spanning most of its categories, including one for the world's most valuable sports collectible when a 1952 Mickey Mantle baseball card sold last summer for $12.6 million. That $1.45 billion does not include the $103.5 million realized for Russian newspaper editor Dmitry Muratov's Nobel Peace Prize medal, which he sold through Heritage on June 21. Heritage waived its commission, and every cent raised from this momentous auction was paid to UNICEF's humanitarian response to the war in Ukraine. The record year consists of approximately $1.07 billion in auction sales, with the rest constituting…

Fine cut glass has been a stalwart of the antiques and collectibles field seemingly forever. The point was made crystal clear throughout 2022 with four major cut glass sales at Woody Auctions, Douglass, Kansas, highlighting the popularity of this timeless collectible. “Cut glass auctions are always a thing of beauty, and when longtime collections come together and are combined, the splendor can be overwhelming,” said Jason Woody, a co-owner of Woody Auction and a third-generation auctioneer. A selection of pieces from Woody follows.…

How do you stay excited about a hobby year after year? Learn something new! When it comes to jewelry, I never feel like I've seen it all and discover new things that interest me continually. This includes jewelry on the newer side of the collecting spectrum. Like many of my jewelry collecting friends, I tend to buy vintage pieces or jewelry crafted by artisans rather than scouring racks in traditional stores. A downfall of this procurement method is that I sometimes miss great things when they're becoming trendy. One of the brands I discovered long after it was already being sold at retail is Maximal Art. I first found the vintage-inspired, romantic elements used in Maximal Art designs to be intriguing, and then noted some features that fervently appealed to me as…