Antique Trader

a marvel-ous result for iconic prop

One of the most recognizable emblems in pop culture, superhero Captain America’s iconic shield, has sold at auction for a super price: $259,540. The shield, offered by Hake’s Auctions on November 3, is one that actor Chris Evans used in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame. The winning bid, out of 17 made, includes an 18 percent buyer’s premium. The shield was part of Hake’s premiere auction of pop culture items, including comic books, Star Wars items and Pokémon cards, that realized a record-breaking $3.3 million. According to the Pennsylvania auction house, the shield was previously gifted to a Los Angeles nonprofit by Marvel Studios’ Executive Vice President Victoria Alonso for a fund-raising raffle, which brought in $155,801. Between 30 and 40 shields were produced for long shots and action sequences in Endgame, but the example offered…

something more than free

There are a lot of ways of letting go of things you no longer need. Entire industries have been built on the concept. Craigslist, eBay, Facebook Marketplace, Letgo, Ruby Lane, Etsy and even the old reliable yard sale are all options. Here’s another one . . . The teenage boy wore a T-shirt and shorts. He was stocky with shaggy hair. He was cute, in that sort of frumpy teenage boy way, and the first out of the minivan, excited and just a little confused. His mom, at least we think it was his mom, and his aunt, she sure looked like she could be his aunt, walked more slowly to the collection of objects we had set out at the end of our driveway. My wife, Amy, used to be in marketing.…

home for thanksgiving

DALLAS — For years, the painting hung in the hallway of a Massachusetts American Legion Post — alone, unattended, and unrecognized for its hidden-in-plain-sight promise on a wall near the front door. For years, no one cared too much about the fate of the painting at the Eugene M. Connor Post 193 of Winchendon, Massachusetts, thinking it was nothing more than a reproduction of Norman Rockwell’s Home for Thanksgiving, which first appeared on the cover of the November 24, 1945, issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Ken LaBrack, a past commander of Post 193, says it wasn’t until someone walked in and offered $500 for the work that the post’s officers began reconsidering their position: Maybe this was far more than just a beautiful fake. On Friday, November 5, the Rockwell original…

rare air

nearly twenty years after his retirement from the NBA, superstar Michael Jordan still dominates the basketball - and collecting - world. A pair of Nike Air Ships, sneakers Jordan wore during his rookie season in 1984 with the Chicago Bulls, sold in late October for nearly $1.5 million at Sotheby’s, by far the highest amount ever paid for a pair of game-worn basketball shoes. Last year, a game-worn pair of red Air Jordan 1s worn by Jordan sold for $615,000 at Christie’s. The most valuable pair of sneakers of any kind? Last April, Sotheby’s sold Kanye West’s “Grammy Worn” Nike Air Yeezy 1 Prototypes from 2008 for $1.8 million in a private sale. The Nike Air Ships carried a pre-auction estimate of $1 million to 1.5 million. “This record-breaking result for the Jordan…

record-breaking magic auction conjures nearly $2m

Ken Klosterman’s world-famous collection of magicana cast a spell on collectors and conjured huge magical results, becoming the highest-grossing magic auction in history. Part 1 of the record-breaking Salon de Magie on October 30 at Potter & Potter Auctions of Chicago brought in $1.96 million, and was also a white glove sale, with 100 percent of the 346 lots selling. Filled with historically significant ephemera, books, and apparatus, the sale set records across the board. From Robert-Houdin’s Light and Heavy Chest to Harry Houdini memorabilia and more, highlights in every collecting category were part of this historic sale, with many lots blowing past estimates and some by tens of thousands of dollars. The star lot was the Light and Heavy Chest, France, circa 1844, that was owned and used by Jean-Eugéne Robert-Houdin, known…

on the road with rick up a river without a paddle (wheel)

So, there we were (my wife, daughter, and I), traveling along the backroads of Pennsylvania’s Dutch Country, when out of nowhere we spotted the rotting hulk of an abandoned riverboat. We expected to see antique forms of transportation near Shartlesville, Pennsylvania, such as horse-drawn Mennonite carriages (of which we saw many), but not a paddle-wheeler. A few shallow creeks ran through the area, but there wasn’t a river in sight. I stopped to take photographs of the grounded relic, then pulled into a local restaurant to inquire about its history. All anyone knew was that the riverboat had always been there. The only explanation I could think of was that the riverboat once belonged to Roadside America, a now-defunct tourist attraction in Shartlesville that once featured just under 8,000 square feet of Americana.…