RENO, NEV.- Native and general Americana will take center stage at Holabird Western Americana Collections’ huge, five-day auction planned for August 27th-31st, live in the gallery at 3555 Airway Drive in Reno, and online via several bidding platforms. The sale is officially titled The Great Americana Pow-Wow Auction. Start times all five days are 8 am Pacific time.

“This auction marks the best material we've offered in a hot August sale in many years,” said Fred Holabird of Holabird Western Americana Collections. “The variety is outstanding, as is the quality of goods offered. There is truly something for everybody. And sellers take note – we average about 5,000 registered bidders per sale, probably the most in America for an Americana sale. With buyers all over the globe, we get to everybody. We are always after great collections.”

Native American offerings in The Great Americana Pow-Wow Auction will include turquoise and silver jewelry, baskets, Kachinas, and rugs. Also up for bid will be a fine California token collection, American and foreign counters and tokens from the Benjamin Fauver collection, rare whiskey bottles, a beautiful drugstore carved wood frontispiece and scarce Nevada documents.

The catalog also features a major pinback collection, baseball and boxing collectibles, gold specimens (including some from the Goodshaw Mine at Bodie, Calif.), American and foreign medals, Victorian furniture, a fantastic array of Western art, original Buffalo Bill/Pawnee Bill posters, large ore cars and incline cars from a Nevada City mine, and dynamite and candle boxes.

The list continues with an American souvenir plate collection (from around 1900 to 1920), music collectibles, toys and toy trains, postcard collections, directories, maps, a railroad pass collection and references, antique firearms, badges, mining and railroad stocks, United States coins, token dies, a rock-shop section, mining artifacts and more. Collectors, mark your calendars right now.

Day 1, on Thursday, August 27th, will kick off with 93 lots of art, followed by 231 lots of Native Americana, 269 lots of general Americana (Part 1), eight lots of sports items and 46 lots of toys.




Native American lots on Day 1 will include a spectacular silver and exquisite sky-blue turquoise squash blossom necklace, circa 1950s or ‘60s, “the finest one we’ve ever seen,” according to Mr. Holabird (est. $3,000-$4,000); and a nicely composed Santo Domingo olla (or jar) from around the 1920s, 10 ½ inches tall and decorated with perky birds and sunflowers (est. $2,000-$4,000).

Day 2, on Friday, August 28th, will begin with 87 philatelic (stamps) and postal history lots, followed by Part 2 of general Americana (511 lots) and 24 lots of firearms and weaponry.

Day 2 star lots will include a first-generation Colt single action Army revolver, made in 1895 (serial #159597), with a 4 ¾ inch barrel on a black powder frame, in overall very good condition (est. $3,000-$8,000); and a Van Bergen Gold Dust whiskey bottle from 1880 in an ultra-rare aqua color in very near perfect condition, with applied top and light whittle (est. $5,000-$7,500).

Day 3, on Saturday, August 29th, will contain 125 lots of stocks and bonds; nearly 300 lots of numismatics (coins, many from the Fauver collection); and 217 lots of tokens, a fan favorite.

A rare trade token for D.K. Nichols in Masonic, a tiny mining camp near Bodie, Calif., from around the 1860s, the size of a quarter, should hit $2,000-$5,000; while a collection of dollar-sized Indian counters, 217 different varieties, with an American Indian on the obverse, dating from 1854 to post-1900, some for gaming / others for jewelry, has an estimate of $2,000-$7,000.

Day 4, on Sunday, August 30th, will commence with 42 lots of minerals, then progress into mining collectibles (277 lots) and close with 290 lots of bargains and dealer specials (Part 1).

Day 4 star lots will include a dazzling crystallized gold specimen from the Monarch Mine in Comstock, Nevada, circa 1989-1990, one-inch cubed, weighing 12.8 grams (est. $2,000-$3,500); and a large incline ore car used at a major California gold mine (possibly the Miners Foundry in Nevada City), around nine feet long and four feet tall, with ten feet of rail (est. $5,000-$7,000).

Day 5, on Monday, August 31st, will be a continuation of the bargains and dealer specials. Featured lots will include a hoard of more than 1,500 Indian Head pennies from 1880-1908, generally about good to very good condition (est. $2,000-$4,000); and a collection of over 600 rookie baseball cards from the 1970s-1990, all of them in near-mint condition (est. $500-$1,500).