Harrisburg PA to Auction 8,000 Items

Harrisburg, the Bankrupt capital city of Pennsylvania is planning on selling more than 8,000 items from within the inventories.  The items range from rifles, to wooden wagons to gunfighter Doc Holliday's dentists chair and spans in time from the Colonial to Vietnam War eras.  25 auction firms were sent requests to bid on the assignment, with 10 viewing the property.  According to a Bloomberg article, the city sold $2 million worth of property at auction in 2007.

It could be a very unique sale with some very unusual items.

Bloomberg reports on the sale

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s capital, plans to auction off more than 8,000 relics ranging from 1900s- era rifles to wooden wagons that were meant to be part of a Wild West museum in the bankrupt city in the Northeast.

Representatives of 10 auction houses examined the artifacts yesterday, Robert Philbin, a spokesman for Mayor Linda Thompson, said. He declined to name them, though he said 25 firms, including Christie’s Inc. and Sotheby’s (BID), were invited to submit proposals.

“People were enthusiastic,” Philbin said.

The city, which faces a state takeover, budgeted $500,000 from the sale of the items. Former Mayor Stephen Reed, who served 28 years before losing to Thompson in the 2009 Democratic primary, collected the trove over years at a cost of about $8 million.

Reed, who spearheaded projects such as museums devoted to the Civil War and to firefighters and their equipment, also wanted to establish one to memorialize the American West. It never transpired. Reed didn’t return a call seeking comment today.

In 2007, the city sold about 3,000 artifacts for about $2 million, said Philbin.

The collection includes items from Colonial times to the Vietnam War, he said. Treasures such as a printing press and wanted posters featuring the outlaw Jesse James are stored in a climate-controlled office in downtown Harrisburg, said Philbin.
Toothpuller, Gunfighter

Other items, such as sabers and a dentist’s chair that belonged to Doc Holliday, who gained greater fame as a gunfighter, are jumbled in a building on the grounds of an incinerator whose debt load tipped the community into bankruptcy.

The selected auction house would take a commission, and proceeds would go toward the city, said Philbin, who added the timing would depend on the auctioneers and state of the market.

(Chrsitie's is holding its ImpMod evening sale Tuesday evening.  I will post results after the sale and when Chrisite's issues its press release.  The sale includes a Degas’s bronze Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans is estimated to sell between $25 million and $35 million)