It was an auctioneer’s dream. The contents of a historic estate on the block. Nearly four hundred eager bidders. Christmas looming on the horizon. A tent full of antique dealers and holiday gift-shoppers, all willing to go to the mat.
The tent had been pitched against the prospect of rain on that raw, drizzly November morning. And it was packed.
We arrived promptly at 9AM, the auction’s advertised start time, with our folding camp stools in hand. There wasn’t a square inch available under the tent, so we squeezed into some standing room at the edge, ignoring the steady plop of rain on our shoulders. There was a certain antique spool cabinet we were interested in…
It was a lot like every other auction we’d attended in Perry County: plenty of old timers and rusty farm tools, a food stand with hot dogs and cake, restless children eying jars of buttons.
With one exception: the prices were astounding.
We’ve been to our share of auctions. Occasionally, there’ll be a highly desirable items that goes for big bucks, like the antique clockwork toy I mentioned in a recent column. But I’d say that the vast majority of items at these auctions sell for less than fifty dollars. And many for less than ten.
Yet here we were at an auction where a hundred dollars was often the starting point for a fierce bidding war.
By now you may have figured out that this was Fahnestock’s auction at the Gladys Dromgold Schaffer estate on November 14th.
Judging by the size of the crowd, it’s likely you were even there!
Items related to local history were big winners. For instance, there were early postcards of Shermans Dale that went for $100.
Each.
Anything with the word “Dromgold” on it got a lot of action. So, too, caps and badges from local Civil War era organizations; an antique justice of the peace seal; early posters advertising a baseball game in Shermans Dale.
All of it went for serious money.
And books—those perennial wallflowers at auction, lucky to realize three bucks for a big box lot—even books triggered bidding wars.
Granted, these were somewhat rare books. You’re not going to come across the two volume Biographical Encyclopedia of Juniata County (1897) every day of the week. The set sold for around $200.
Maybe the frantic bidders didn’t know that you can read this genealogical barn-burner online. FOR FREE.
Or The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade (1860), which sold for roughly the same price. And which can also be read, in its entirety, online. Or downloaded to your personal computer. FOR FREE.
Of course, most people think of old books as “collectibles” rather than reference sources.
I can’t imagine what a copy of H.H. Hain’s History of Perry County (1922) would have gone for. I might have bid on it myself, although my limit probably would have been about $30. I consult this book all the time. It’s a gold mine of information on Perry County. And it’s available online—yes, you guessed it—for free, thanks to Google Books.
And, I might add, in a much more useful format than a printed book, since the online version is searchable by keyword.
In fact, I did a little keyword searching in Hain’s online history in preparation for this column. What was it, I wondered, about seemingly humble Dromgold that stimulated such a frenzy at that auction?
I did learn a few interesting things. The Dromgold estate, now at the crossroads of PA Routes 34 and 850, was situated at a key stopping point on the old Allegheny trail, the road that Conestoga wagons bumped along on their way to America’s western frontier.
And for thousands of years before that, based on the archeological evidence, Native Americans hunted along a game trail that was the ancestor of Route 850.
So you could say that the crossroads at Dromgold is actually an ancient place.
But the focus of that November auction was on Dromgold’s more recent history.
According to Hain, T.M. Dromgold built a tannery on the site in 1874, and conducted business there for twenty years, including the mail. Apparently, Mr. Dromgold was the postmaster.
Not to mention justice of the peace, tanner, and owner of the general store. In other words, a multi-tasker, like so many early settlers.
The advent of rural delivery in 1903 put an end to the Dromgold post office, which was absorbed into Shermans Dale R.R. #1.
For the fortunes of Dromgold in the twentieth century, you’d be wise to consult the Perry Historians, who can probably tell you everything you ever wanted to know about Dromgold— including key facts that that pesky Olshan fellow has no doubt gotten wrong in this very column.
I will say this, though. When that spool cabinet came up on the block, I asked Shana what our maximum bid ought to be. We agreed that it was worth, at most, about a hundred dollars to us.
The bidding opened at a hundred, and took off in a sprint from there.
We took off in a sprint not long after.
This column was published in the Perry Co Times on 26 November 2009
For more information, please contact Mr. Olshan at writing@matthewolshan.com
