NEW HAMBURG, Canada – An important Black Cat Shoe Dressing clock – known to collectors as “The Black Cat Clock” – sold for $11,210, and an early 20th-century Peabody’s Overalls single-sided porcelain sign realized $8,850 in Miller & Miller Auctions, Ltd.’s online-only Advertising & Breweriana sale held June 19. All prices quoted are in Canadian dollars.
“Antique and vintage advertising continues to flex its muscles,” said Ben Lennox of Miller & Miller Auctions, Ltd. “A whopping 68 percent of the top 50 grossing lots from the 650-lot sale smashed past the high estimate. The desire for high-end advertising continues to climb at a feverish pace with both new and seasoned collectors looking to add rarities to their collections.”
The Black Cat Shoe Dressing clock is considered one of the most significant pieces of Canadian advertising ever produced. It depicted a black cat, its jaws and whiskers erect, engaging with the product in pursuit of something beyond. It boasted, “Leads all others / Challenge the world to produce its superior” and was clearly marked lower left, “MacDonald Mfg. Co. Ltd., Toronto”.
The iconic black cat clock settled in as the top lot, just as one did almost 40 years ago, in 1982, at the famed Bill & Pauline Hogan Collection auction – a sale that really solidified country store antiques and collectibles in Canada. While the clock sold for $5,400 back then, in the recent sale it more than doubled that sum.
The Peabody’s Overalls single-sided porcelain sign is one of Canada’s great general store porcelain signs, achieving everything a good sign should. The “Peabody’s Overalls” script spanned the sign, but the humor and salesmanship filled in the blanks: “Wears like a pig’s nose,” “Guaranteed Honorable,” and “Railroad King.”
Four lots finished with identical selling prices of $5,015, including a Teddy Chocolate Soda single-sided embossed lithographed tin sign; a Ward’s Lime Crush porcelain syrup dispenser, the rarest of the three Ward’s figural syrup dispensers; a Forest & Stream Tobacco lithographed heavy cardboard die-cut sign; and a 1940s Firestone Tires double-sided porcelain wall mounting flange sign with no restoration or color touch-up.
A circa 1938 Orange Crush porcelain sign, although not marked, was certainly a product of St. Thomas Metal Signs, Ltd. of Canada. The store side sign was made from self-framed heavy-gauge pressed steel with heavy-shelved porcelain, and went for $4,720. Also, a circa 1940s Canadian Stubby Soda vertical tin lithographed sign changed hands for $4,425. The single-sided embossed sign was marked “CCC WS166” to lower right and left edge.
The Kuntz Brewery beer tray is among Canada’s most sought-after beer trays. It’s called “The Bologna Girl” because it features the image of a young woman serving a bologna sandwich alongside a bottle of Kuntz Export Lager. The tray in the auction finished under estimate, selling for $3,540.
A 1930s Canadian Teddy Chocolate Soda single-sided lithographed tin sign, a product of Renfrew Bottling Works, went for $4,130, while a 1940s Canadian Stubby Root Beer single-sided embossed lithographed tin sign hit $3,540.
The current rate of exchange is CA$ 1 = 82 cents.
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