The collection was assembled by a former mayor, who hoped to build a museum of the American West in south-central Pennsylvania as part of a plan to attract tourism. The museum idea died and the saddles, guns, gambling devices and other Western memorabilia have been kept in storage for the better part of a decade.
Guernsey’s auction house organized the collection by type, and the bidding gets underway Monday, July 15, with items classified as mercantile, advertising, vintage clothing and the like.
It continues through Sunday on City Island, a city-owned property on the Susquehanna River that is home to Harrisburg’s minor league baseball team.
Along with Western material, the sale also includes African objects purchased for a different museum that also was never built, a large number of documents linked to U.S. presidents and other historical figures, Spanish colonial pieces and random other items.
Because Harrisburg is under a state receivership and teetering on the brink of bankruptcy thanks largely to having hundreds of millions of dollars in debt tied to a trash incinerator, officials say a judge may have the final word in deciding how the sale proceeds are spent.
View the fully illustrated catalog and sign up to bid absentee or live via the Internet at www.LiveAuctioneers.com.
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ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE
