Holabird's High-Grade Auction, June 15th-18th, is named after the 19th c. US mining and assaying ore

RENO, Nev. - June 6, 2023 - PRLog -- After conducting a pair of smaller "specialty" auctions over the last few months, Holabird Western Americana Collections will burst into summer with a huge, four-day High-Grade Auction, June 15^th thru 18^th, with nearly 2,000 lots of mining collectibles, railroadiana, numismatics, Native and general Americana, philatelic, bottles, stocks, bonds, sports and art.

The auction, which starts each day at 8 am Pacific time, will be held live in the Holabird gallery, at 3555 Airway Drive in Reno, plus online, via iCollector.com, LiveAuctioneers.com, Invaluable.com and Auctionzip.com. Color catalogs are available by calling 775-851-1859.

"We chose the name 'high-grade' for this auction for two reasons," said Fred Holabird, president and owner of Holabird Western Americana Collections. "First, it reflects the exceptional quality of many items in the sale; and second, it's a specific reference to mining and assaying industries, where high-grade ore has the least impurities and the highest concentration of precious metals."

In particular, Mr. Holabird pointed out, the Mining & Assay section in the sale is spectacular. It will be led by Part II of The Comstock Collection, featuring assay documents and artifacts; rare books and maps; photographs; and a few choice Comstock ingots. Part I of the collection was sold by Holabird in March and featured mining stocks, ore specimens and rare mining checks.

The assay category contains some of the best items Holabird has ever offered, to include rare assay certificates from all Western states (circa 1850-1920); assay books (circa 1848-1900); original assay certificate books for Eberhardt & Aurora Mining Company 1871 (first year); and Gould & Curry Mining Company in Virginia (circa 1860s). Many of these will be in Day 3.

Several categories will be spread across the catalog and won't be restricted to just one day. The Gold Rush category, for example, will be highlighted by Part I of the Jann Garvis collection, which centers around the blue-lead mining camp of La Porte, in Sierra County. But also offered will be Gold Rush letters, exchanges, assay certificates, mining stocks and antiquarian photos.

Maps will also come up for bid each of the four days, including some great Western directories, pamphlets and individual published maps, most of them very rare. The rarest of them all, though, is the 1860 De Groot Comstock map, perhaps the only copy of the De Groot map in private hands today. It will be accompanied by a major new well-researched story of this legendary map.

To learn more, visit www.holabirdamericana.com.