NEAPOLIS, Ohio – Several bidders at Whalen Realty and Auction’s annual Good Friday auction definitely thought things would go better with Coke.

A porcelain double-sided Coca-Cola drugstore sign drew a lot of interest, including phone and absentee bidding. It finally sold for an impressive $21,500. A cardboard Coca-Cola sign from the 1940s depicting a lady on a horse earned a final selling price of $650.

Ashtrays are generally quite affordable, but this auction offered an unusual example that really caught everyone’s attention. The Art Deco styled ashtray rolled on wheels and balanced itself. It was signed Behnet and sold for $400. A mechanical store display that once held slinkys reached $300.

Mail Pouch thermometers were once seen practically everywhere and are highly collectible. The one at this auction measured 73 inches high and was 19½ inches wide and sold for $1,350. An oval Hire Root Beer sign with the bottle and the original shipping crate, measuring 36 by 58 inches earned $850; a Rich’s Ice Cream double-sided curb sign with the frame saw $300; and an early Walk Over Shoes lighted double-sided sand-painted sign sold for $550.

An oak Victorian Regina Model 31 automatic changer music box with 30 records and in working condition found several interested bidders and a final bid of $13,500.

In 1919 the Murray Ohio Manufacturing Co. was founded in Cleveland, Ohio, to make fenders, gas tanks, and other automobile parts. In the 1930s the company began producing bicycles which were primarily for the youth market. In 1939 the company introduced Mercury bicycles which were produced until 1942 when bicycle production was halted by the war. The Mercury bicycle presented by Whalen’s was complete with a headlight, glove box, a speedometer and horn and crossed the block at $1,600. An all original stenciled wood bicycle rack into which this bicycle might have been put sold for $400.

General store items included display cases, countertop displays, counters, and showcases. An oak curved-top display case for canes marked H. Pauk & Sons, St. Louis was large enough to hold 72 canes and found a final bid of $1,000. A Victorian oak carved showcase standing 4 feet high, 23 inches long and 15 inches deep sold for $375; a curved-glass countertop showcase, 32 inches wide and 16 inches deep with the inscription: “We are always pleased to show our goods” earned $475; and an oak Norvell Shapleigh Hardware Co. showcase crossed the block for $425.

A large four-piece wooden display case measuring 90 inches tall and 48 inches wide sold for $600; a nine-drawer bin cabinet earned $300; and from St. Louis, a Claes & Tehnbeuter curved-glass countertop oak display case saw a final bid of $500.

Two very large general store display pieces included: an oak counter display seed cabinet with bins that measured 33½ inches high by 11 feet, 11 inches long, and 29 inches deep sold for $2,600; and an oak cabinet, 8 feet, 8 inches high by 16 feet, 2 inches wide, and 30 inches deep with “Toilet Goods” stenciled on the top was declared sold at $3,000.

A wooden carousel horse with glass eyes and which was on a platform rocker sold for $700, while an early 1920s Buick pedal car reached $1,300.

A pair of screen doors from a grocery store advertising Colonial Bread found a final bid of $550.

A painted tin sign in a wood frame for Big 3 Overalls sold for $375; a porcelain sign for Piedmont cigarettes earned $300; and a yellow De Laval flanged sign saw $475.

A 5 cent Mills slot machine in working condition sold for $1,000; a cotton candy machine from 1905 and made by A. T. Dietz of Toledo, Ohio saw $575; a 35-inch long hanging porcelain lighted barber pole crossed the block for $400; and a mahogany marble-top dental cabinet from Two Rivers, Wis., earned $475.

An 82-piece set of flow blue in the Dainty pattern included dinner plates, salad plates, bread and butter plates, cups and saucers and a variety of serving pieces, sold for $1,900.

A Daum Nancy art glass lamp in orange and green with both the shade and base signed was highly desired and sold for $3,100. An 8-inch Handel desk lamp with a pinecone shade earned $1,100; and a Pittsburg desk lamp with a scenic sunset design crossed the block for $1,100.

Victorian hanging parlor lamps included one with a raspberry pink shade and font in a Miller–Rochester cranberry jeweled frame that sold for $2,500; a second with a mother-of-pearl butterscotch or gold raindrop shade and font (crack in one side) that earned $2,000; a third that had a three-tone hobnail shade, a Bradley & Hubbard frame and partial blue prisms that saw $1,600; and a fourth one that had a Vaseline opalescent shade, white hobnails, a square font, and a Parker frame that crossed the block for $2,000.

A beautiful iridized gold L. C. Tiffany Favrile vase that measured 8 inches tall and was approximately 11 inches wide found a new owner at $2,000, and an iridized trumpet art glass vase with the base signed Louis C. Tiffany Furnaces crossed the block for $550.

A pair of Victorian dresses was highly desired. One was a satin dress in teal green with mother-of-pearl buttons on an old dressmaker’s form that sold for $1,600; and the other was a royal blue three-piece outfit from the 1880s, complete with a bustle and also on an old dressmaker’s form that earned $1,700.

A French vitrine that featured hand-painted side medallions, bowed glass and a mirrored back sold for $1,800; a pie safe with six panels of tin saw $800; and a one-piece cherry corner cabinet with 12 panes in the single door on top and a one door base earned $1,350; and an early table that had been featured in Country Home magazine in August of 1986 crossed the block for $800.

A Chippendale-style captain’s chair by Centennial sold for $950 and a set of 10 matching Chippendale chairs earned a final bid of $12,000.

A double figural Gilbert mantel clock, complete with key and pendulum, crossed the block for $1,000; and a grandfather clock with a painted face and in a flame mahogany cabinet with columns found a final bid of $1,200.

One of the interesting pieces that came to the block was a large folk art whimsical whirligig with an airplane, a house and a man, and two men sawing away that sold for $750.

Contact:

(419) 875-6317,

www.whalen

realtyauction.com.