History on sale: Washington auction offers classic cars and more
Scott Sturgis / For the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Many car enthusiasts would love to have the chance to drive — or ride on — a museum piece.
Almost three dozen lucky bidders will have the opportunity to do something similar after an auction next week in Washington, Pa.
Joe R. Pyle Complete Auction and Realty LLC of Shinnston, W.Va., is hosting the clearing of what was planned to be a mid-century American memorabilia museum. Among the 5,500-plus items — including movie posters, Titanic memorabilia and slot machines — the sale will feature 17 cars and 15 motorcycles, along with several historic accessories.
There’s plenty of automotive memorabilia to be had as well — Texaco attendants’ uniforms, gas pumps, signs, and photos.
“A very prominent Pittsburgh-area businessman meticulously researched and located these ULTRA rare and many one-of-a-kind collectibles with the plans of opening a museum,” the auction web site states. “Due to a change in family dynamics and planning, he has commissioned us to sell the entire inventory to the highest bidder!”
Among the vehicles are a “Back to the Future”-worthy DeLorean, five Corvettes from the ‘50s and ‘60s, a 1957 Thunderbird, a pink 1958 Cadillac DeVille, Ford Model T and Model A and a 1954 Packard.
The absolute auction with no reserve prices offers an outside chance to pick up a true bargain, but it’s competitive.
“We’ve had great interest,” said Garrett Wilkerson, a listing agent for Pyle’s auction company. “We expect several thousand bidders — don’t know how many of those will be in house with it being a Tuesday-Wednesday sale.”
Mr. Wilkerson said the breakdown among previous sales has been about half online bidders while the other half is in-person buyers.
The kind of interest Mr. Wilkerson notes could work to limit the bargains available to bidders.
Steve Moskowitz, CEO of the Antique Automobile Club of America, explains that car hobbyists don’t limit themselves to certain auctions, like an auction in Monterey, Calif. where hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of cars are sold.
“They’ll go around looking at these smaller auctions, looking for a deal,” Mr. Moskowitz said. “If they have something there that they like, they’ll pay up for it.”
“We have a saying … a car is worth what one old fool is willing to sell it for and the other old fool is willing to buy it for,” Mr. Moskowitz said.
The Cadillac and Thunderbird are both somewhat rare breeds. According to Hagerty automotive, a company that insures classic cars, only 53,166 two-seat Thunderbirds were built during the two-seater’s three-year run: 16,155 in ’55, 15,631 in ’56, and 21,380 in ’57.
Just 18,414 Coupe DeVilles were built in 1958, according to the Standard Catalog of American Cars.
The 1967 Corvette is from one of the most popular model years among collectors; it was listed as the second most valuable year by Hagerty in 2021. The 1963 model is a big hit thanks to a redesign that remains the iconic Corvette shape in many Americans’ minds. Super-low production volumes make 1953 and 1955 hot items.
The other Corvette years available at this auction are from 1954, 1957 and 1960; only the last year cracked 10,000 units, according to Vette-Vues magazine.
Elvis Presley’s famous pink Cadillac was a 1955 Fleetwood sedan, so the 1958 Coupe DeVille hearkens back to the era, but is not a replication of the vehicle.
Still, potential bidders have the opportunity to not only buy a pink Cadillac, but to obtain plenty of Elvis memorabilia, auctioneer Joe Pyle said. The same goes for the DeLorean, as there’s a flux capacitor available — the fictional invention in the 1985 film “Back to the Future” that allowed the main characters played by Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd to time travel.
The 1924 Model T and 1931 Model A seem like they’d be a rare treat for collectors, now that one has reached the century mark and the other is closing in on it. But they were as common in their day as the Volkswagen Beetle was in the 1960s and ‘70s, and about as easy and cheap to maintain.
“The Model T was the most popular car of its day, so there’s a lot of them out there, a lot of them survived,” Mr. Moskowitz said. “There’s virtually parts available to build one from the ground up.”
The family involved has asked to remain anonymous. But the 5,500 items speak for themselves.
Mr. Pyle said the owner spent about five years amassing the collection, and that he would replace items if he found a better version for sale.
“If you buy a museum car, you can buy the accessories to go with it to put into your garage, if you want to,” he said.
Cars make up only a fraction of the number of items available, and car memorabilia is only a part of the items. The auction also includes things like old 5-cent arcade games, a shooting gallery, very rare signatures, cards from 44 U.S. presidents, even original Playboy magazines. Marilyn Monroe memorabilia also figures heavily into the auction.
Though each sale is unique, an auction like this seems like a believable story, Mr. Moskowitz said.
“The landscape is dotted with people that were hoping to have their own private museum,” Mr. Moskowitz said. “Those are exceptionally difficult to do unless they have large endowments, because it’s not easy for them to make money anymore.”
“I know a couple dozen people that have considered their own museum but it probably will never happen.”
Scott Sturgis is a freelance auto writer; [email protected].