This week, we bid good bye to the 2008 auction scene and ring in a new year of sales with an event "up north" that is a local Jan. 1 tradition.
J.S. Dill Auctions
Jack Dill will be the first to tell you he's no Indiana Jones -- even if he is wearing a recently purchased vintage leather jacket.
Yet, in the past few weeks, Dill and his team of auction archaeologists uncovered a lost ark of "Old Allegheny" treasures from a long-shuttered and forgotten North Side storefront along Route 28 between the H.J. Heinz plant and the 31st Street Bridge.
The general store served a thriving community that once bounded the roadway on the east and west before highway expansion led to the demolition of homes along the Allegheny River side of Route 28. While Dill didn't know the two sisters who operated the store until it closed in 1960, he was familiar with the building.
"I remember sitting in traffic many times on 28 and looking through one of the store windows and seeing display cases and a few other items," he says. "I always was intrigued by the idea of going in there one day."
That "one day" came a few months ago, when the sisters called Dill to sell the remaining contents of the store that their parents originally owned. With the impending destruction of the building by the state for further expansion of the chronically congested roadway, the now elderly women wanted to rescue the goods still in the store and share a few memories along the way.
"They told me how their mother ran the store for years on her own, because their father died at a relatively young age," Dill says. "As young girls, they used to ride with their mother in a horse and buggy to the Strip to buy supplies for the store. It was a hard life for their mother, and after a while, they took over the store until they closed it."
Since then, a trove of local urban artifacts remained out of sight for nearly a half-century. Unlike Indy, however, Dill and crew didn't battle deadly booby traps set by ancient knights of a lost order to retrieve the store's antiquities. But they did contend with the equally dangerous perils of maneuvering a 24-foot -long box truck into the ridiculously narrow confines between a steep hillside and Route 28.
"It's crazy how close the traffic is to the buildings there, and how fast people drive," Dill says. "And the semis just make everything shake when they rumble by. It was pretty harrowing at times, parking the truck and loading it."
Still, the risks proved worthwhile. Inside the store, Dill discovered pieces of Pittsburgh's past that survived almost five decades of seclusion in surprisingly good condition. Those items make up the bulk of the goods up for bid at J.S. Dill's much-anticipated annual New Year's Day hair-of-the-dog auction bash.
One of the nicer pieces of Pittsburgh nostalgia is a memento from a purveyor of fine foods just a half-mile or so down the road from the store. A packing crate that appears to be at least 80 years old urges shoppers to "Try Heinz's India Relish." Although the lid is long gone, the rest of the box is in good shape and should appeal to the appetites of collectors with a taste for regional memorabilia.
As might be expected in a collection of goods from a former general store, advertising items make up a sizeable portion. Among the highlights are a well-preserved, 8-foot-long Kunkel Choice Meats sign; a 19th-century, figural two-sided boot-trade sign for C. W. Rankin Repairing; a tasty Wagner's Ice Cream placard hawking "The Family Favorite" cool treat; and a tin Granger Rough Cut Tobacco sign.
Along the way, the sisters amassed more than a few pieces of furniture. A painted 12-drawer apothecary chest is perfect for those who never have enough storage space. A red blanket box will come in handy now that winter is suddenly upon us. Oddly enough, a mid-century modern laminated wooden sofa with vinyl cushions also is part of the offerings that cover everything from a Sheraton-style chest of drawers to a two-door jelly cupboard.
In a tiny part of the world where time has stood still for nearly 50 years, a metal rack filled with paper packets of vegetable and flower seeds is a reminder of a time and place that withered and died when the sisters shut the doors of the store for the last time, much to their regret.
"During my conversations with them," Dill says, "they've told me how hard of a decision it was to stop running the store. Ever since they closed the place, they said that they think of it every day and wished that they could have kept it open a little longer."
Now, on that one day when we raise a glass to salute old acquaintances and recall fond memories, the store will open its doors to the world one last time.
Previews are from 5 to 8 p.m. Dec. 30 and 10 to 11 a.m. Jan. 1, prior to the sale -- all at the J.S. Dill showroom, 2341 Evans City Road, Zelienople. Details: 724-453-0853 or 412-362-9001.
