A three-day Las Vegas sale will unite vintage advertising, coin-operated machines and oversized Americana from a prominent Southern California collection.
Morphy Auctions will stage a three-day Las Vegas auction featuring the antique advertising, American pop-culture artefacts and coin-operated machines assembled by Southern California businessman and entertainment-industry professional Ray Claridge. The sale, scheduled for December 4-6, will also include more than 200 lots from longtime collectors Mike and Darlene Peel. Together, the material presents a broad view of commercial imagery and leisure culture spanning the late 19th century through the postwar period.
Claridge’s collecting interests sit alongside his work in film, television and motor racing. He founded Cinema Vehicle Services, a North Hollywood company that built vehicles associated with productions including Dukes of Hazzard and The Love Bug, before opening Back in the Day Classics in Orange, California. That showroom became one of the region’s larger destinations for advertising and memorabilia, while the auction collection extends across signage, tobacco advertising, petroliana, vintage theatre material, drive-in culture, soda fountains, barber shops and taxis.
Among the featured lots is a reverse-painted glass sign advertising Owl cigars. Housed in its original brass frame, the late-19th- or early-20th-century piece depicts a perched owl above the words “CIGAR STORE”, measures 30¼ inches by 80 inches and carries an estimate of $30,000-$60,000. Another prominent object is a nearly 9ft Planters Mr. Peanut fibreglass figure made by Ohio manufacturer Old King Cole Mfg. Co.; the type was produced in limited numbers for Planters distributors and retailers, and the example is estimated at $20,000-$40,000.
The sale also reaches beyond static signage. A Beacon Mfg. and Sales Co. illuminated “SODA” trade sign has a $15,000-$30,000 estimate, while more than 100 brewery and distillery advertising lots include a Gilt Edge Whiskey sign estimated at $15,000-$25,000. Coin-operated offerings include a Mills Novelty Co. five-cent Dewey Jackpot slot machine estimated at $10,000-$20,000, alongside a restored 10ft Wayne Model #492 10-gallon Roman column visible petrol pump estimated at $20,000-$40,000.
For Morphy Auctions, the Las Vegas event positions a single sale around the overlap between collecting, branded imagery and American entertainment history. The range of objects links everyday commercial environments with the larger-than-life mascots, machines and signs that helped define them. Its emphasis on Claridge’s assembled holdings, supplemented by the Peel consignments, gives the auction a cohesive cultural frame while preserving the variety expected from a specialist marketplace.
