WorthPoint’s Industry Partners are offering collectors some interesting and sought-after pieces in July, including sentimental shell art, a vision in stone, a prized beer tray, a surreal landscape painting, and a salesman’s sample for an iconic track tractor.
ELDRED’S AUCTION GALLERY
With their intricate shell mosaics, sailors’ valentines conjure summer love and seaside romance. Sentimental treasures once given by sailors to their loved ones, these beautiful pieces enchant collectors by reflecting the ocean’s beauty and serving as relics of maritime history.
Eldred’s Auction Gallery of East Dennis, Massachusetts, is offering a handful of these valentines during the Summer Living sale on July 10, including Lot 6112. Composed of multicolored shells arranged as a heart surrounded by a sunburst and flowers, this contemporary example was crafted by Cape Cod artist Sandy Moran (1944-2020), whose pieces are in demand with collectors.
Sailors’ valentines were made by women in Barbados beginning in the 18th century and were primarily sold as souvenirs to sailors. Despite their name, they had no specific link to February 14 or Valentine’s Day.
The intricate and symmetrical designs commonly feature compass roses, hearts, stars, and sometimes mottos and sentimental messages. In the late 20th century, collector interest in the valentines led to contemporary artists like Moran embracing the art form.
Experts in maritime collectibles, Eldred’s has sold many sailors’ valentines, including another piece by Moran that fetched $16,250 in 2021 and the highest-recorded example in WorthPoint’s database that sold for $21,850 in 2003.
CASE AUCTIONS
Without formal training, self-taught Tennessee artist William Edmondson (1874-1951) created sculptures in a distinctive style characterized as a blend of strength and poignancy.
Born to former slaves, Edmondson was the first African American artist to have a solo exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. After the show in 1937, his work increasingly found buyers beyond his immediate community. His visions in stone continue to resonate with collectors, who avidly seek his work today.
Case Auctions of Nashville, Tennessee, is offering another of his pieces during its Summer Fine Art & Antiques on July 12 and 13. Lot 173, which will be sold on Day 1, is Mother and Child, a carved limestone sculpture depicting a woman carrying a pocketbook in one hand and balancing a child on her hip.
Edmondson’s status as a self-taught artist places his work in the category of outsider art, a collecting category that continues to grow. While he made many utilitarian pieces, including birdbaths and tombstones, Edmondson’s talent particularly shines through in his distinctive human figures and animals.
Case has sold many of Edmondson’s sculptures, including The Preacher, which achieved $540,000 in 2020 and is the highest recorded in WorthPoint’s database, and Lady with a Bustle, which brought $268,400 in January 2025.
MOREAN AUCTIONS
It’s not often that you see cats shilling beer (maybe because they have only one liver and not nine?), which is why collectors prize one of the pieces Morean Auctions of Brimfield, Massachusetts, will offer at its annual Rare Beer Cans & Breweriana Auction on July 13, held in conjunction with the North American Brewers Association.
Lot 44 is a humorous and rare pre-Prohibition “Anti Katzenjammer” (anti-hangover) advertising tray portraying a pair of felines. One looks fresh and alert because he drank Tacoma Beer, while the other looks painfully hungover because he didn’t.
Tacoma Beer was one of the primary brands of Pacific Brewing & Malting Co., established in Tacoma, Washington, in 1897. Like most other large breweries, Pacific distributed many promotional items and used original art rather than stock images for their trays, which makes them highly desired by breweriana enthusiasts.
Only a few of these cat trays are listed in WorthPoint’s Price Guide, including this one that sold for $1,882 in 2016. Pacific Brewing beer trays, in general, have sold between $10 and $4,450 for another rare piece featuring a tiger that sold in May 2025.
JOHN MORAN
The market for Surrealist art has been skyrocketing over the past few years, as collectors are increasingly drawn to the strange beauty found in these paintings that strike a chord with their imaginations.
This is perhaps why a Surrealist painting John Moran is offering in its Latin American Art + Design auction on July 15 has already surpassed its high estimate with pre-sale bidding (as of this writing, the current bid was at $10,000).
Lot 142, titled Surrealist Landscape, is a 1964 oil-on-canvas painting by Dominican artist Jorge Noceda Sánchez (1931-1987). Sánchez, who earned a medical degree from the University of Santo Domingo in 1952, moved to New York City to specialize in gastroenterology. While there, he took up painting as a hobby, but as his talent developed, he left medicine behind and focused on his art full-time, quickly earning international recognition and awards for his work.
According to WorthPoint’s database, Sánchez’s paintings have sold between $500 and $10,000, including this mid-century painting that sold for $5,000 in 2023.
MATTHEWS AUCTIONS
Automobilia and petroliana collectors do not want to miss Matthews Auctions’ 5th annual July Absolute Auction, which will be held from July 25 to 27 in Waterloo, Michigan. Over 1,900 lots will be auctioned.
While Coca-Cola memorabilia, neon signs, and clocks are among the early frontrunners so far based on pre-sale bidding, collectors are also gravitating to Lot 1232, which will be offered on Day 1: a working salesman sample featuring a LaPlant-Choate hydraulic blade mounted on an International Harvest crawler.
LaPlant-Choate was a manufacturing company in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, known for developing one of the first commercial hydraulic systems for bulldozer blades. International Harvester used these blades on its crawler tractors, which are used for agricultural and construction purposes.
Salesman samples, designed to showcase the features and functionality of products to potential buyers, are popular with collectors for their craftsmanship and historical significance; the more well-preserved and accurate the sample is, the more value it holds. Matthews, of Nokomis, Illinois, specializes in automobilia and petroliana and has sold nearly 100 salesmen samples in these areas over the past few years, including another crawler that sold for $14,400 in 2022.
Adina K. Francis has been a writer and editor in the antiques and collectibles field for more than twenty years. She has a bit of an obsession with the Victorians and thinks that dogs are one of life’s greatest gifts.
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