Buyers look to collect part of Lawrence history at Ernst & Son auction

photo by: Elvyn Jones

Auctioneer Jason Flory acknowledges a bid on a set of vintage wet paint promotional signs for Sewall Paints at the Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018 auction of items that had filled the ground floor of Ernst & Son Hardware, 826 Massachusetts St. The store that had been a fixture in downtown Lawrence since 1905 closed in June.

Taylor Ardong was hopeful of taking home a piece of personal and Lawrence history Sunday at the Ernst & Son Hardware auction.

“I used to shop here for little stuff,” the lifelong Lawrence resident said. “I remember coming here in elementary school on a field trip. I remember the old cash register.”

The Ernst family members decided in May to close the store when they could find neither a buyer nor partner to run the store after the January death of proprietor Rod Ernst. The family then decided to auction all the store’s inventory that wasn’t sold before the business closed on June 1, as well as fixtures and contents, with the exception of a few personal items.

Ardong said she had browsed the tables in front of the store, filled with auction inventory — some of which dated to when Rod Ernst’s grandfather, Philip Ernst Sr., and Tom Kennedy opened the store in 1905. There was a box filled with old Douglas County maps that caught her eye, she said over an auctioneer’s singsong call for a Speed Queen washing machine promotional sign of what appeared to be of 1940s vintage. She would pay up to $30 for one of the maps, but she feared she would have to leave before they came up for auction.

The box of maps was set off from the 20-foot table filled with items from the store’s crowded shelves that auctioneer Jason Flory was working his way through.

photo by: Elvyn Jones

Mike LaBuda, of Baldwin City, takes a close look at a display case filled with knives Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018 at the auction of inventory from the ground floor of Ernst & Son Hardware, 826 Massachusetts St. The store closed in June after 113 years open.

All the items on the table and the other inventory sold Sunday were from the ground floor showroom of the store that was a downtown fixture since 1905, said Mark Elston, whose Elston Auction Company is handling the sale. Up for auction was inventory from throughout the store’s 113-year history, he said.

He has been in the auction business since 1994 but had never been involved with something quite like the Ernst & Son auction, Elston said.

“It’s all the history,” he said. “I’ve seen the deed for the building. It’s been in the Ernst family since 1865. It was an honor when the family asked me to do the auction.”

The auction will continue at 10 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 16, with items stored in the basement, Elston said. That includes boxes from when the store opened in 1905.

“I can’t really tell you all of what’s down there,” he said. “We haven’t even scratched the surface.”

As he listened to Flory start the bidding on a 1941 promotional calendar at $50, Robin Tripkos, a one-year Lawrence resident, said he successfully bid on a pair of cast-iron hangers that looked overengineered to be coat hooks and a small wooden display box. It was such inventory that makes Ernst & Son a fun place to visit, he said.

“I shopped here instead of the big-box stores,” he said. “I like to support local businesses.”

Mike LaBuda, of Baldwin City, said it was another item in the store’s eclectic inventory that made him a regular customer.

“I got my wine-making supplies here,” he said. “I came up to get supplies, and then found out they were closed.”

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