READING, Pa. – Berks Community Television has announced the next airing of its hit program Auction Action on BCTV – a unique show that brings live auctions right into the living rooms of viewers. It will be on Thursday, November 30th, at 6 pm Eastern time. As before, the show will be hosted by local auctioneer Bill Howze, who is also the host of the BCTV show All That Stuff.

At the beginning of the show, Mr. Howze will remind viewers how the auction works and preview featured lots. All bidding is online. Individuals can bid from anywhere in the world on their desktop or mobile devices, starting Thursday, November 16th. Berks County residents who have BCTV as part of their cable package will be able to view the show live and bid in real time. 

“Auction Action on BCTV is probably the only true auction-related reality show on television, unlike programs like Storage Wars and a few I could name that are promoted as reality TV but in fact are highly staged,” Mr. Howze said. “Our show is real items being bid on by real people in real time. There’s no script and not even a set time limit. It doesn’t get any more real than that.”

The November 30th program will feature around 150 lots of items in a broad range of categories, to include antiques, collectibles, fine art, furniture, coins, paper ephemera and more. Some of the items are specific to Berks County, such as a Berkshire Ale advertising sign from Old Reading Brewery, an HD & Company one-gallon stoneware crock and a baptismal document from 1850.

Also up for bid will be items consigned by a Philadelphia family whose descendants traveled the world and gathered a trove of keepsakes along the way (1880-1930). These include cruise line and steamship menus and pamphlets (1904-1912), 19th century railroad menus and pamphlets, railroad books and car brochures (1937-1963), postcards and early candid photos (1890s-1920s). 

The trove also features early aviation scrapbooks (dating to World War I and Lindbergh’s flight in 1927), World War II-era documents, photos and bombing target charts, old Halloween die-cuts, and early Panthex motion picture films, including Our Gang comedies, Charlie Chaplin in Lunch, Douglas Fairbanks in Manhattan Madness, Harold Lloyd in All Aboard and many more.

Two Lindbergh movies and Felix the Cat cartoons are also in that group. Early Panthex candid motion picture films, shot by members of the aforementioned globe-trotting family, will also be sold, with subjects that include the American West and National Parks. These are also depicted in Magic Lantern slides, which also feature major cities in Germany, France, Switzerland and Italy. A stereoscope and stereoscopic cards will also come up for bid.

Original artwork will feature a sketch by the late Peanuts cartoon illustrator Charles Schulz that shows Snoopy as “Joe Cool”; a 1968 oil on board painting by Dr. Granville Fisher (1906-1988), a renowned criminologist who also earned a reputation as an accomplished eclectic painter; and a 1907 watercolor painting by J.C. Cockburn, best known as the artist who rendered portraits of sports figures for the “Champions of Games and Sports” trading cards, issued back in 1887.

Numismatists will be happy to know that coins will be sprinkled into the auction every third lot, beginning with lot #23a (a group of nine early U.S. cents – a 1908-S Indian head and the rest early Lincoln head cents). Most of the coins in the auction will be U.S. silver coins, to include some Morgan silver dollars, very popular with collectors. Most coins will be sold as single lots.

A few of the more intriguing items include a set of Richter Anchor stone blocks (marketed as a construction toy in Germany beginning in the 1880s), a Gilbert erector set, an antique aneroid pocket barometer, a 19th century Juniata Furnace wood stove, a Van Briggle pottery console bowl and figural flower frog (and other pottery), and a large 19th century Chinese porcelain vase.

Other items of local and statewide interest will include a 1913 atlas of the Pennsylvania Railroad and three separate copies of color plates contained in the atlas (to be sold as two separate lots); a collection of 15 Pennsylvania license plates ranging in dates from 1926-1958 (to be sold as one lot); and a pretty Griffin, Smith & Hill (Phoenixville, Pa.) Majolica “Etruscan ware” cake stand.

Furniture items will also be sold to the highest bidder. Pieces will include five Globe-Warnicke barrister bookcases, a nice marble-top table, a coromandel screen, a paint-decorated 19th century settee, a Renaissance Revival choir chair, a contemporary “spider web” chair, a contemporary Amish-made rosewood curio cabinet and other pieces. Furniture will be offered every third lot.

Auction previews will be held at 1251 Chestnut Street in Reading (zip: 19602) from Friday thru Sunday, November 24th, 25th and 26th, from 10 am until 12 noon Eastern time. Bidding will be driven through Bill Howze’s Renaissance Auction Group website, at www.auctionhowze.com. The show will be fast-paced – averaging one item sold per minute. Absentee bids will be taken.

Auction Action on BCTV is scheduled to air from 6 pm to 10 pm, but because of the nature of an auction, the show may run shorter or even longer. The show will be telecast live from the BCTV studio. BCTV is seen in 100,000 homes in Berks County, through Comcast and Service Electric cable. The next Auction Action on BCTV shows are tentatively set to air January and March ‘18.

Berks Community Television can be seen on Comcast Reading channel 15; Comcast-Southern Berks channel 965; and Service Electric channel 19. The Municipal Access Channel (MAC) is Comcast Reading channel 99. BCTV.org is a 501c3 nonprofit corporation that provides live programming produced and hosted by members of the community on cable TV and its website.

The Renaissance Auction Group is located at 1404 Friedensburg Road in Reading. The firm assists clients in the liquidation of tangible property, including antiques, collectibles, business inventories and commercial equipment, as well as residential, historic, commercial and agricultural real estate. Benefit auction consultation and production services are also provided.

To learn more about The Renaissance Auction Group, visit www.auctionhowze.com. To learn more about Berks County Television, visit www.BCTV.org.

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