Old times and modern technology became business partners Saturday.
This 1921 Ty Cobb baseball card was among the items up for sale from Kready General Merchandise.
An unopened jar of Mosemann's peanut butter packaged in Lancaster in the 1950s.
The contents of a general store, untouched in 50 years, went up for auction not only in Manheim, but also on eBay.
The merchandise ranged from tiny bottles of food coloring to cigar boxes, from a worn couch to a wooden spinning wheel.
Some of the products, like Hershey chocolate, Fig Newtons and Tide detergent, are still sold, though in different packaging. Others, like Winchester ice skates and Uncle Remus brand syrup, left the shelves of most stores decades ago.
Some of the packages, including jars of pickels and glass soda bottles, had never been opened.
Auctioneer John Carl Jr. said that he had never worked an auction with that level of variety.
The auction began at 9 a.m. at John M. Hess Auction Service in Manheim. A second room of merchandise opened at 11 a.m.
The more than 200 bidders weren't only competing with each other, though. While the auctioneers called prices, assistants typed them into eBay and monitored responses.
Carl said that he was pleased with the turnout, especially when online bidders were considered.
Larry Geissler, of Bowmansville, said that he attended the sale to look for sports and Pepsi memorabilia, and old advertisements.
"It's fun to see things that you've seen as a child," he said.
Nostalgia seemed to reign. Bidders sipped 75-cent cans of Pepsi while watching a six-pack of full glass Pepsi bottles sell for $40.
Prices varied greatly. Cigar boxes sold for only a few dollars, shoes netted about $30 and a Coca-Cola vending machine went for $2,000.
Paul Jensen, of Boyertown, was looking for antique car memorabilia.
He said that he was "surprised by the quality of the old stuff. This is a one-of-a-kind auction."
Jensen was nearly correct. The 1,200 lots on sale Saturday comprise only about one-quarter of the total items in the store. The remainder will be auctioned in September and December, though exact dates have not been announced.
The merchandise came from E.E. Kready General Merchandise Country Store, once located at 60 N. Main St., Manheim.
Elias E. Kready owned the store from 1904 until his death in 1957. His son, who had the same name, closed the store and left it untouched until 1990. That's when Lititz resident Paul Brown, who'd heard local folks talk about the store, wouldn't leave Kready alone until he saw the inside.
Brown, then only 24, purchased the merchandise over three years. Kready sold him only one object per day.
"He would sell me the empty box," one day, Brown said, and its contents another.
"I think he wanted somebody to challenge to stick it out," said Brown. "I think he just wanted someone to preserve it."
Brown moved the store's contents from Manheim to a museum at 55 N. Water St., Lititz.
Over the years he and Kready became close.
"I was sort of the son he never wanted and he was the grandfather I never had," said Brown.
Kready died of lymphoma in 2001. A portion of the sales will go toward lymphoma research.
Kready wanted the store's contents to be sold in Manheim.
"We had a deal. If I ever got tired of it or wanted to let it go, just bring it back here," said Brown.
Brown said that he's not finished with preservation.
"There's other collections to find out there, sort of pieces of history you need to save," he said.
Megan Hart is a Sunday News staff writer. E-mail her at mhart@lnpnews.com.
