Fountain City Auction Kicks Off New Year With Huge Advertisement Auction

By Amy Box Fellhoelter

You can’t put a price tag on reminiscing over a display of vintage Pepsi-Cola wooden crates or a five-cent gumball machine, but coming to the 14th Annual Advertisement Auction at Fountain City Auction will let you relive days of ole with no entrance fee. This exciting live and online auction becomes the largest of its kind in the area this Saturday, January 5.

“This auction brings in a high quality of items and sellers. We collect items for it all year. You can’t go out and get this every day. Some of this stuff is hard to find,” says Greg Lawson, owner of Fountain City Auction.

Fortunately for customers, an extensive collection of popular items will be available such as antique gas and oil items, retro vending machines, vintage toys and cap guns, bicycles, and a selection of old-fashioned Coca Cola logo items like a ten-cent soda vending machine, chest coolers, and a five-cent pedal car. Some unique pieces to claim are a World Fair pinball machine, a 1924 antique pair of Tennessee license plates, a Wheelman Big Wheel Bicycle, a Dale Earnhardt Coca Cola machine, and a “Stuart Little” motorized ride-on car. All of these items can be found amid historic TEXACO, SHELL, and SUNOCO gas pumps, a huge selection of pedal cars and tractors, and hundreds of signs in neon, metal, and porcelain varieties.

Lawson says the biggest change in the past 14 years of running the auction is the online element which made this event the sixth most viewed online auction in the nation last year, and the number one most viewed in the state of Tennessee on the AuctionZip website.

Customers can preview each item and its current bidding price before the sale begins. As of last Friday, Dec. 28, over 500 auction items became available for online bidding through HiBid.com which can be linked through www.fountaincityauction.com and the AuctionZip App.

Lawson explains, “I want to make it easy for customers to imagine how an item would look for their space.” This gives reason to why he and his staff meticulously inspect every piece to list specifications and pictures in the online descriptions.

As the sale runs live online and in-house simultaneously, Fountain City Auction serves its shoppers well by providing 250 seats, all which have a great view of a 9×16-foot projection screen displaying every piece to be sold. The heated facility even has concessions and is located at 4109 Central Avenue Pike near the Merchants Drive Exit off of Interstate 75.

If you’re a Knoxville picker, weekend wanderer, or simply looking to start a new family tradition, come be a part of the audience experience. Check out the items for yourself during the preview times this Friday, Jan. 4, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturday, Jan. 5, from 9 a.m. until the sale begins at noon. It only takes a few minutes to register for a bidder number and then you are ready to bid on those vintage items you just can’t live without.

For questions or to bid absentee, call Greg Lawson at (865) 603-3468 or email auctioninfo@fountaincityauction.com.

123118_Knoxville Focus