The vehicles will be sold by Martin Auctions at its 35th annual spring carriage auction, set to begin at 9 a.m. today and tomorrow at the Lebanon Valley Expo Center in Lebanon. More than 350 will be offered, including antique, used and new coaches, carriages and sleighs.

In addition, riding and driving appointments and antiques will be sold this afternoon, including a collection of canes, crops, antique umbrellas, top hats and boaters, picnic sets, and coaching horns. Tomorrow’s session will feature saddles and harness equipment, as well as farm items ranging from milk cans to blacksmith tools.

“We have a lot of nice two-wheel and four-wheel pleasure and sporting vehicles,” Martin associate Shirley Morgan says.

Several of the vehicles are four-in-hands, the most elaborate of the horse-drawn carriages. They include a diminutive landau, an open vehicle often used by nobility or royalty in formal processions, made by H. Gloy & Son of Copenhagen; a Brewster wagonette brake; and a state coach with leather-slung C-springs that the former owner was in the process of restoring when he died, Morgan says.

Smaller vehicles include a restored spider phaeton, a wicker governess cart, a Brewster “going-to-cover” cart, and an early American rockaway in original condition.

Among the more unusual vehicles are a reproduction stagecoach and a restored Bull Durham tobacco delivery wagon with advertising boxes.

Martin officials are leery of giving presale estimates, but they say the vehicles could sell for $1,500 to $20,000, with most in the $3,500-to-$5,000 range.

Previews begin at 8 a.m. on both days at the sale site, 80 Rocherty Rd., Lebanon. For more information, call 717-354- 6671.

Posted: 04|28|06 at 9:12 am. Filed under: US News.