Dana Auctions LLC – Quilt and Textile Auction
www.DanaAuctions.com
July 29th @ Ham ET Bid In Person or Online!
3490 Rt 1N, 11C, Princeton, NJ
Antique & Vintage Quilt & Textile Auction
Featuring Part 1 of the Living Estate of Sharon Stark
Quilts, Quilt Tops, Coverlets, Feedsacks & Other Fabulous Textiles!

PRINCETON, N.J. — Dana Auctions’ next cataloged textile auction will include more than 80 lots of vintage and antique quilts, quilt tops and printed feedsacks from the living estate of noted Pennsylvania antique textile dealer and author Sharon Sheehe Stark. Also offered will be a collection of quilts and other bedcoverings and textiles from the late Eighteenth Century to the late Twentieth Century. The auction will be live and simulcasted online on July 29, starting at 11 am ET.

This will be the first of the auctions to include textiles from the Stark estate. A popular quilt and textile dealer in Berks County, Penn., for several decades, she may be best known for her vast knowledge and collection of vintage printed feedsacks. Her website, no longer available, Rickrack.com hosted her online business Sharon’s Antiques Vintage Fabrics and Textiles and was one of the first in its kind to offer not just vintage textiles and hundreds of feedsacks for sale, but also a wealth of information and resources for researchers and collectors. Printed feedsacks are still highly collectible and Stark’s inventory always included the most interesting, rare and desirable in the market.

Prior to selling on eBay in 1997, she sold at local antiques markets, while her partner, Bill, operated a used bookstore. He closed his brick-and-mortar store to move his inventory online, and assisted Sharon with her website. Keep in mind, there were no cellphones to quickly photograph, all the fabrics had to be scanned.

Stark is also the author of the novel A Wrestling Season and a collection of short stories, The Dealers’ Yard. Her stories have been anthologized in Best American Short Stories, Pushcart Prize Stories and the O. Henry Prize Stories. “Tunnels and Walls and Other Ways of Getting There,” one of her earliest short stories, explores the convoluted paths the psyche takes in achieving its desires.

“I remember meeting Sharon and Bill at a quilt study group in the Emmaus, Penn., area several years prior to Covid,” said Dana Balsamo, owner and auctioneer at Dana Auctions. “I felt like I had known Sharon for so long because we had both been members of the early Vintage Fabrics Yahoo Group and I utilized her website several times for research purposes. She also contributed to the Fabrics.net website on a variety of textile topics. She was always very generous with her knowledge. I now consider it an honor and privilege to assist Ms Stark and her family with offering her inventory to a new group of collectors as well as her long-time clients.”

The auction can be viewed at www.danaauctions.com, BidSquare and LiveAuctioneers. Preview is by appointment to July 27 and open house preview on July 28 from 10 am to 7 pm.

Auctions are conducted at 3490 US Route 1 North, Suite 11C. For information, 732-221-3560.