I went to a huge community yard sale two years ago.  I was curious about what kinds of items I could find there. Today, my curiosity is aroused again.   

I'm at the Rapid Transit Building at 1304 Sassafras Street in Erie.  There's a lot of interesting stuff inside that's going to be auctioned.  This structure was built in 1905 to help move freight in and out of Erie.  In its heyday, freight would arrive by train.  The cargo would be unloaded off a train on one side of the building and sent out by truck on the other side.  Bob Mang owned the Rapid Transit Freight Company until his retirement a couple of months ago. His parents owned it before him.  Bob's worked in this building for over 50 years. 

"I'm 76. I've had enough fun,” says Bob with a laugh.  

Bob is ready to auction off a buildingful of career memories. There's the basic items used in the freight business. A fork lift, dollies, old push carts, and packing equipment.  Bob's business used to deliver equipment for banks such as ATM's and those vacuum tube systems for the drive thru.   Bob also would install them.  So there's a lot of tools.  However, I want to find some stuff that's unusual. Maybe I’ll find some old relics inside this old building.  Auctioneer Mark Tanenbaum says I should follow him.  He leads me to an antique that’s never been unpacked.

"This is a spinning wheel.  Mint in the box,” he says. “It's all still here.  Every little piece of it.  Here's the paper tag still on it.'”  

One of Thomas Edison's old inventions is the Ediphone...a dictation machine. Mark shows me several boxes of the cylinder tubes that were used on the Ediphone.

"This is all done on cylinder. This is the original wax cylinder. They would thread that with sound and the player would roll across the front,” he explains. 

Mark then shows me something big. Very big.  There would never be a bid from me on this item.  I don't have enough friends to lift it out of here.  It's the door to a bank vault.  It weighs 6,600 pounds. We moved on to an old stencil machine.  It’s basically a large version of a label maker.  Mark deftly makes a stencil displaying the word “Erie.”  The machine still works great.

Another longtime Erie business is gone and will never return.   But, its equipment and some old freight will live on after the auction.

The auction will be held Wednesday, July 31, beginning at 10 a.m.  Interested bidders are invited to a preview on Tuesday, July 30 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.