For 30 years, we have enjoyed collecting figural napkin rings. Over the next 2 years, we will be listing approximately 150 napkin rings, many with 2 figures. You can email me at terry@collectorcandy.com

  Prior to 1880, the Patent Office required that a working model be submitted when applying for a patent. After giving the Smithsonian Institute the opportunity to pick models for the museum, the U S Government sold all of the models at auction. A more detailed history of Patent Models can be found at http://www.patentmodel.com and http://www.patentmodelassociation.com .

Patent model are one-of-a-kind usually made by highly skilled craftsmen. There was a whole industry based around Washing DC making models for people seeking to get a patent. When you own one, you own the only one.

We have collected many things from many different areas. The baseball cards that we will be offering are from my childhood and my father's childhood. All cards have been professionally graded and sealed in tamper-proof cases.

We will be offering cards that my children have collected. The key cards have been graded and sealed in tamper-proof cases. Complete sets will also be put up for sale. We also have unopened cases of baseball cards for the 1980s and early 1990s.

Salesman samples are similar to patent models in that they are a miniature of what a salesman was trying to sell but they can be a very detailed model that was made to attract investors or a manufacturer's interest. 

Some of them are the one and only example, which is the case with this model of a farming implement currently referred to as a no till drill. This model and it accompany 10-foot draftsman drawing represents a piece of equipment that plowed and planted at the same time.

This is another one-of-a-kind model made for the president of the Ashland Oil Company. It is a miniature working model of a huge machine that changes gasses into liquids.