Marburg Arrowhead, Artifact Auction- Walt Podpora
Marburg Arrowhead, Artifact Auction- Walt Podpora
by Marburg Auctions
Sat,
Aug
12,
2023
9:00 AM
Eastern
Up for auction is part 2 of the Walt Podpora Collection of Milford, New Jersey. Walt’s artifact collection includes an impressive assortment of Pennsylvania and New Jersey artifacts as well as the rest of the northeast. Walt’s collection also had an emphasis on the midwest and central states. He is most known for his massive assortment of high-end axes and stone stools from across the country. Walt built an “axe house” to house his thousands of stone tools including axes, celts, adzes, pestles, mortars, soapstone vessels, spades, discoidals and more. In addition to stone tools, Walt’s collection includes some of the finest northeastern arrowheads, blades, bannerstones, pendants, gorgets and other stone implements. Included in this sale are high-end bannerstone examples such as a near perfect whales tail variety, an impressive banded slate lunate bannerstone found in Ohio, classic transitional spears including Perkiomens, Lehighs and Susquehanna Broadpoints, a large assortment of tools, large selection of MASSIVE axes most of which stand on end, and many more pieces.
Walt Podpora was born on March 12th, 1942 and grew up in Plainfield NJ. Walt moved to Milford NJ in 1959, after graduating high school in 1960, he started his own roofing company in 1963 which he ran for 50 years. Walt bought his first arrowhead at an antique shop in Plainfield, NJ in 1957 for 10 cents which turned out to be a rare paleo Miller point. He found his first arrowhead in his backyard in Milford, NJ 1960 on a gravel bar in the Hakihokake Creek. Walt estimates his collection includes over 100,000 points, 1,000 axes, 300 pestles, 90 gouges, 100’s of celts, adzes, hoes, discoidals, spuds, scrapers, etc. The reason for selling his artifacts is because his son is not interested in them and he is getting older. Walt had stacks of frames and he was unable to properly display them. Walt said that he considered building an addition to his “axe shed” for his collection, but then decided not to. Walt joked that his son would have to rely on Alan Atkins to help him after he passed. Walt says Alan was relieved when he told him he was consigning his collection to Marburg Artifact Auctions.
Walt collected for many years and along the way kept an incredibly detailed catalog. Walt has saved all of the reference material for most of the artifacts in the collection. You will see photos of this documentation throughout the lots. Please feel free to download/save/print off this reference material however the originals will not be accompanying the artifact. Pieces in the collection have come from numerous well-known individuals in the artifact collecting community including: Doc Bowser, Rich Johnston, Dick Savidge, Larry Fry, Phil Long, Bob Sharp, Handershot, Dorothy Middleton, Payne, Pete Crane, Paul Frey, the Ironhorse collection (many pieces prior to the recent auctions and some acquired during those auctions), Barry Brinser, Barry George, Les Kunkle, Lee Hallman, Joe Wallace, Gerald Fenstermacher, Muser, Sonny Delong, Phillip Butts, Raymond Lemaster, Youtz and more.
This is the first part of many auctions consisting of Walt Podpora’s collection. A publication will be made of Walt’s collection picturing many of the fine relics that Walt had. If interested in pre-ordering, please contact us at: info@marburgauctions.com or by phone at (717) 814-8699
