Horst Auctioneers of Ephrata, Pa., held a quality 247-lot sale on behalf of the late Dr. Donald Herr and Dr. Trish Herr on Sept. 17. Don passed away Dec. 12, 2021, at the age of 83. Trish is currently in an assisted living facility. Pook & Pook held a large two-day sale of their material on June 9 and 10 and will sell more of Dons pewter collection in 2023. The selection Horst handled were excellent, clean (good condition) country offerings. The sale included many examples of signed and decorated wrought-iron utensils, a large variety of baskets, unusual cookie cutters, lehnware, rugs, pottery, and textiles, among other items. The total gross was $181,315. Horst does not charge a buyers premium for in-house bidding. A 10-percent premium was charged for online and absentee bidding. No phone bidding is done. A number of the things the Herrs bought over their collecting career came through Horst, and several people in the salesroom said how pleased they were that some of their collection was being sold there. You dont see old round rod oak baskets come up anymore, mentioned a sale goer. The Herrs had cornered the market over the decades. This sale had more than have come out at public sale for quite a few years. A local maker, Jacob Mentzer (active in the first quarter of the 20th century), was known to work with round rod oak and often painted some of the rods worked in Schoeneck, northern Lancaster County (near Horst Auction Center). The area used to be known as both Mentzertown and Pole Cat Hill. Baskets attributed to Mentzer sold on average for around $300. An unusual graduated set of four attributed to Mentzer, excellent condition, illustrated in the April 1984 Magazine Antiques article Pennsylvania-German Round-Rod Oak Baskets, by Jeannette Lasansky, sold to a collector for $600. A wrought-iron basket makers draw plate used to produce the rods sold for $450. It was an uncommon 19th-century tool used by basket maker Ed Latshaw, also from the Schoeneck area. Rod baskets can also be made of willow. A miniature arched handle oak rod basket attributed to Mentzer sold for $450. Another miniature attributed to Mentzer with two wrapped handles brought $350. Jeannette Lasansky was a research associate at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa., and the director of the Union County Oral Traditions Projects. The book series that came from the Oral Traditions Project remains a valuable resource today to anyone interested in Pennsylvania decorative arts. A very rare wooden bag stamp reading Snowhill Society, which was a later sister community of the Ephrata Cloister, sold to local collectors for $3,500. The Herrs bought it at the Horst sale on Sept. 11, 1997, for $6,700, which was a monumental sale of items dispersed from the Snow Hill Society in Franklin County. Another nice stamp, Jacob Farmer with the date 1852 and decorative carved bird, sold to collectors for $2,050. A paint-decorated wooden lidded box roughly 9-by-8 inches attributed to Heinrich Bucher sold to an online bidder for $7,260. A larger oval example went for $20,500 to Robesonia, Pa., dealer Greg Kramer. Kramer was a major buyer at the sale; the majority of the iron utensils went to him. A tasting spoon with wrigglework (an extremely fine decorative engraving technique) sold to Kramer for $400, as did most of the cookie cutters toward the end of the sale. He bought a large man on horseback tin cookie cutter for $2,300 and one depicting an Indian wielding a tomahawk for $2,200. Among the stars of the day was a 4-by-6-inch deeply carved wooden butter print of a tulip above a heart selling for $5,200. It is possibly a record for an example. Popular in Pennsylvania German communities, these decorative prints would be used to make impressions into homemade butter. The photos and captions tell more of the story. To contact Horst Auction Center, call 717-738-3080.