auction

An auction of unclaimed property worth $113,500 at the Illinois State Fair will be previewed in coming weeks in Springfield and Chicago.

State Treasurer Michael Frerichs says items include a signed, 1983 Ryne Sandberg baseball card; souvenir medallions from the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago; a Hohner 6-sided "paddle wheel" harmonica; and coins from the 1622 Spanish shipwreck of the Atocha .

Want to buy a trophy? Bridget Edgar hopes so. She’s the winner of the U.S. Marshals Service auction of hundreds of Rita Crundwell’s trophies, plaques, and statues. 

Crundwell is the former comptroller of Dixon who stole nearly $54 million from her hometown. Much of it was used to support her award-winning horse-breeding operations. She is now serving a nearly two-decade prison sentence. Her horses, homes and other possessions have been auctioned off by the federal government to help pay the cost of her prosecution and repay the city of Dixon.

The U.S. Marshals Service is selling three of Rita Crundwell's properties.  According to a news release, the Marshals have received  offers for three of the properties and are accepting competing offers until noon Dec. 21. Public inspections of the three properties will be held from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Dec. 7, 8 and 14. A sales plan on Crundwell’s two additional real estate holdings in Dixon and Englewood, Fla., both residential properties, is pending.

UPDATE 11/14/12: The trailer/lab equipment auction yielded $56,450. The trailer went for $31,500.

UPDATE: Crundwell changed plea to guilty: see follow-up stories.

Time is running out for anyone interested in getting a deal on a horse hematology lab. The auctioning of former Dixon comptroller Rita Crundwell’s possessions continues, with a trailer and lab equipment on the on-line block until Wednesday night.

Rockford’s only home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright is a step closer to becoming a museum. A community group was the winning…and only…bidder in yesterday’s auction of the Laurent House. Jerry Heinzeroth says members of The Laurent House Foundation have worked very hard over the past four years to get to this point. He says they’re extremely happy with the fact that the house will become a permanent part of the community, thanks to the support of donors, including the state, the city of Rockford, and Winnebago County.