Cyndi Loza

Hundreds left John Ascuaga’s Nugget last weekend with a piece of the hotel’s history.

More than 750 items representing 53 years of Nugget history and from Ascuaga’s Jack’s Valley Ranch were sold to the highest bidders Saturday and Sunday at the hotel’s Rose Ballroom. There were 359 registered bidders at the two-day event.

“The auction was a roaring success,” said Bill Austin, owner of Baxtin’s auction house.

Among the hot items at the auction was a Nugget Motor Lodge rickshaw that sold for $1,300 and a V&T Railroad engine bell that sold for $6,200.

Some of the popular items were large framed photographs of Lake Tahoe scenes from the late 1800s and early 1900s. Old storage tins for tea, coffee, tobacco and biscuits sold from $35 to $180.

Copper items generated heated bidding, as well as old milk cans and copper pots fetching nearly $200.

Many of the items sold had been used as decorations in the Nugget’s Farmhouse, General Store and Steakhouse restaurants. When the restaurants were remodeled, the decor was changed and the items stored in a Sparks warehouse.

The Ascuaga family decided to sell the items they no longer needed in the two-day auction.

Ascuaga said in a June interview that he would miss every piece of history that was sold at auction.

“What are you going to do?” he said with a shrug as his eyes took in the vast collection of memorabilia, ranch equipment and sundry items as workers cleaned and arranged them in the huge ballroom on June 27.

When asked which items he will miss most, he replied, “All of it, but you can’t think about that. In the first place, you have to do something (with the collection) … It’s just the memories that you’ll have, anyhow.”