Updated: August 26, 2026
Garth’s Auctioneers & Appraisers, the auction house that sold American antiques for seven decades, first from a barn outside Delaware and later from a converted power plant in Columbus, no longer holds auctions. The company wound down its auction business in the spring of 2024, and its own website now points collectors to a successor firm run by a former Garth’s co-owner.
It’s a quiet end for a name that meant something well beyond Ohio. Here’s the story, and where auction regulars can get their fix now.
Seven decades of Americana
Garth Oberlander started the business in 1954 in Stratford, a little village just south of Delaware. He lived in the property’s historic Meeker homestead and ran sales out of its early-1800s barn. Over the next 65 years, Garth’s built a national reputation in Americana: early furniture, folk art, glass, and fine art, with cataloged sales that drew bidders far beyond Ohio. The bidder reviews on its auction pages come from as far off as California and Maine.
The company left the barn in the summer of 2019 and moved into the Municipal Light Plant at 589 W. Nationwide Blvd downtown, the circa-1895 brick building where Columbus first generated its own electricity. The barn didn’t sit empty, either. The Delaware County Historical Society owns the property now and hosts events there as The Barn at Stratford.
The end of the auctions
The wind-down came without much noise. By April 2024, a short notice had replaced the auction calendar on garths.com: the company no longer offers auction services. Local outlets never covered the change, so plenty of people are still finding out. The firm’s LiveAuctioneers page, with 148 past catalogs on file, now reads “has no upcoming auctions.”
Those final catalogs are still worth a browse. A single 2021 sale included a pair of European Renaissance revival armchairs estimated at $200 to $400 and a gilded three-tier brass chandelier hung with cut teardrop prisms.
Where collectors go now
Amelia Jeffers co-owned Garth’s from 1996 to 2017, and her firm, Amelia Jeffers, Auctioneers & Appraisers, is the successor Garth’s itself recommends. The operation runs weekly online-only estate auctions and holds live sales at its auction house at 620 E. Weber Rd in Columbus. Select auctions still happen at The Barn at Stratford, the original Garth’s barn at 2690 Stratford Rd in Delaware.
One date worth marking: the firm holds a free walk-in appraisal day on the last Tuesday of every month, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., at the Weber Road auction house. Bring the mystery painting from the attic. That’s exactly what it’s for.
For upcoming sales and consignments, ameliajeffers.com has the schedule, or call 740.362.4771. Longtime Garth’s customers will recognize the number.
