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Cowan's Historic Americana Auctions is one of the nation's leaders in the selling of historical Americana. We hold Americana auctions twice yearly. In addition, we regularly hold auctions of a single focus. Recent examples include historical firearms, books and printed Americana, circus and world's fair ephemera, militaria, and rare photographic cameras and images. C. Wesley Cowan has been a dealer in fine historical Americana for nearly 25 years. But spent his first career as a professional archaeologist. He holds a PhD. in Anthropology from the University of Michigan, where he specialized in the prehistory of Eastern North America and the arcane subject of paleoethnobotany-the study of the interrelationships between past humans and plant communities. Believe me, we couldn't possibly make this up! Although Wes has collected antiques since childhood, his second career began in graduate school, when he began frequenting the antique shops of southeastern Michigan as a way to avoid working on his doctoral dissertation. What began as a hobby of buying and selling 19th and early 20th century photographs became "Cowan's Historic Americana Auctions" in 1995. Wes has been a guest appraiser on the PBS television series, Antiques Road Show, now in its fifth season. Cowan's Historic Americana Auctions now serves thousands of customers nationwide. We have set sales records for early photographs, political campaign ephemera, manuscript collections, early printed books and pamphlets, and other items covering the grand panoply of American History. As our auctions have grown, so has our staff. Here are the folks who work for you-our customers and our consignors.