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Our History     

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Original Guarantee Company President Shawn Spohn got his start in the antique community at a very early age - attending antique shows, auctions and antique malls with his father who was a lifelong collector. "Dad started collecting Erector Sets and other antique toys in the 1980s and amassed a large toy collection over the next 20 years," he said.

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Shawn followed his father to shows up and down the East Coast, from Florida to Atlantic City, and across the Midwest from Iowa to Ohio. “I bought my first antique toy with (my money) when I was 17,” he said. “Dad and I went to an antique toy show that was being held at a Holiday Inn near Hickory, NC. I paid $70 for a 1960s Marx tin, wind-up helicopter that I still have today.”

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While attending Ohio State in the 1990s, Shawn discovered the growing outlets to buy/sell antiques online, primarily through eBay. “The internet opened our eyes to the fact that antique toys were not as rare as we thought and that so many fakes were beginning to flood the market to deceive both new and seasoned collectors.”

Antique sign authentication services

Shawn holding a sign from his father's auto-body shop and the first sign ever  authenticated by OG Company.

Sign dates to early 1970s.

Shawn started branching out beyond antique toys around 2005, collecting advertising signs, general store merchandise and Americana. He setup as a vendor at his first antique show in 2009 and never looked back.

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He is the sole proprietor of Old North State Antiques and still sets up at a few antique shows each year. “I knew years ago that I wanted to do more with antiques than just buy and sell, but I wasn’t sure what that was. When I started buying and collecting old signs and sports cards it made me realize there was a need for authentication services for antique toys, so that was the real catalyst to create Original Guarantee Company.”

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