Items of Yankee Candle founder going to auction in Nantucket

NANTUCKET — There is not a single candlestick up for bid at Rafael Osona Auctions on Saturday.

That wouldn’t necessarily be noteworthy were it not for the fact that the 419-lot collection hitting the auction block is comprised of items owned by a titan of the candle-making industry.

Michael Kittredge II, the founder of Yankee Candle, is selling objects from his “ACKlandia” compound he recently sold in Nantucket. The lot includes various nautical items, including ship wheels, lanterns and navigational instruments. There will also be furniture, art, home decor, a 2008 Mini Cooper Clubman and a 2009 smart fortwo passion car for sale.

Rafael Osona of Rafael Osona Auctions said the Kittredge family reached out to him to sell what is being dubbed “The Michael J. Kittredge Collection.”

“People are going love it,” he said. “It’s just fun stuff. It’s not old-fashioned, starchy. It’s just easy-living, fun stuff. And I think it will appeal to a lot of people.”

Osona described Kittredge, who suffered a stroke in 2012, as a “very charismatic and fun-loving guy, and it shows in his furniture and accessories.”

The auction is set to begin at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, and online at Bidsquare.com, a platform for online art and antique auctions. Phone bidding is also welcomed. The preview gallery will be open July 11 and 12 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the American Legion Hall at 21 Washington St. in Nantucket.

Osona, who started his auction house 39 years ago, said the collection also includes custom-made carpets and pinball machines. He mentioned that he expects the top items to be a pair of cast bronze gangway plaques from the 19th century. Osona said the plaques were once positioned on either side of a ship’s deck. The auction house’s website described the plaques’ design as a “sunburst with stars and American flags emanating from a federal shield above crossed cannons, above an ‘E. Pluribus Unum’ banner, all within a rope border.”

Items up for bid can be found bit.ly/2JnqKZ8.

Kittredge created his first candle for his mother by melting some crayons in 1969, when he was 16 years old. He soon opened a small retail shop with his father’s help. Business boomed and Yankee Candle moved into an old paper mill in Holyoke in 1973, eventually setting up shop in the legendary flagship store in South Deerfield 10 years later.

The company, worth $150 million, was the largest employer in Franklin County when Kittredge sold 90 percent of his shares to New York investment company Forstmann Little & Co. in 1998. His son, Mike “Mick” Kittredge III, started Kringle Candle Company in Bernardston in 2009.