Thursday 23 August 2007

Auction

Jessi and I went to an auction this last weekend. It was the first time either one of us had been to one and it was kind of intimidating! But let me give a little back story first. There is a little barn two towns over that acts as an auction house for antiques on the weekend. Patrons are encouraged to come around on Friday and peruse the merchandise, making notes of anything that they are interested in. Then Saturday morning at ten the auction starts and the items are put up for bid around the room. The whole process takes from 10 in the morning until 5 in the evening. There is a camper that parks out front and offers a variety of different sandwiches and there is a little tea shop around the back. People are constantly coming and going throughout the day and if you see something that you want but have to leave before it is time to bid on it you can make what is called a commission bid and then the people who are still there begin the bidding with the price that you put down. Several items are sold this way as people usually put the max that they are willing to pay for an item and no one is willing to top it. The gentleman who does the part of the auctioneer goes non-stop from 10am to 5pm with only an occasional pause if there is some kind of confusion. Well, Jessi and I went Friday night and found a couple of items that we were interested in and then got up the next morning and headed down. Before we made our first bid we were both pretty confused because the guy was just zipping through items and he was a little hard to understand, having a fairly strong English accent. Jessi caught on just in time and was able to get nice little display case for 11 pounds! After that we started to get the hang of it. We left for lunch and came back in the afternoon having had our eye on a couple more items. There was a really nice little china hutch and Jessi got into a bidding war with a lady. It is hard to know when to call it quits when you are in the middle of bidding and the guy is talking so fast. It can be pretty confusing but Jessi finally backed down and let the lady win. There was another little number that had our eye and I started bidding on it. Wouldn't you know the same lady started in on me(she obviously had good taste if she was willing to go for the same stuff Jessi and I were going for). I had set myself a limit but I tell you, when you are there it is a lot more simple to raise your hand and keep the bidding going. I ended up getting the corner cabinet but for 5 pounds more than I had been willing to pay! We both had our eye on a couple little items and we were both able to get them. I got the little typewriter(it still works) and Jessi got the wash basin and jug. It was a really neat experience but one that our pocketbooks won't let us take more than once a month!