Auctions: A Favorite Saturday Pasttime

(This is a reprint from my 1976 column "On the Farm" which I wrote for the Fostoria Reveiw-Times)

 

Auctions:  A favorite Saturday Pastime 1976

            While wiping the kitchen windowsill the other day, I had to remove nine thousand tiny articles of miscellany that I had discovered in a box of goodies at an auction.  In fact almost every flat surface in the house is filled with objects collected from my favorite Saturday pastime, the country auction.

            Country auctions are an entertaining form of recreation for rural folk, and I, for one, thrive on them.  Every good capitalist loves the idea of a bargain and many people furnish their homes and properties with paraphernalia ranging from dining suites to wagon wheels.

            The most lucrative auction, for buy, seller and auctioneer, is the estate auction.  They seem to follow an established pattern that every attendee is familiar with.  First, you plan your departure time to arrive a good thirty minutes before they begin the auction.  This will give you time to register for your bid number and examine the goods.

            Now every aficionado will want to look, as will the experienced, knowledgeable connoisseur, and I am no exception (more in the first group than the second).  I carefully scrutinize each item of interest, remembering to gaze at the underside of each piece of china or glassware to check for origin, seek the copyright date in any publication, peek under furniture for identification, and thoroughly regard each item in a box of miscellany, deciding as I go along what my top bid will be.  Hah!  What I know about antiques you could place in a thimble (antique or modern one!), but I sure don’t want anybody to think I’m a greenhorn.  Of course, while checking anything out, I’m careful to keep my mouth shut.  If it’s possibly a good find, the fewer who know, the better, or more likely, I don’t want to get caught with my foot in my mouth by uttering something asinine.

            When the bidding starts, it is imperative to remain as close to the auctioneer as possible.  If I don’t, like as not, I’ll strike up a conversation with someone and miss out on a good piece of depression for fifty cents or a paperweight for a dollar.  I’m also very careful about making a move of any sort.  Once I winked at my husband across the crowd and found I’d bought a box of junk for a half dollar; worse yet, the guy standing next to my husband winked back!

            I’m often amazed at the lengths (in dollars) people will go to obtain a given item.  My friend and I marveled at a woman who paid $13 for a set of glasses depicting the men on the moon (certainly not antique), but she may have laughed at me for paying five dollars for a small kerosene lamp (I just thought it was pretty).

            Some items of current interest are sure to bring top dollar.  I never count on picking up a quilt or china cabinet or even an old (not too old though) bedroom outfit.  My best bargain was a fifty cent purchase including a fairly decent sideboard, a fixable library table, a too-far-gone drop leaf table and all the junk that’s  still on my windowsill.  (The sideboard now dominates the foyer, holding two old jars and my Wandering Jew plant.)

            When I attend an auction, I go with the idea that I’ll only spend money if I see something we need (right now it’s twin beds for our sons, as our three-year-old is still in the crib and the five-year-old is sleeping in the bed his daddy slept in as a boy).  Naturally I get carried away and squander several dollars on items of use but certainly not necessary this minute.

            Two weeks ago, Jim asked me to check out a corn sheller advertised as to be sold; well, when the farm implements started going, I paid close attention to the auctioneer as I didn’t know what a sheller was.  When he called a particular item a sheller, I bid and won it for three-fifth.  He later called something else a sheller and I was confused.  I began bidding, stopped and asked if that “the thing I just bought was a sheller,” causing much merriment to the farmers.  As it turned out I came home with a grinder that is so rusty the turning parts are frozen.  Jim says it will make a nice planter.