The true value of any merchandise is what a person will pay for it, says an auctioneer.
Published: The Globe and Mail, January 29, 1987
BY DEBORAH JONES/HALIFAX
Somehow, between being piled on a junky previewing table and hitting the auctioneer's platform, something happened to a brass coat stand, a collection of power tools and a dollar-shaped wall clock. They gained a lustrous appeal to the bidders at the All Around the World Championship auctioneers' competition.
As each item came up and the auctioneers began the bidding, customers' numbered cards popped up among the rows of people. Competing callers chanted in turn, each lavishly detailing the qualities of various items and announcing what great buys they would be.
"Give me thirty, thirty, thirty - Twenty dollars? Fifteen? Ten? - There! Ten! Who will give me fifteen, fifteen, fifteen, fifteen . . . Fifteen! Seventeen, seventeen, seventeen! Now twenty dollars. . . ." The auctioneer, trying to create a vortex of competitive lust for the object, shouted faster and faster. Finally the blur of words and flurry of cards reached a climax; price agreement was mysteriously reached.
"Sold," exclaimed the auctioneer gleefully. An elderly woman beamed triumphantly as her catch was carried off stage and the next item arrived.
"I'm so full of energy I could do three items at once," declared one competitor, trying to get the attention of the audience and thus of the solemn judges, who assess style, voice clarity, ability to pick out bids from the farther reaches of the room and the price fetched for a given item.
Pointing to the kindling axe he was about to start the bidding on, another caller told them: "With it you can cut your wood and it's also a built-in fitness centre."
"Auctioning is the best way to sell anything," crowed Jerry Stein , 49, one of the veteran auctioneers who "warmed up" the crowd at the recent championship, which was held at a Halifax hotel. "If you hear about the best price ever for a prize bull, for the largest diamond, the most expensive painting and the most expensive real estate, you can bet it's been sold by auction."
Not surprisingly, Mr. Stein is a firm believer in the auction method. "A well-publicized sale by a professional auctioneer to the highest bidder is the only manner of selling to the public where an item is sold for its true value. The true value of any merchandise is what a person will pay for it," he reasons.
Mr. Stein, who runs his family's third-generation auction business, GSM International Auctioneers Corp. of Montreal, is a member of the Auctioneers Association of Canada. Formed five years ago by several hundred of Canada's 8,000 auctioneers, the national association wants to promote professional development and improve the image of the business. His group organized the callers' competition for this month's annual meeting.
Mr. Stein has his own style. Dressed in a striking black suit, cowboy hat and flashy jewelry, he is part showman, part sales man. He possesses a gift of gab that any self-respecting AM radio host would envy. On stage - and the auction platform is a stage - he warbled in a mixture of French and English while jumping excitedly about.
Among the 32 competitors drawn to the "world championship" - all from Canada and the United States - was Brady Hammrich of Port Orchard, Wash. A clean-cut, 20-year-old wearing a subdued sports jacket and tie, Mr. Hammrich looked like a young man who might have just signed up for a bank's management training program. Along with other young men and women, his style is new, and is in contrast to the predominately male old hands who are either tanned and bejewelled showmen or crusty, down-to-earth characters.
"My boss sent me for a promotional deal," he explained. Mr. Hammrich started working part time at Stokes Auction in his home town during junior high school. He liked the business, took a one-week course at the local Northwest Institute of Auctioneers to get his state licence and be bonded, and has been "calling" for 1 1/2 years now. He said he does well and sees a bright future in the business.
"I make $15,000 (U.S.) a year, and I'm only 20 now. "I'd like to make about $50,000 a year eventually," Mr. Hammrich said. (He lost the contest to Ken Knight of Winnipeg, who Mr. Stein admiringly called Motor Mouth. "He's an auctioneer's auctioneer.") "There are auctioneers in that room who make $5,000 a year as a sideline, and there are other auctioneers who are making $150,000 to $250,000 annually," said association president Paul Gardner. "The business can be whatever you make of it."
Despite the new national association (Alberta has its own group, the oldest in North America), the industry is still loosely monitored and its members are belligerently independent, according to association spokesmen.
In Canada, most auction businesses work under provincial jurisdiction and are required to post bonds, which one association member said can vary from $5,000 to $50,000, depending on the province and the type of auction. They make their money on commissions, which can be paid by the seller or the buyers or split. The commissions range between 2.5 and 25 per cent of the goods sold.
Auctioneers sell almost anything in Canada, but the main categories are livestock, automobiles, antiques, fine arts and commercial-industrial, which mainly concerns bankruptcies. Many auctioneers are also in the appraisal business.
The association can only guess at the value of goods auctioned, said president Paul Gardner, 39, of London, Ont.
Studies in the United States estimate that 3 per cent of total goods sold are auctioned, said Mr. Stein, who feels the figure likely applies to Canada as well.
"Like most businesses, auctioneering is changing at a phenomenal rate," said Mr. Gardner. For example, auctioneers are opening up new markets and selling new kinds of goods. Last year, Brian Barker of Brampton, Ont., began auctioning vacation tour tickets that were left over from package tour promotions put together by Touram, an Air Canada agency. Previously, most such tickets were sold at cut-rate prices to travel agencies for less money than the auction made, he said.
While most callers learn the trade on the job, often in family businesses, a handful of association members are graduates of the three- year Certified Auctioneers Institute in Bloomington, Ind., which Mr. Gardner compared to a college commerce course. The association is working to get a similar course started in Canada.
A goal of the auctioneers' association is to persuade the federal Government to dispose of its surplus goods directly by auction, rather than by tender. The associaton estimates the Government tenders about $30- million worth of goods annually.
Copyright Deborah Jones 1987
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