what can I say?

Donnie wearing the “Dame Edna” glasses.  He couldn’t find his, so one of our customers provided him with this pair.  Donnie, Donnie, Donnie…what would we do without him?

and we went out on a high note!

Thanks to everyone who attended our final sale of the year on Dec3! Another big crowd, 171 registered bidders, and by days end, we sold an even 800 lots! I recall in a previous blog I said I was going to make the sales smaller….well, I meant smaller in the 2012! Yes, we did have a lot of merchandise to go through, and I still have a backlog of items to deal with, but that will happen in the new year. I was pleased at the size of the crowd.  Dec can be a tricky month for auctions.  People are busy with Christmas shopping, concerts, work parties, that sort of thing.  It can be tough to fill an auction hall, but that wasn’t a problem this time around. Not to mention, there has been an antique auction every weekend since the beginning of October in the Pottageville Community Centre.  There have been over 5000 items offered for auction in that period of time, and it seems like Pottageville has become “auction central”.  I think it is working well for all the auctioneers involved, and in 2012, Pottageville will remain the “hub” of the antique auction business in this area. Prices in our last auction of course were up and down, reflecting the trend in the antique business.  Always winners and losers, and I will deal with that in my year end auction blog. I now enter the quiet time of year in our business, and I actually look forward to it.  Yes I still have pickups to do for January, and of course photos, etc.  However, I can approach all of that at a leisurely pace and spend more time participating in holiday activities.  I like this time of year. Before Christmas we have our staff get together lunch at the Mandarin.  Works out well because almost all of my staff work for Dave and Carol Beasley as well, so we all get together.  Plus the Mandarin gives a nice discount for seniors…so that covers nearly all of the staff! I will take this time to thank my wonderful staff, consignors and buyers.  We had another record year, and I am always appreciative of that. Nice to see so many new faces to our auctions this past year, and of course all of our regulars. So I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, Season’s Greetings and a Happy New Year….looking forward to 2012! Rob You can view a video presentation of this past auction by clicking here.

…well I have a few thoughts!

Lots of talk recently about the value of antiques. I am constantly asked about what is selling and what is not.  I usually respond with, “I can tell you what sold well at our last auction, but it could be totally different at the next auction!”  And of course there is an element of truth to that. However, I strongly believe you have to think about who is going to buy the items you want to sell.  I  received an email with photos from a person who has an 8 piece Eastlake style parlour set for sale. I responded that I really wasn’t interested in the set for auction, because I really didn’t think it would bring enough money to make it worthwhile for either one of us. Think about it.  Who needs 8 pieces of uncomfortable, impractical furniture to fill a room?  Maybe one or two for decorator items, but not a full set.  It is sad to think the pieces are over 100 years old, but they just do not have much practical value anymore. Every week and sometimes every day, I get calls about dining room suites.  I do not buy them, and only will take them into the auction if I think they are particularly good.   If you have a 1920’s dark walnut dining suite with veneer chips, missing handles and loose chairs, who is going to buy that?  Who wants to fill one of the main rooms in their home with that quality of furniture?  It may be a 90 year old set that once belonged to your grandparents, but once again it now has very little value. In the 1980’s and 90’s I attended auctions that would sell 6 or 7 dining room suites and 6 or 7 bedroom suites almost every week.  They were coming from the U.S. by the truckload and the dealers couldn’t seem to get enough of them.  However, think of the size and style of many of the homes being built during that time.   Big homes, big dining rooms, open foyers and people needed furniture to fill them. Now many of those same people are downsizing and moving into much smaller homes.  They don’t need the dining and bedroom suites any more, or the big cupboards that filled the hallways. Young couples usually now are moving into much smaller first time homes. Look at the condos being built in Toronto.   It seems like everywhere you look downtown, there is a new condo building going up.  However, consider the size of most of those condos.  Ikea has built a huge business designing furniture to accommodate smaller homes. This year I have sold several large two piece, mirrored back Victorian sideboards, and none have sold for more than $400.  The very best one I had sold for $300.  I kept asking myself why? They were all great pieces and selling for very little money.  Then I spoke to several dealers and all of them said there was very little demand for them.  Too big, so they don’t sell.  Wonderful old pieces, but the market is for good, functional, smaller practical pieces of furniture. Back in the 1980’s and 90’s almost every piece of pine, ash and oak, was stripped and stained with golden oak or honey pine.  You couldn’t go wrong with that colour.  One dealer I know refers to those times as the “honey money” days. Now there is a trend toward painted furniture,, and I can understand the desire for colour and variety when you are decorating.  So, many of the “golden oak” and “honey pine’ pieces just don’t bring the same money they did ten years ago. Glass and china has seen a steady decline over the last few years. Victorian cranberry, satin glass, pressed glass etc not bringing what it used to.  But, consider who were the big buyers of those items 20 years ago.  Now many of those buyers are into their 60’s, 70’s or 80’s and  are selling their collections. Victorian glass is usually not as popular with younger buyers as perhaps art pottery would be. Epergnes not as popular as an art deco centre piece would be.  Younger buyers are usually not buying the same style of antiques as their parents and grandparents did. Now lets go back to the 1860’s and 70’s. Most homes were furnished in simple country pine furniture. 1880’s and 90’s  most homes were furnished in Victorian style pieces.  Lots of clutter and knick knacks…lots of collections.  Turn of the century there was a move to Eastlake and arts and crafts.  Clean, simpler lines, and a change from the “busyness” of Victorian furniture.  By the 20’s and 30’s there was a move to Art Deco. Now lets move ahead to the 1970’s.  Antiques were just gaining in popularity and pine country furniture was the style.  By the 1980’s and 90’s Victorian furniture and “collectables”, Ltd Editions, collector plates etc were all the rage.  People often filled their homes from top to bottom with “stuff”.  Then a move to simpler lines, arts and crafts furniture by 2000.  Now we are back to the less cluttered, simple lines, modern look of Art Deco. I know I may be generalizing a little here, but to me it seems clear the cycle has just repeated itself. So the antique market is still there.  It is just changing.  One dealer recently told me, he often hears other dealers telling him they can’t sell furniture anymore.  His response was, “they are just not buying the right pieces.”  That is very true.  You gotta have the right stuff. This applies to the auctions as well.  The right pieces are still bringing good money.  We are getting some of the biggest crowds and best sales we have ever had.  It is just a matter of filling the auction with the right stuff.  We have our share of low end and tough to sell pieces, that almost seems inevitable, but  75 -80 % of the bidders actually purchase at our sales. So the times they are a changing…but they have always been changing.  The auction market is still strong, and the antique market is still strong, but no doubt, they are changing. Rob IF YOU HAVE ANY COMMENTS ABOUT THIS OR ANY OTHER ARTICLE, FEEL FREE TO EMAIL ME AT rob@robsageauctions.com  ALWAYS NICE TO HEAR FROM YOU!

and I wasn’t kidding!

Wow…what a sale on Sat. Nov 5!!!  Our largest sale in Pottageville, and one of our largest sales ever! 176 registered bidders….8 1/4 hour sale….two rings selling for much of the sale….and 840 lots sold! I told everyone for the last few weeks that this was going to be a big auction, but even I was a little surprised. It has been six weeks since our last sale, because I could not get a booking in the hall in October.  So there was a lot of merchandise coming in, and a large backlog of items to try and clear out of my storage.  There is also a lot of good merchandise coming into our Dec 3 auction, so I had no choice but to put as much through this auction as I possibly could. The weather was going to be nice, so I knew I could set up a ring with Dave selling outside, while I continued to sell inside. I also knew we could also run two rings inside for part of the auction. When you have a wide variety of items, you can separate into two rings and sell furniture at the same time you are selling glass and china for example.  Or jewellery or medals or whatever while you also sell items that attract a different type of buyer. The point is, I had to make this auction as large as I could, and make it work. Bidding was strong from the beginning and remained that way until the very end. I can usually tell in the first hour if it is going to be a good auction or not, and this one felt good early in the sale! Last auction in September, the bidding started off sluggish and remained that way all throughout the sale.  I had to pass on or couldn’t even get bids on, 71 items.  That is unheard of in our auction….almost 11% of the sale unsold! However, this auction, a complete turn around.  Only two items we could not sell…so we sold 840 of 842 lots…what a difference! All of the 71 items we couldn’t sell in September, sold in this auction. This is what makes the auction business so unpredictable, but on the other hand, very interesting! No interest in something one sale, and the next sale it sells for $40 or $50 dollars. Of the 176 registered bidders, 80% purchased something.  Proves to me we are attracting the right buyers for what we are offering. So what does it take to put on a sale like this? Well it takes a very good and a very hard working staff. We started setting up Friday at 9:00 am and finished at 8:00 pm. I was at the hall at 7:30 am sale day, and with the help of Dave Beasley, we set up the ring outside. Once the sale started, everyone worked right through with very little break time.  Even though I had some extra help from Dave Niven and our newest assistant Tylor, everyone had to work very hard. Imagine our registration clerk and cashier Carol Beasley.  For every item sold, she has to enter 4 pieces of information into the computer. Multiply that by 840 items, and also register people and cash buyers out as well! Mom clerked with me almost all of the sale.  We sold over 600 lots in our main ring, and of course Mom has to record every item, including a description, buyer number, consignor number and selling price.  We average about 85 lots per hour. The handlers are on their feet all day long, and it can be tough work.  No one is doing it for the money.  They do it because they love doing it.  That may sound strange, but believe me, no one is doing it strictly for the money! We joke and tease each other, and occasionally snip at each other, but I have always said and always will say, I am fortunate to have the best staff in the business. So as I said earlier, we had 176 registered bidders.  So where do they come from?  Actually, from all over the province.  We had bidders from as far north as Windemere, as far west as London and Chatham, east from Pickering, many from south of us, and a few from places I haven’t even heard of. We have never been a strictly local auction.  The immediate surrounding area, accounts for a small percentage of the bidders.  Most travel at least 1/2 hour and some up to three hours.  The popular saying “built it and they will come” (Field of Dreams), can be paraphrased for the auction business.  Get the right stuff, and they will come. Of course I did have some concerns about this sale.  I knew it was possible we simply had too much.  I know people came into the hall and said “he has too much stuff and will never get through it all”.  Although some say that every auction. The point is we did have a very large sale.  The point also is, we sold it all,  many of the buyers stayed to the very end, and the vast majority of the items  sold for a price fair for the buyer and seller.  Can’t ask for much more than that. However, now that this sale is over,  I am not planning on doing another one this large for a little while! I have a lot of good merchandise coming in, and now that much of the backlog is cleared up, I will make a point of keeping the sales a little smaller. I have a great staff, but a possible revolt is something I have to keep in mind! Have fun on the auction trail and hope you can make it to our Dec auction. Rob YOU CAN VIEW THE VIDEO PRESENTATION AND HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS AUCTION BY CLICKING HERE. IF YOU HAVE ANY COMMENTS ABOUT THIS OR ANY OTHER ARTICLE, FEEL FREE TO EMAIL ME AT rob@robsageauctions.com  ALWAYS NICE TO HEAR FROM YOU!

finally reaching a new plateau

For the upcoming Nov 5 auction, you may notice some new changes. A new look for me and the staff.  Same ol staff of course…I am just sprucing them up a bit. Yes, after many years of setting aside a little money after each auction, I finally saved up enough to buy everyone a black sports shirt with my logo emblazoned on the front. Dave Beasley introduced this to his staff, which are almost the same staff as mine, years ago.  I have since suffered the taunts and snide comments from my staff, about not having “uniforms”.   Little did they realize the sacrifices I was making in order for this to one day happen. So, on Nov 5, they will debut the new look. However, I will be explaining to them, that the uniform carries with it responsibility. I have set down a set of guidelines and ethics when it come to wearing and caring for the uniform. The uniform must be washed in cold water, turned inside out, and must not be included with the rest of their laundry. Collar must be ironed for every auction. They must not wear the uniform outside of the auction, at any location or event that reflects badly upon me.  This includes drinking establishments with female dancers, casinos, discount food stores, dollar stores, flea markets and lawn sales. Donnie cannot wear the uniform when he is driving.  He is a notoriously bad driver, and I don’t want the complaints and phones calls coming back to me. They cannot wear the uniforms when they are working for other auctioneers….although I may make an exception on that one. They can wear the uniforms when they are attending other auctions, as long as they stand at the front of the auction hall and make themselves clearly visible. The uniform cannot be traded for other merchandise. Other than that, they can pretty well do whatever they feel comfortable doing with them.  Although I will be monitoring their activities. So join us for our upcoming Nov 5 auction….a big auction with lots of great stuff…and a pretty good looking staff! Rob IF YOU HAVE ANY COMMENTS ABOUT THIS OR ANY OTHER ARTICLE, FEEL FREE TO EMAIL ME AT rob@robsageauctions.com  ALWAYS NICE TO HEAR FROM YOU!

the one that never happened!

This upcoming Sept 24 auction, marks an anniversary of sorts for me.  It was one year ago this upcoming weekend that we thought we were going to do our first sale in Pottageville. The key phrase here is “I thought we were going to do a sale”. For those of you unfamiliar with what happened, let me enlighten. I had a huge sale planned for our debut in the Pottageville hall.  Some of the nicest, and biggest pieces of furniture we have ever had, and a great selection of quality smaller items. I had two cube vans full of furniture, plus everything that was dropped off during the two days it took to set up the sale. I was feeling very good about the new location. Friday night at 5:00 pm the sale was almost completely set up.  I sent the entire crew home, and Mom and I were putting the finishing touches on the  Saturday. auction. A very nice young lady showed up from King Township, but she unfortunately was there to drop a bombshell on us. There had been some “miscommunication” concerning the booking of the hall. We had the hall booked until 12:00 am Saturday.  So I thought, what’s the problem?  Well 12:00 am Saturday is when the booking ended…that means just after midnight Friday night. We did not have the hall booked for Saturday, and it had been booked for another event. We were told there was no way around it, we would have to have everything removed from the hall Friday night. Now there is just Mom and I sitting in a hall crammed full with over 100 pieces of furniture and over 400 other assorted items…and now we were going to have to empty the hall? We were both stunned and thought this was going to be impossible.  It took two full days just to transport and set up everything and now we had just hours to move it out? We didn’t have any choice, so I called back my outstanding crew, and fortunately everyone was available.  I called some of the consignors, and my brother Brian as well, and we just started tearing it all down and hauling. Some went back to consignors, some got piled up in Mom’s garage, and the remainder went back to my storage.  At 4:00 am Charlie and I dropped off the last items at my storage. We did get it done.  What seemed impossible was accomplished. This was a nightmare scenario and I had never heard of any auctioneer going through this.  Sure, sales do get cancelled due to snowstorms etc, but at least you would have a day or so to remove the items.  We had only hours. I still shudder when I think of it. However, two weeks later the auction did go on, and it was a success. Every auction thereafter in Pottageville has been good for us, and I look forward to many more years there!  It was one of the best moves I have made….but it got off to a very rocky start! So once again I have to thank my outstanding staff and family and friends.  Mom, Dave and Carol Beasley, Don Garner and his wife Audrey, Charles McAteer, Raymond and Cecile Bates, my brother Brian, sister Kris and brother-in-law Gerry, and some consignors who showed up to take their items back until the next sale. When I needed the help, everyone came through for me. It is one auction I will never forget! Rob IF YOU HAVE ANY COMMENTS ABOUT THIS OR ANY OTHER ARTICLE, FEEL FREE TO EMAIL ME AT rob@robsageauctions.com  ALWAYS NICE TO HEAR FROM YOU!

wrapped up our final one for the season

Thanks to everyone who showed up to our Saturday Aug 20 sale….and it was a full house indeed! We had approx. 150 register again, and finally sold 700 lots!  We were running in two rings for part of the evening and the sale finished just a couple of minutes before midnight.  It is important I finish the sales before the clock strikes twelve…that way I avoid paying overtime!  Actually I am just kidding…I never pay overtime. I knew we had a lot of merchandise in the hall for this one, but there has been so much coming in lately, that I have a serious backlog of merchandise to contend with.  The September sale is pretty well full, so I had to do whatever I could to clean up the backlog in this sale.  I am still backlogged, but this time I made some inroads. It was a noisy, high energy sale for the most part, and I have to admit I like it that way.  We have new auction goers to every sale, and I sometimes think it can be a little overwhelming for someone new to our auctions…but they seemed to manage! One very nice lady did a lot of buying.  She showed up with a small u-haul trailer…filled it to the top…and then told me this was her first auction!   She came well prepared and got some good deals, so I am hoping she will become a regular! As is the norm, prices were all over the board.  We sold a great school house bell for $775 and an incredible silver plate tea set for $700…yet a very nice two piece flat to wall cupboard sold for $300, and another very nice ash two piece sideboard with mirror sold for a mere $225.  Primitives and country pieces were overall strong in price, but the refinished parlour tables seemed low to me.  That is just the nature of the business right now…it is unpredictable from month to month…auction to auction. However, I have been very pleased with the response to our Saturday night auctions.  Summer sales can drop off in attendance if you stick to doing Saturday daytime sales, but we solved that problem by moving to Saturday nights. Starting Sept 24 we will be going back to Saturday daytime sales.  I think the timing is different come September, and once again daytime sales seem right to me.  However, we did have a good time with the Saturday night auctions (and singles night in Pottageville), and I look forward to doing it again next summer! As I mentioned, we sold a great silver plate tea set for $700…the best set we have ever had.  However, when the consignor sent me a picture of the set, I initially turned it down!  In the picture it looked like a fairly recent, inexpensive set.  I told her we did not do well with that type of set, but she then told me it was over 50 years old, so I decided to have a look at it in person.  I realized I was wrong when I actually saw the tea set!  So even though photos are very helpful for me when it comes to accepting or declining consignments, they still can be misleading. Getting ready now for a busy fall auction schedule.  After the paperwork is done this week I start with the pickups for the Sept 24 auction.  I have almost the complete antique contents of a Bradford home to pick up, plus many other consignments, so it is going to be another busy month! Just one more thing before I go.  Lately I have been doing video presentations of the auctions and my auction business.  They are fun for me to do, and I think I am getting the hang of putting them together, so if you have a chance you can check out my latest one by clicking here. That’s it for now…have fun on the auction trail! Rob

all in a days work.

People are always asking me…”where does all the stuff come from?”. This may shed some insight. Monday was a busy but not unusual day. 10:00 am off to a house in Holland Landing and picked up several pieces of furniture. 11:30 am  went to a house in Pottageville and picked up a variety of primitives, clocks, barn lanterns, stereoscopes, clock parts and more.  It took until 2:30 to finish up there. 3:00 pm off to Bond Head to pick up some items from a 160 year old home…that’s right, it was built in 1850.  Picked up a great porcelain churn on stand, school house bell on stand, a few wooden boxes, cast iron and assorted primitives. 7:00 pm my final call of the day in a little hamlet called Keenansville.  You probably have never heard of it, but I know where it is!  More primitives, lamps, lanterns, blue flowered crock, blow torches etc. The large van of mine is now full, so it is back to Barrie. I leave the van loaded because now I will need a good portion of Tuesday to sort out, tag and photo the van load. Check my answering machine and there are 7 messages for items for sale. Check my email and there are a couple of interesting emails about items for sale.  Book a few appointments, and then make a coffee and pretty well call it a day. Repeat this all several more times in a month…and you have a full sale! That’s it. Rob IF YOU HAVE ANY COMMENTS ABOUT THIS OR ANY OTHER ARTICLE, FEEL FREE TO EMAIL ME AT rob@robsageauctions.com  ALWAYS NICE TO HEAR FROM YOU!