With a great deal of sadness, I announce the passing of Charlie McAteer, Friday July 24 2026, in his 87^th year.

If I ever called him “Charles” I would be quickly rebuked. “It’s Charlie NOT Charles!”

Charlie became part of our auction family in 2010. Estate clean outs and pick ups, loading the trucks for auction day, setting up the auction, holding up during the sale, and clean up after, Charlie was an essential part of our business.

I am reminded of the first house call Charlie and I did together. We were struggling to move a large brass cash register out of the basement, and it started to slide and pinned Charlie up against the wall. I thought I was going to lose him on our first day!  Fortunately, he worked with me for another ten years.

Charlie was highly principled, devoted to his family, and placed great importance on a good day’s work. When he started working with us, he was around 70, and he gave his everything for ten years until I had to shut down the live auctions due to the pandemic.

He often told me he loved going to auctions, and then getting paid to be at an auction was the best of both worlds for him!

Charlie and Donnie worked together for all those years and became very good friends. We dubbed them “The Sunshine Boys” and they had there own following in the auction community. Both noted for their big hugs!

Charlie and I had a running joke over the years. He told everyone how hard I worked him and how little I paid. It always got a laugh from the crowd, and I encouraged Charlie to take shots at me during the auction. Years later he told me he thought I paid him very well, but I told him to keep that a secret between him and I.

His favourite joke about me went like this. “All the auction handlers got together and voted for who was the best auctioneer to work with. Rob came in second. Everyone else tied for first!”

But seriously folks, Charlie was there for me whenever I needed him, without fail. He was dependable, hard working, and the truth is he didn’t need the job; he just loved doing it.

The pandemic shut down our live auctions in 2020, so I had to move to online auctions. Unfortunately, online auctions do not require the staff live auctions did. Charlie had turned 80 and was experiencing some mobility and health issues but our relationship did not end there.

Charlie and Donnie would continue to visit me at the online auction hall locations until Donnie passed away in 2021.

I retired in 2023 and Charlie and I made a point of getting together almost every Thursday.

Charlie would bring me a coffee and 4 of his home baked cookies. No more than 4 cookies, because he knew I would eat them all during the visit.

We would talk about politics, life in general, and the auctions in particular. “ Remember when” became an important part of our conversations. We reminisced about people we knew, experiences during pickups, near disastrous auctions that fortunately did turn out well in the end.

Many times, he reminded me of the time we were carrying items out of a house down a very long icy driveway. Charlie was carrying a very nice cranberry lamp in a box and when he started to slip, I grabbed the box and let him go down! That was Charlie’s version, in reality I am 50% sure I tried to save both of them.

Usually, our visits would last one hour and 20 minutes. Charlie would look at his watch, stand up and say it’s time to go. There was never a lull in our conversations or awkward silences. To me the visits were never long enough.

The visits continued until three weeks before he passed. I didn’t realize that would be the last visit. Two weeks later he called to say goodbye and tell me how much he enjoyed working with me. One week later he passed in hospital surround by family. He left us in true Charlie fashion.

Mom has passed, Donnie has passed, and now Charlie. I do feel an emptiness now, but I take comfort in the wonderful memories.

Charlie McAteer, I will certainly miss you, but I am so glad to have worked with you, and so proud to have become your friend.

I am always going to miss my “Thursdays With Charlie”

In January of this year, I announced I would be retiring in June of this year…final auction June 11-14.
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2023 is going to be a significant year for me…..retirement!  June 12 of this year will be our last online auction.
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I didn’t realize it’s been almost 7 months since I updated this blog…. that’s how busy this year has been!
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Another year ends, and again, it will be a year most of us will never forget. Covid-19.  I really don’t have anything more to say about that. Let’s just hope for a better 2022!

Personally, one of the major events of the year, was the passing of Donnie, Sept 7.  We knew for a few months it was coming, but still it was hard. You can read my tribute to Donnie here.

(love this photo of Mom and Donnie)

2021 marked our second year of online auctions, and like most auctioneers, the transition has been incredibly successful.

Often, I am asked, “are you going back to live auctions?”.  I will state now, we will not be going back to live auctions.

For 24 years I did live auctions, and looking back, when we did our final live auction in March 2020, two days before the lockdown, we went out on a high note. Good crowd, good prices, and all my staff together.  If I had known that was to be our final live auction, I would not have changed a thing. It was a good way to wrap up 24 years.

We did our first online auction in July 2020, working out of two storage units. By October we had moved into a large, albeit a little rough around the edges, temporary building. (a former swinger’s club, so the jokes were unending).  In this larger facility, the size of the auctions doubled.

In May 2021, we moved into a 2800 square foot facility in the Bayfield Mall Barrie. Large, clean, comfortable, great workspace and display area…could not ask for anything more!

Make no mistake, online auctions are a lot of work. We average 500 lots, and the presentation of those lots, requires approx. 3500 photos. I would estimate I work 60-70 hours per work getting the auction ready, and then there is a day of booking the pickup appointments, and two more days handling the pickups.

I do all the photos myself. I am very particular, and I don’t think I could have anyone else doing the photos for me.

Rick Osborne is my right-hand guy, or as he often refers to himself, “your mother hen”. Rick looks after the deliveries, assists me with pickups, cleans and repairs furniture if needed, and generally is doing whatever necessary to allow me the time to work on the photos.

My brother-in-law Gerry Jansen looks after the shipping.

The online auctions provide a North American selling platform. The bidder registration now, is on average 250% higher than our average live auction. We have bidders and buyers across Canada and throughout the United States.  We even shipped to England.

The sales on average are up 40% in dollar value.

Expenses are just over half of what my live auctions were costing.

We don’t worry about weather, and I don’t have to deal with escalating hall rent. Pottageville hall rental doubled in the 7 years I was there, and I was informed it would keep increasing every year.  Honestly, I don’t even know if the hall is available for rentals anymore.

Customers often tell me they miss the interaction of a live auction.  I admit, I miss that too.  I always enjoyed standing in front of a crowd and auctioneering.  However, much to my surprise, I have more interaction with most customers now, than I did when I was auctioneering.  I now have a chance to speak with customers when they pick up, talk about the items they bought, joke a little.  I couldn’t do that during a live auction.

Many of my best customers have come onboard with us, and I am meeting a whole new group of buyers, who love the online auction experience.

Consignors like the online auctions for the increased exposure, and the business keeps coming.  I could do two auctions per month, but one is all I want to handle!

So, to summarize (finally), I plan to run out the clock doing online auctions. I want to make them smaller, work a little less, and turn them into a nice “semi-retirement” project.

I need to keep active; I need to be excited about what I do, and the online auctions are filling that need for me.

So, I thank every one of you for your support during our 24 years of live auctions, and I also thank you for your enthusiastic support of our online auctions.

Let’s see what sort of ride 2022 takes us on!
Rob

10 months, 9 online auctions, and now we move again!

Our May online auction will be from our new location, 320 Bayfield Street in The Bayfield Mall, Barrie Ont. (more…)

Wow…what a year!  (and not necessarily in a good way)
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We did our first on-line auction July 15^th.

After 23 years of live auctions, this was a big change, but I will not be doing any live auctions for the remainder of this year, so I had to give it a shot!
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