Mother Nature Gets A Little Testy…

but is still no match for our auction goers!

Mother nature did provide some challenges to our Feb 19 auction, but Mother Nature may not understand the nature of auction goers! Yes we had almost blizzard conditions Saturday morning, especially north of Pottageville.  I live in Barrie and it was a slow drive to the hall at 7:00 am sale morning.  And it seemed to get worse to the north and west of us, but fortunately conditions were not too bad in Pottageville. Over the last 15 years I have been very lucky when it came to auctions and winter weather.  Really have never had a problem.  Although this did look bad Saturday morning, believe it or not, I really was not worried. I know auction people, and I know some blowing snow is not going to keep them away! A full scale blizzard could be disastrous, but Saturday’s weather was not going to do it! The crowd was a little slower getting in.  Usually we have people there before preview time starts, but Saturday only one person made it before the preview started. However, by the time the auction started, we had about 90 people registered. Usually we have 100 to start the auction, so we were not down by much.  By 11:00 we had a full house again, with 138 people registered by sales end. Once again I had a large auction, and we finally wrapped it up at 5:45.  Almost an 8 hour auction! We had some very good items and prices were pretty good throughout the auction. We got into some good pieces early in the sale, and from noon to 2:00 were the power hours!  That’s when I try and put all the major pieces through, and then gradually taper off to the lower end pieces by about 3:30 or 4:00. The hard core buyers were still there at the very end, even though we were selling mostly low end smalls and tray and box lots.  However, I had decided I was going to do my best to clean up a back log of low end items, and this was going to be the sale to do it.  Having accomplished that, I can now focus on making the sales the way I really want them.! I think I have a pretty good idea of what items people want, and from here on in the focus is going to be on bringing only those items into the sale.  Not that everything is going to be expensive.  I just want to make sure the items in our auction are going to be in demand.  We do well with good furniture, good glass and china, good lighting,  good primitives…well I think you get the point!  I have been following though on a plan I started with last September, and now I have finally got it to the point I had originally planned for! So now I have to keep the ball rolling, and it looks like that is not going to be a problem.  The phone keeps ringing and the good merchandise keeps coming in, and that’s really all I can ask for! Time now to start work on the next auction.  Already there are loads to be picked up, consignors to be paid, and lots of paper work over the next day or two!  (the paperwork is maybe the only part of this business that does not appeal to me, but I make sure it is done promptly after each auction) Have fun on the auction trail! 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!