RESTORE STORE AUCTION.
I few days ago I saw this vase in the Habitat Restore Store in Asheville where people donate objects they don’t want to support Habitat for Humanity. The vase was in the section of the store where every second Wednesday at 2 p.m. they auction off the most valuable or interesting donations that they have received recently. In the two weeks before the auction people can enter into a notebook a bid for any of the items on display along with their name and phone number. There is a base price and then people have to enter increments of $3 or $5 or more in the book. At the actual auction, if no one bids higher, this person is informed and can come in and claim the article for what they bid.
On the day of the auction each article is held up and described with the highest silent bid as the bidding starting point. If only one person seated in the chairs in front of the auction raises their hand they will win the article at the bidded price plus the listed increment. But if two or more people are interested then they step forward and write their bid on a piece of paper with the highest bid winning the article.
A large heavy cast iron cooking pot one foot by two feet was apparently the prize of the day. I know nothing about cast iron cooking pots and might have bid $50 and used it as a planter. Others knew much more about cast iron cooking pots including the company making the pot and so the pot had been bid in the silent auction up to $750. Five people stepped forward. The guy sitting next to me, a carpenter and a potter, who apparently liked to cook, said it would go for at least $850. He lusted after it but since he would only use it for cooking said it was out of his league. The winning bid was $1250. The carpenter said that on line a similar pot was offered for $2000 and that the guy who bought it would resell it on line.
I was learning that of the twenty people there at least three or four were dealers who bought only what they could sell in their stores at a profit. They each bought a number of things. Other people were collectors who simply liked beautiful things. Many of the people were there just for one thing which they just had to have. Some of the things people had to have such as old cameras or 1970’s telephones didn’t seem worth anywhere close to what people were willing to pay.
I was there just for one thing, the vase, which I thought might be Venetian. The silent bid was $40. I put my hand up to buy it for $45 and thought it was mine. But no, an old lady, probably my age, also put her hand up and limped up to make a bid. We both wrote a bid on a piece of paper, mine was $50, so was hers. With a tie we had to bid again, writing another bid down. I was determined to get the vase and bid high, $70. So did she. Suddenly, on the third round, I lost my nerve, how high would she go? So I bid $80, knowing she would outbid me and she did. For $95 she got the vase which I had been lusting for for three days and could already see on my window sill, with just the question of what I would put in it. All I have is the photograph above. Later when I got home and figured out how to use AI to search on line for a similar vase I found a number of vases, just like this one, for $40 apiece. So at least my giving up was reasonable.
But by this time I was addicted to the process and discovered I was a gambler at heart. When a Victorian lamp was held up and described, a lamp that I liked but dismissed because the silent bid was $150, I discovered the high bid was $90. When asked if anyone was interested my arm, of its own volition, shot up without my willing it. It was suddenly mine for $93 and I love it. I also got some Indian puppets to go with my other Indian puppets uncontested for $8. I went home happy but still dreaming about the vase.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 