One Auction Over-Easy!

Well, today was certainly interesting. Got up as usual at five and went to the world's most horrible estate sale in Akron. How bad was it? Well, let's just say that a 1940's book club edition of  Kenneth Roberts' Lydia Bailey was the finest book in the house. Eric bought a rusty guy thing for five dollars and I bought absolutely nothing. I guess we should have had a clue when we got to the house and saw that the one next door had its windows blown out and a sign from the city tacked to the wide-open front door.  I am trying to keep an open mind, but I'm telling you this not  being a book snob thing isn't easy.

Anyway, we left there and made it back to Medina by 9:30. There was an auction  down the street and around the corner from my house, so I decided to wander down and see if they had anything good. I knew about it and, in fact, had looked it up online, but it was mostly  a Disneyana sale and failed to get me too worked up. But since it was THERE, and the sun was shining, a little exercise and some vitamin D rays seemed like a good idea. I think in all there were maybe 15 people -- okay, maybe twenty-five -- gathered in the front yard. I took a look around, but if you weren't into Cinderella wedding cake toppers, rusty Mickey Mouse lunchboxes etc. this was a five minute operation. To be fair, they did have some really fine older toys in their original boxes and got a lot of money for them. One wind-up Donald Duck alone fetched $300. Sadly, I am not charmed by Disney, so it was all pretty much lost on me.

BUT they did have two flats of paper I wanted and some aviation magazines. I wasn't willing to wait all afternoon for them to come up on the block, but I didn't have to. Within twenty minutes I had spent $140 on the two flats, paid the bill, and was strolling home in the sun carrying them, happy as a bookseller can be in these crazy times.  I quickly made some coffee, sat down on the kitchen floor and had a look at the goodies. I didn't buy the aviation magaines because they ultimately went to $100 a flat for six issues each. As it turned out, I got a couple anyway in one of the flats, as well as a 19th century Anti-Saloon League leaflet, and several excellent manufacturer's catalogs -- one for Hotpoint Servants, which turned out to be small appliances, and a killer one for stoves which actually made me jump up and twirl around the kitchen. I also got a very nice 1929 Standard Oil Ohio road map, two little magazines from the Alexander Aircraft Company with gorgeous  graphic covers and a superb strereopticon card showing African American workers on  a train at the west portal of the Hoosac Tunnel. There's some nice Golden Age of Travel pieces too, plus a 1917 WWI entertainment program for the Second Officer's Training Camp at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indiana. Of all the items it's the only one that has real condition issues, but it's solid and clean (now that I cleaned it), though stainned, and will be great for the antiques mall.

The last thing I did before it was officially noon was to call a woman who had left me a message at the antiques mall about wanting to sell some books. I will go see them this week sometime, but I don't think they're good. I think SHE was pretty good though. Turns out, she had met my frend Cheryl this summer on a trip to Chicago, so we wound up laughing and talking like we'd known each forever.

Oh! Speaking of the antiques mall, yesterday I found a great bookcase on Craigslist and actually GOT it, which is rare, as most of the time the stuff's already sold and the seller forgot to remove it. It was sort of a comedy of errors as it turned out,  but I'll spare you that story. Suffice it to say it's very nice, matches the ones I have, and only cost $50. We installed it yesterday which means that the booth is officially one hundred percent done unless we sell the furniture. If we add anything other than books we NEED a second booth.

Okay then, you're up-to-date on the happenings here.  I took an array of photos for your pleasure, so scroll down and see some of what I got today.

Auction Fever!

Given my recent experiences with auctions you wouldn't think I'd touch another one with a ten foot library ladder, but yesterday found us in the second row at one notorious for its ridiculous prices. I was waiting for it to begin and thinking about the futility of it all when my friend Darwin appeared beside me and said, “So. Is this going to be in your blog tomorrow?” I assured him it most likely would, whereupon he laughed and said, “and you'll bitch about the prices too, right?” I assured him  it was highly likely. But guess what? I’m not going to! This post comes from one very happy auction-goer.

The reason I wanted to attend this particular sale was to acquire two specific antiquarian books – The History of Medina County and The History of the Upper Ohio Valley in two volumes. Past experience has shown that local history books, even in ratty condition, will often exceed retail value at this sale. But the more I  watched both what people looked at hardest and the realized prices of the first dozen or so items, the perkier I got. By the time the books came up on the block I knew I’d score them – and I did. The Ohio Valley set is especially fine – bright shiny gilt page edges, no cracking to the hinges, and pristine pages. Why I picked these off so easily, I don’t know, but I have a hunch that the book gods took pity on me for past pain and suffering.

Encouraged by this outcome, I then dared to think that maybe I might even land one of the three gorgeous celluloid photograph albums they had. These I totally love – love the velvet ones too – and have sold them for years, but if they’re nice they tend to go bonkers. And these were quite nice. I didn’t get first choice and the guy who won the first round took the one I fancied, but in the end I think I wound up with the most interesting of the lot anyway. Not only does it have a pleasing picture on the front, but it sits atop a music box.

Paper items abounded at this sale and, as always, you could have mistaken them for big-screen TVs tuned to the Super Bowl the way they attracted men. The connection between men and paper seems primal, a phenomenon that baffles me as much now as it did ten years ago when I first started buying it. Women look at it in a desultory fashion, but it’s usually me and the guys doing battle to attain it. This time I opted to stay out of the action for postcards, photographs, and magazines and keep my eye on the prize – a skimpy box of odds and ends with just enough junk to camouflage three great catalogs, one of which (a tome on blast furnaces) was hardbound (the best), and a directory and program for the National Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic in Boston in  1904, replete with a large, fold-out map that’s not even torn. It did get a little dicey – there was one guy who snapped up everything – but in the end he let me have the flat for $35. I couldn’t have been happier than if Kool and the Gang had showed up to sing a chorus of Celebrate Good Times.

By this point I was fairly drunk with joy which led me to buy two more things– a pretty little French inspired occasional table for the antiques mall and a Victorian office chair upholstered  in purple. No, I’m not going  into the antiques business – I just think the little table will be nice in the booth and my miniature set of Ruskin will look quite fetching on top of  it. As for the chair – that one’s for my soon-to-be-redone office. I hesitated to take a picture of it sitting in the middle of the kitchen, but I can’t drag it upstairs by myself and it would look terrible there anyway with the current décor, so you will just have to look at it out of context. I think most of you will hate it anyway (which is why I got it for $35) , so it doesn’t matter. But I LOVE it. I got up this morning at five, sat down on it right there by the refrigerator and swiveled around like Donald Trump buying a new hotel.

Once all gazillion pounds of it are upstairs and the walls are painted a lovely pearl grey – look out. These dispatches will be coming from the Queen of Everything!

What I Learned At the Auction

Just when I think I’ve told you every possible variation on auctions and sales something new pops up. Such was the case this weekend when we attended our fourth auction presided over by my favorite singing auctioneer. As always, I had read the bill of sale multiple times and checked the website twice to study both the original photos and the later additions. And yet that old familiar feeling that we were about to plunge blindfolded into the dark abyss overcame me Saturday morning as we hit the road heading south. As it turns out, it was not without provocation.


For some odd reason estate sale companies and auctioneers do not like to photograph individual books, preferring instead the quantity approach which entails jumbled photos of heaps and mounds of books on the floor, shelves of books taken from dueling distance, or rows of small book lots lined up on tables under glaring lights. Descriptions consist of the actual titles of two or three books (most of which are never the books you’d want anyway) and then a generic catch-all for the rest such as “lots of books,” “large book collection”, or “many old books.” “Many”, “large” and “lots” are words as loaded as  cannons in The 1812 Overture – they make a lot of noise, but in the end they usually go up in a puff of smoke.


In this instance the auction company photographed two indivdual books -- a two volume military history and a turn of the century, rather common, volume on the Spanish American War. I already have both, but they weren’t bad looking, so I thought perhaps they were a good omen. It’s always wise when going to an auction that has books to check out the other offerings as well to get a general feel for the quality of the sale. I did that too and was pleased to see that it was much better than usual. In fact, I had my eye on a chair, a  Victorian era print in its original frame showing the progression of a woman’s life, and two paperweights, one featuring the likeness of Andrew Jackson etched on babbitt metal and so incredibly heavy you needed a forklift to pick it up. All were for the antiques mall.


But did I get any of these things? No, I did not. And here’s why. The crowd was huge and right from the get-go when the first item, a set of sterling flatware in its showcase wooden box, hit the block and sold in a spirited round for $1500, the mood shifted to a new level. You could feel it in the air as palpable as cottonwood seeds during a Michigan spring. Everyone knew that if you wanted something badly you’d better plan to dig deep -- which is fine of course if you are buying for yourself, not so fine if you are a dealer. One by one I lost every non-book item I wanted even though I overbid in a couple instances and was relieved to be saved from myself.


Before I tell you what happened with the books you need to know that most of them were about antiques and included out-of-date price guides (all price guides are out of  date by the time they come off the press) but these were from the 70’s and 80’s. The only goodies were two antiquarian children’s books, one of which was offered up with two pedestrian titles in a lot. The book I wanted would sell for around $60 retail– the other two were essentially worthless.


So then -- up comes the first book of the day, A Catalogue of American Antiques, a book so common that on Advanced Book Exchange alone there are 163 copies, most of which are available for $3-$5. This one practically screamed “loser!” into a megaphone, but the crowd had whipped itself into such a frenzy it failed to hear it. By the time the gavel went down several bidders had pushed the price to $65. Yes, really -- $65!!!!!! And that was just the beginning. Several encores of this performance ensued in rapid succession until finally Eric and I stood as one person and departed in a shocked stupor.This wasn’t the first time we’ve witnessed such a thing, but it never fails to send me reeling. I have no way to prove anything here, but it’s been my observation that the more rural the area the more likely it is that books will go crazy if the crowd is large.


Once I saw a Dover paperback reprint on American Indians sell for $40 on a choice-out and another time stood back in horor while a guy vastly overpaid for the 1909 two volume set, Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant. The auctioneer announced that both volumes were signed by Grant, which they of course were not except in facsimile. An Akron dealer in antiquarian books politely pointed this out and I seconded it, but the auctioneer said, “Well folks, it’s up to you to decide who’s right.” The crowd went with the auctioneer and the winner paid TWICE what he should have, which is amusing insofar as he would have stolen them at that price if they’d really been signed.


But here's the thing -- while internet sellers chop prices like firewood a parallel universe exists off-line. Neither reflects reasonable value and yet in this crazy world both “work.” What does it   mean? I suppose you could spend vast amounts of time and research figuring it out, but to me the simple message is both clear and hopeful. Books and antiques may indeed be dying just the pundits say they are. But I think it's also safe to say that it's a bit too early to plan the funeral. Plan instead a new approach to selling them.