I Wanted to Enjoy A Muskoka "Country Auction" Not a Big City Sale - And I Got Quite a Good Response Writing About Them in the Weekly Press

Birch Hollow Photo by Suzanne Currie

      Whenever I had reason to seek out employment in the city, Toronto specifically, I would have a corresponding reason to get the hell out of there, and fast. It always seemed necessary to go through the motions, of appearing eager to work where work was most abundant, but each and every time, I would suddenly take a vow of poverty, and hop on the next bus back home to South Muskoka. I had enjoyed the Toronto experience (where my parents' and their parents were from), during my university years, but only because I knew that once I graduated, it would only be on special occasions, and a few antique buying trips, that I would return to enjoy what the city could offer the guy from the sticks. And then I'd flee once more, and be grateful to hit the southern boundary of Muskoka on Highway 11. I can't really explain it, except for the fact, that when my parents moved up north from Burlington in the mid 1960's, my love affair with the great-wide-open hit into high gear immediately. I married a local girl with pioneer roots here, and both our sons were born in Bracebridge. And I've been writing about Bracebridge, Gravenhurst, and Muskoka generally, as a regional historian and voyeur generally, since 1977 when I took up residence at the old McGibbon House, across from Bracebridge's Memorial Park. It was where my first antique shop was situated, and the place where I turned pro as a writer at the same time. You can thusly understand why I find it hard to separate the two professions that have been side by side in my psyche all these years later.

     I don't know whether or not, my former antique colleague, Wendy Smid might read this post, on those great old Muskoka auctions, of once, long ago, but because I always thought of her antiquing skills as much higher than my own, I rather think it appropriate to dedicate these next few words to her, for the casual, over-the-counter mentoring she provided me with, during many quiet times at my second main street shop, in the W.W. Kinsey building on Manitoba Street. Wendy, maybe some of the references will make you chuckle, or not! But they happened anyway, and I laughed.

     The auction sales I most enjoyed back in the 1980's and 1990's, were the open air variety, at country locations, and most definitely at some of our region's heritage farms. Auctions, in those days, were uncomplicated affairs that were often, for us in the antique profession, good for communing with our colleague / competitors, to compare our respective war stories, about trying to turn a profit in a seasonal economy, with high rents, and the high prices for inventory to keep our shops at least appearing full. Ninety percent of the dealers criss crossing our district, looking for decent antique finds, were fundamentally cash starved, until about the first week of August. So we shared business stresses, and tried valiantly to outwit and outperform collectors and home decorators at auction sales especially. I recall somewhat more about these sales than my partner antique dealers, simply because I was writing a column for the local press under the heading "The Auction Roll." It did give me some advantage over my mates, also tough competitors each and every one, but it did force me to pay attention to what was going on at these Muskoka flavored country sales, because I needed material to fill out the weekly editorial piece. And each sale, in my journalistic opinion, was as if Stephen Leacock had written the script, and attendees were actually playing out their appointed theatrical rolls. Gosh, they were so deliciously character-filled, with so many curious antics, and gamesmanship, which was always too comical to get mad at, or to want to seek revenge later in the sale. That would have meant bidding up an associate on something you knew ahead of time, they wanted to purchase for their shops. There were very few comments back and forth once the sale began, but there were always the grimaces and lip actions, to match the icy glares across the crowded centre lane of a typical farm sale.

     Here's an example. A dealer friend came up to me, before the sale got underway, and explained how very much she wanted a particular cranberry glass decanter and six matching glasses, and how it would be a tremendous favor to her if I, for one, (a buyer of cranberry glass for Suzanne, who is a collector), would not bid her up when the lot came for sale. I reluctantly agreed, because I needed favors from all my dealer colleagues, and this seemed like a small sacrifice to make this one time. I did ask her then, to refrain bidding me up on a vintage sleigh I really liked, and wanted as a centre piece for a winter display I was planning for that coming Christmas. When the bidding for the cranberry glass pieces started, I did not wiggle an ear, or touch my nose, or do anything to catch the auctioneer's eye, that would subsequently raise the current bid. I know that three other of her dealer friends respectfully declined to bid her up, and the cranberry lot went to her for about fifty bucks. Normally it would have gone for a lot more, and in reality, we had colluded to let her have the pieces, which in this case, didn't help the auctioneer or the estate, that would have liked a higher concluding price.

     When my sleigh came up, about an hour later, I was the highest bidder at about forty dollars, and at the count of two out of the three calls for closing out the bidding, another increment was reached, and I just retaliated with five more bids, until Suzanne nearly pulled my arm off, to let me know we had surpassed our agreed limit. Okay, okay, I stopped. But I did have to see who had such deep pockets, to over spend on the sleigh. Ah, that was kind of a surprise, but not really. My associate who had made the deal, had broken her promise, and actually walked off with what was supposed to me my key purchase of the day. And the same dealer repeated the misconduct, three more times that afternoon, over-riding bids from others, who she had made a non-competition deal with, before the sale had even begun. Well, let's just say, that what goes around, comes around, even in the antique business. We bid her up on everything else she wanted that day, and for a few sales after that, until she got the message about professional courtesy.

     One of the other habits of a few annoying collectors, who attended these sales, was the stacking of job-lot boxes, so that the items they wanted, were all tucked into the same box. Meaning, that when a row of boxes, possibly a dozen, were about to be sold by the auctioneer, on a "take one or take them all basis", the person who sorted all the boxes, and transplanted all the best stuff into one, making a super box of "money items," they knew how much more they could bid than other buyers, who basically only saw a few decent pieces in the lot, and had no idea there was one stacked box above all others. Let's say the boxes were books, and collectors and dealers had moved books from one box to another, in order to get one box that had all of the titles they wanted most from what could have easily represented two hundred books. They also might have, in actual book value, amassed a super box collection that might have represented an investment value of three to five hundred dollars. Now, for someone who hadn't even thought about re-locating the books on their own, which is quite unethical, they probably just recalled that it was box number five, with the red lettering on one of the flaps, that had what they wished to bid on, when the sale commenced; and that the auctioneer was offering them on choice, the winning bidder taking how ever many boxes desired, at the final price per box. If the winning bid was twenty dollars, then five boxes would have cost one hundred. But the person looking for that specific red lettered box, would only have been disappointed, if they had won the bid, taken only one box, for twenty bucks, and then found out that the one or two titles they most wanted, had been switched to another box, being of course, the supper box, that only one bidder knew existed. So when that tampering bidder wins the bid, from the start-up featuring the boxes of books, there is only one box taken, for whatever price was finally achieved, and that would leave eleven depleted boxes for the next re-bid effort. The collector who stacked the box, took every decent "money" book, and left books best for recycling, especially if you a book dealer looking for salable inventory. I was the avenger, by the way, and I used to put the books back where they had been pulled from, ruining this staging activity, for the rogue collector, which was one hell of a lot of fun by the way, and to make it more interesting, I used to play my columnist card with the auctioneer, by asking a favor. "Would you mind putting the books up as soon as possibly, because I have to leave for a family affair in the next ten minutes?" "Sure Ted; I'll take a short coffee break, and they'll be auctioned first thing when I get back." I never lost a lot of books in all the time I attended these character-filled country auctions, with this most unique and charming Muskoka ambience. And when the very busy collector, returned from coffee rather slowly, in the midst of chatter with another dealer, they were able to witness from afar, the auction resume where they hadn't expected, as there had been a jump of about a hundred items in between, where the sale had ended at the break; and they arrived on the scene of the book lot sell-off, just in time for the gavel to hit wood, announcing they had all been sold to "Mr. Currie, for five bucks a box." "I'll take them all Art (Campbell), thanks so much." "Folks, Mr. Currie has just helped us out today, to get this sale over and done with, by purchasing all twelve boxes of these fine old books." Gads, to see the look on the collector's face, at having been taught a wee lesson about auction protocol, well, it was worth it, suffice to say.

     I've got a lot of auction stories to share, so please stay tuned to this site in the coming days.