collector's auction

collector's auction --

treasures of a lifetime sold

to the highest bidder

"You have to have a number to bid," the lady sitting at the entrance to the convention hall says. "I just want to look around," I reply. I've done enough bidding to know I'd better not take a number.

          It's a two-day collector's auction, combining several estates. As I walk around the long tables spread with collectibles with my friend, we're both saying things like, "My father brought me a doll just like that from Switzerland," or "I remember when I won a set of yellow carnival glass plates," or "I've got an old glass milk bottle, but it has a little bulge on top for the cream," or "Whatever happened to my marble collection?" 

          And then of course I realize that this is probably what will happen to my accumulation of a lifetime. It will end up at an estate auction, passing into another person's life and then another and another, until what? Maybe a museum, or maybe the local dump, where some archaeologist in the far distant future will unearth the remains of ancient treasures and wonder, "What on earth did they use that thing for?"

baby dolls, teddy bear

baby dolls, teddy bear --

one dollar bid, now two, now two,

will you give me two?

"I grew up wearing shirts made out of these," Dan says, pointing to the cotton seed sacks draped on the back of an old wooden bench. "Grandma's ring was two longs and a short," he adds, as he examines an antique crank telephone in its oak cabinet. "She was the supervisor at the telephone switchboard exchange. It was such a huge room she used to roller skate from one side to the other to check on the operators. She knew everyone's exchange number and when she saw someone in town, she'd say, 'Hello, DM6-7182.'" 

"Look at this," Cindy says, pointing to a can of Morrell Snow Cap Pure Lard. "Grandma used to make biscuits and pie crust with that stuff."

With his bidding number in his red plaid shirt pocket, a man with a white beard squints at the pair of black cowboy hats being put up for bid. But he's not bidding. He likes his farmer's cap just fine. 

"Two dollars, now three, now three, will you give me three?" the auctioneer bid calls over the microphone as he raises two fingers. He's sitting above the crowd in a specially designed cab on the back of his pickup truck. The ringman in the auction ring on the floor picks up one item after another from the long tables set up in the Civic Center. He helps spot bids. When the bidding stops, the auctioneer cries, "Going once, going twice, sold!"

"This here concrete floor is hard on my old feet," an elderly woman says as she rests her bones on an antique hall chair. "I gotta set me down for a spell."

"And you know, Myrtle said she'd never seen the like," one white-haired woman says to her friend. They could be sitting at home around their own round oak table piled high with Pfaltzgraff dishes.

"I got me a shed full of them old tools," one farmer says to another. "Like that old pick ax. Gotta replace the handle when it splits, but it still works just fine."

The woman with the can of cola looks bored. Maybe she'd perk up if she took a peek at the table where the Ken and Barbie dolls are having a party!