[показать]I have never been to an auction, but having seen quite a few of them on TV, mostly in the movies, I had a preconceived notion of what an auction usually looks like. In all honesty, having decided to attend one for this assignment, I expected to walk into a bright spacious room with neat rows of chairs, nicely dressed people looking through bright catalogs, and hand-picked items that are more or less valuable. Obviously, I realized that both high-end and low-end auctions exist and that I was quite unlikely to attend a high-end one, but in any case I expected to see something at least relatively formal. Needless to say, having walked into what looked like a cluttered barn full of seemingly useless junk, I was somewhat surprised.

The room was cluttered with antique-ish looking, half-broken furniture, old toys, dishes, and a number of devices the purpose of which I could hardly comprehend. To be honest, one of the first things that came to my mind upon entering the barn was that I have never seen so many men modeling such a great variety of facial hair in one place – the majority of them paraded around with the most amusing styles of mustaches and beards. Having looked around, I was also amused to see that elegant signs usually used for bidding in movies were quite resourcefully replaced with numbered paper plates, which as I later found out served multiple purposes such as holding pastry that could be purchased in the back of the auction room, for instance.

The preview of items was scheduled from three to five, and because I arrived a little earlier, I decided to take time in order to see whether my first impression about the contents of that room was wrong. Having studies many of the items closely, I did find a few things that seemed interesting and worth bidding on, but my opinion about the rest remained unchanged – the place of those things was in the garbage, not in the auction room. This personal conclusion did not disappoint me, however, as I was very curious to see whether the majority of people in the room shared my opinion. So I took my seat and waited for the auction to begin. I waited for a long time, unreasonably long, I should say. The bidding was scheduled to begin at five, but it did not start until after six o’clock. It seemed, however, that I was the only person in the room who was opposed to waiting for so long. Having nothing better to do than observe people around me, I concluded that this particular auction was some sort of community event. Many people seemed to know each other and used the waiting time to mingle.

The bidding finally began around quarter past six with a short announcement by the auctioneer, who mentioned that they accepted both checks and credit cards and that everything was sold “as is,” which means that there is no warranty on the merchandise and the bidder is responsible for removal from the auction location. Having made these and a few other announcements, he began to talk so fast, accompanying his speech by some sort of chant, that for the next fifteen minutes I was wondering whether it was English at all that he was speaking. Not understanding a word, I was just watching the assistants carrying out different items, which came and went faster than I could blink, and people raising their numbered paper plates. After a while, the auctioneer’s words stopped sounding like a complete mambo jumbo, and among his chanting I began to distinguish a few English words. It took me another fifteen minutes to make sense out of what he said.

Half an hour into the auction, I was able to figure out how it all worked. After an assistant carried out an item, the auctioneer named a starting price and if nobody placed a bid on it, began to lower this price by a fixed amount. Most of the time, when the price reached a reasonably low level, people began to bid, raising the price back up to its original level or even higher. If, on the other hand, nobody bid on an item even after it had reached $1, the auctioneer announced that it was going to the garbage. Even after I understood the rules, however, I still had troubles keeping up with what was going on in that room. The auctioneer talked so fast, the plates were raised so quickly that my brain simply couldn’t keep up with everything that was going on. If I had had any intention to buy something that evening, I would have either been outbid every time or purchased something for a thousand dollars without even realizing it.

Other than my inability to keep up, what surprised me the most was with how much enthusiasm people were bidding on what I had previously dismissed as useless junk. In fact, many of the things that I actually believed to have some value went for just a few dollars, while a number of things that I wouldn’t have taken home even if I had been paid for it became objects of serious competition among the bidders. Overall, going to that auction was definitely an interesting experience that will come in handy if I ever decide to purchase anything this way. What seemed to be extremely easy on TV turned out to be a serious challenge to my capabilities and definitely requires some practice. This experience has also given a new meaning to the phrase “what is one man’s junk is another man’s treasure.” Next time I’ll try to be more careful before dismissing things as useless.