On Monday night, I went out to Dundas with some friends to attend an estate auction. It was the first auction that I’d ever been to and I was kind of excited. Located in a community center off the highway, the place was packed and actually quite joyless. It wasn’t what I expected it to be, which was kind of social, charming even—like The Antique Road Show, only infused with energy and anxiety associated with gambling.
No, it was a room full of serious, old people and professional collectors. I always thought that the antique dealers would resemble Queen street hipsters, or maybe southern gentleman with exquisite drawls, but these people looked like the guys at the Ex who took your money before you stepped onto The Scrambler. They were outsiders, people who lived amongst dirt and junk, hoping to find profit in garbage.
The woman who took our Visa card numbers and gave us our auction flag, had an irritated porcine face and the blunt manner of somebody who expected no favours in this world, and thus, would grant none.
The concession stand was booming. Tim Horton’s donuts and plastic-wrapped burgers– that were heated in a microwave– were flying off the shelves. People sat on folding chairs, still wearing all their winter gear, eating a hasty dinner as they settled in for the next four hours of stationary shoping.
The auctioneer kept tugging at the collar of his sweater, clearly worried he was going to collapse in the heat of the room. As he was zipping along, he would occasionally punctuate his patter with a request, “open the back door, there,” before returning to “heynowi’vegot50caniget75757575!”
In front of him stood a man whose job it was to hold up the items being bid upon. Tall and bespectacled, he had the appearance of an owl. Obscured by the painting he was holding up, the only thing you could see were his eyes and his big, grey mustache. Every once in awhile, as if in counterpoint to the rhythm of the auctioneer, he would shout out “HEP!” He reminded me of a Muppet.
It’s funny, but what the auction reminded me of was a bingo hall. Rachelle and I went to one in Toronto last year, and we expected it to be, well, fun, but it wasn’t. The people there were not social, but wholly concentrated on the task in front of them. They wanted a BINGO, and anything that might distract from that was to be shot a sour and hateful look.
No matter, I was at the auction for the experience and was determined to bid on something, if only to feel the giddy rush of competition. I had hoped that something small, that I could relate to, like baseball cards or comic books would pop up, and in a sentimental gesture, I could bid on it. However, I didn’t have a clue what anything was worth, and so I just stayed quiet.
This continued until a bayonet came up for bid. A BAYONET. I have never in my life wanted a bayonet, and have, in fact, always thought that people who had decorative knives in their home were creepy. But as soon as this Remington Bayonet from 1917 came up, I wanted it, and began waving my little number 76 around bidding on a killing instrument. This probably tells you everything you need to know about the psychology that infects people at an auction house.
Thankfully, I did not get it. However, my friends Steve and Candace bid successfully on items, and in each case, when the auctioneer yelled SOLD! and pointed at them, they each exhaled the word “fuck, ” shaking their heads.