The Auction

I wanted to tell you all about my new favorite Friday morning hobby: going to the auction!

About 10 minutes from my house is an Auction-house called Thompson's. Every Friday afternoon, they hold an auction. They mostly auction-off furniture, but there are plenty of other knick-knacks, decorative items, jewelry, china, etc. And there are lots of antiques!

On Wednesday afternoons, Thompson's puts pictures and descriptions of all of their "lots" for the week, along with approximate prices on-line: http://www.thompsonsauctioneers.com/
There are typically somewhere around 600-700 items! Customers are welcome to go to the warehouse on Thursday evenings or Friday mornings to see all of the lots. If you see something that you're interested in, you can put in bids three ways: 1) You can email in a bid. 2) You can go to the warehouse and submit a paper bid. Or 3) You can stay for the actual auction, and put in a bid when your item is up! I've never been present for the actual auction since it takes place during Collin's nap time, but I do put in a bid on paper just about every week.

So, my routine is: I typically go through their list sometime before Friday, and I take note of items I may be interested in. Then on Friday mornings, Collin and I head to the auction house. We squeeze our way through the tight rows lined with furniture, which believe me, isn't very easy with his stroller! I look at the items I made note of, check the quality, and typically find a few more items that I hadn't noticed before! :) I then decide what I want to bid for each item and I submit my bid. Then, if I've won something, I get an email that afternoon, and I have to go pick it up the next day.

I always bid low, unless there's something I really want. Because of that, I only win a small fraction of what I bid on. But, then it's always a delight when I actually win something, because I know I got it for a good price. So far, I've won Maddie's dollhouse (see the previous post about her birthday), a mahogany bookshelf, a coffee table, an oval mirror, some enamel pans (that I'll use as planters someday), and a pine desk that I will probably use as a kitchen work station for myself someday.And just yesterday, I won two desks for the kids' rooms! (The pine desk came with a bedside table which I've been looking for too!)So there you have it! I may not have a Target around here and it may take me 20 minutes to get to the closest supermarket, but at least I have the auction house!