By Steve Hathcock
It was a hot, dry summer. My older brother, Bill, speaking with sixteen years of experience, opined “this is as hot as I’ve ever seen!”
My folks owned a small second hand, antique shop (down on South Water Street just before where the road splits into a Y) and would spend their weekends going to auctions to stock the store. Mom and Dad were smart buyers, always seeming to know what it was they were bidding on. In fact, it got to the point that others would bid against them even if they had no interest in what was being offered. The assumption being, that whatever it was, it had to be worth something, or Sam and Theresa Nichols would not be interested in it! Now, I know it is usually considered an honor to have your talents and expertise held in such high esteem, but in my folk’s case, it proved expensive too.
On this particular occasion, the sale was being held at one of the original farms that had been established sometime in the 1850s. This was going to be a good sale and my mom had me and my brother Bill come along to help load the truck.
As soon as we arrived, we separated; mom checking out the glassware and china, dad looking over the tools, guns and any equipment while my brother and I went through the boxes of junk. It was not long before I found a big cardboard box overflowing with ancient newspapers, letters, post-cards and old family photos. At this time, I was a coin collector and knew nothing of the value of paper collectibles, but some kind-a sixth sense told me this was a good box to get.
I wandered over to the snack shack and bought myself a Sun Drop Cola and a barbecue sandwich. My mom was in a heavy conversation with a local dairy man who had just bought an old farm adjoining his up on Saint Mary’s Ridge. He asked if my folks were interested in hauling off the furniture.
A sudden roaring drowned mother’s reply. I turned to watch as a skinny man in baggy pants adjusted the choke on the self-propelling mower he had just started. There was a loud bang followed by an embarrassingly flatulent sound. A huge cloud of black smoke drifted on the wind. Non-plussed, the man gave another sharp tug on the starter cord which promptly broke, causing him to fall on his hind side. Red faced; he gave the mower a kick. A hundred voices roared with laughter as the man grabbed his foot and hopped over to sit on the cement stoop.
A gradual hush fell over the crowd. Lloyd Betts, the auctioneer had just left the coolness of the house. After a couple of words of commiseration to the man with the sore foot, Lloyd walked over to where his microphone and speaker sat upon the tailgate of an old Dodge pick-‘em up truck. The auction was about to begin.
Every auction will have about as complete of a cross section of humankind as a person can expect to see anywhere, short of the second coming. Swede Haney, manure still sticking to his clodhoppers, red handkerchief casually hanging out of the back pocket of his wore-out “Oskoshes”, (bib overhauls) stood jawboning with a couple of his cronies. Swede, who considered himself a poker player, was the kind of guy who really had no interest in whatever was being offered. His fun lay in bedeviling others whose bids were not deemed high enough for him. He could be counted on to drive the bid up by a few dollars and then drop out of the bidding all together. “To rich for my blood” Swede would stage whisper, shaking his little round head. To Swede, the game was not in how many bids you won, rather, how many bids you had successfully driven up! There were other poker players in that crowd though, and an interesting battle began to shape up. Perhaps Wilford Beaver, president of the Historical Society, or one of the other regulars would pretend an interest in an item. Knowing full well that the Swede was watching, they would furtively inspect an old, chipped coffee mug or an incomplete box of Christmas tree lights, would suddenly attract their attention.
Cautiously they would bid fifty cents. Swede would counter with a dollar. The challenge had been issued and accepted. Now came the fun part, it was considered a real coup to stick Swede with whatever he had bid on, but the question remained; how high did a person dare to drive the bid before the Swede would drop out?
Swede was batting them out of the park today; he had bid on the first five items and had not won a lot yet. Finally, the box I was interested in came up for bid. I held my breath as Swede poked his hand under the letters and felt around. The auctioneer called the number of the lot. Impulsively, I opened for a dollar. Swede stiffened, slowly withdrawing his hand from the box. He and the crowd both turned towards me at the same time. There I stood, about five feet tall, an innocent curly headed slender boy of 12. Was I destined to be Swedes next victim?
The auctioneer was chanting now, “Hey! I’ve gotta dollar, who bids two? Swede raised his hand and shouted, “A buck anna quarter!”
“And a half,” I quickly responded.
Swede stroked his chin, regarding me now. The auctioneer sounded like a person speaking in tongues as he chanted “Hey hey! We got a buck fifty and now we need two! I sensed someone at my side and out of the corner of my eye I could see that my mother had moved closer.
“Two dollars!” Swede shouted.
I hesitated, and then replied “$2.50.”Everyone turned back to the Swede who was thoughtfully picking at the corner of his nose with that bright red hanky.
“Going once,” the auctioneer intoned. My smirk must have triggered something in the Swede because he suddenly spoke up; “Raise you a buck kid”.
The bidding now sat at three and a half dollars, a lot of money for a twelve-year-old. Turning my body slightly away, I opened my billfold and slowly counted my money. I already knew how much it contained, but I was playing Swedes game now. I turned to my mother and cupped my hand so only she would hear my whispered words. She gave me a puzzled look upon hearing my request, but the confidence in my eye bespoke my resolve.
“Don’t go any higher than five dollars” she stage-whispered just loud enough for everyone to hear.
The attention was all on me now.
Ahh….four dollars and fifty cents I stuttered.
“I raise the kid a quarter,” Swede shouted gleefully.
I cast my eyes to the ground and for the longest time hesitated.
“Going once,” the auctioneer intoned; Swede began to fidget, was he going to get stuck with the bid after all?
“Going twice”
“Five dollars I shouted just before the auctioneer could say sold. Swede actually laughed aloud as he shook his head, he had stuck me with the bid!
Later, Swede came over to gloat. “Hey kid, you really think that box of junk is worth 5 bucks”?
In reply I reached deep into the box and pulled out an old photo album. There must have been over one hundred sheets of mint three cent stamps lying between the leaves of that book.
At a dollar fifty a sheet face-value, I had already realized a profit of $145.00! Swede laughed so hard he had to wipe the tears from his eyes.
Later, when I went through the box, I found a bundle of letters from a married couple that had survived interment as Japanese prisoners of war. The husband had been a high-level executive in an American airline operating out of Hong Kong. Arrested as a spy, his letters told of how close to death he had been before his tormentors had tired of torturing him. She had been interred on one of the Islands and had suffered through five years of forced labor and malnutrition. Their letters were of great historical value, and I received a sizable amount of money from an Eastern stamp company that specialized in that type of memorabilia.
As a teenager, I started a small mail order stamp business and today I still have stamps and postcards that came from that original buy.
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