Michael Prowse, proprietor and auctioneer of Pilton Auctions, is rummaging through boxes at the back of his warehouse office, climbing up a wooden ladder and hiding under a corrugated metal and plastic roof. “We’ve got some scary stuff in here,” Michael says, “but it’s going in the bin now.” I ask him what the strangest item he’s ever sold at auction is. He’s not sure, but he’s on a mission to find the strangest item that doesn’t sell, which has turned up during Pilton Auctions’ regular housecleaning.
I met a man in his 50s who came to me with six German photo albums from World War II. Finding Nemo bag
“What is that?” I ask, not sure if I want to know the answer.
“That’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen,” Michael replied.
A blonde hair caught a glimpse behind the box he was moving.
“Oh no,” I said, morbid curiosity driving me to look more closely, “Is that a… sex doll?”
“Yes,” he said as he opened the box, “look at that face. How can you say that?”
What bothers me most is the face. This sex doll had apparently been stored somewhere very warm and it had melted. There’s a strangely shiny pool of tan latex at the bottom of the box, and the doll itself is a bit chipped away. “Now you can see why we didn’t put it up for auction,” Michael said as he closed the box.
The types of items that Michael auctions vary greatly, from large lots such as 24 rolls of clear tape, a washing machine, a wheelbarrow and a graphite portrait of Jean Sibelius, to collector items such as Omega watches, antique candlesticks and an original Mini Cooper. His auction house is a relatively small, independent, rural auction house – what is known as a “regional” auction house.
Local auctions have come a long way from the cold rooms where I would occasionally visit with my mother and watch bidding wars over half-drunk bottles of Famous Grouse. Today, the rooms are still cold, but there are fewer people there. But the growth of online bidding portals means the auction business is booming. Antique Trade Gazette They’re reporting record sales. Interest in art has increased during the pandemic as people have been sitting at home and staring at blank walls. “Without the auction site, this business would barely be profitable,” Michael says. “As it stands, we’re turning over more than £750,000 a year.” In fact, I’ve seen Michael drive past the local livestock market in his yellow Lamborghini. He seems to be doing just fine.
I became an online bidding aficionado three years ago when my husband and I moved into our unfurnished house. We bought an antique painting, a mirror, a table and two Ercol chairs for £38 from local auction houses like Michaels. We also bought a lawnmower, a fridge and some potted plants for the garden. We even bought something we jokingly call “the Picasso.”
This one hangs in my office as a classic online purchase. I was still a beginner and was flicking through an online catalogue when I came across a still life with a signature in the right corner. Zooming in, I could clearly see the swirls of oil paint and the painter’s hand. Even if it was a fake, this was a good piece and worth a gamble. I won big, selling for £35. I actually received £35, which was quite a bit more than I would have normally wanted to pay. It was definitely a Picasso. It was a high-resolution scan of the Picasso, with all the impasto. It was also 20 times larger than I had imagined it would be.
This is a common mistake with items purchased online — if you don’t ask, the item may be bigger or smaller in person than it appears in the photo — but the bargains I’ve picked up by browsing online catalogs are worth far more than the giant wooden trout, Picasso, or model sailboats you sometimes come across.
In the world of online bidding, The Saleroom and EasyLive Auctions are the two big players. The Saleroom primarily aggregates sales of fine art, antiques and collectibles. This left a gap in the market for a retail-oriented business selling miscellaneous items, so Paul Achilleous and Jonathan Burnside founded Easylive Auctions. “EasyLive Auctions opened up the Internet to small auctioneers,” says Achilleous.
“The good news for auction houses like Pilton is that they’re now able to compete on a more level playing field,” says Richard Lewis, chief operating officer at The Saleroom. In a pre-internet playing field, one of Michael’s biggest sales, a 17th-century Chinese vase, might have been bought cheap at a London auction house and sold at a huge profit, or it might have been bought and used as a doorstop.
“I was clearing out a council estate in Barnstaple,” Michael recalls. “It wasn’t the sort of place you’d expect to find much.” But in the attic he found a vase, probably from the 19th century, which he hoped would sell for around £1,000. So it came as a surprise when it sold online to a man in China for £14,280. “If you came here in real life you’d say, ‘Oh no, I’m not buying anything from this rubbish bin!’ But it did,” Michael says. “To sell antiques you need to get them on The Salerooms because their customers are buying designer goods.”
The bargains you pick up by browsing online catalogs are worth far more than the occasional giant wooden trout.
The industry was already moving online before COVID-19, but the pandemic has accelerated that. “Pre-COVID, auction houses were doing 20-25% of their sales online,” Achilleus said. “Now, they’re doing 80-90% of their sales online, and some are even reaching 100%.” Both The Saleroom and EasyLive Auctions emphasize the industry’s environmental sensitivity, citing the trend toward sustainable furniture and a lower carbon footprint as a factor in the industry’s continued growth. But as Lewis emphasizes, “people are also interested in items that have a story.”
Recently, I decided to step away from the computer and attend an auction at Pilton Auctions, and while only about 15 people were in attendance, over 1,000 people registered to bid online at The Salroom and EastLive Auctions.
Bidding live online means you can listen to the auction from home, on holiday or at work. But in person, you get to know the people bidding. Two brothers only bid on pocket watches, a woman only bid on cheap silver coins, a man in flat-craps who bought about five gold coins, a man in his fifties who came in and collected six German photo albums from World War II and sold them to his friends. Finding Nemo It was packed in a bag. I noticed he hadn’t bid in person. Then a young man called Harrison kept bidding against me on old paintings. He won a glazed one that looked like a Joseph Wright of Derby painting. (After my success with “Picasso,” I was nursing this optimistic sentiment.)
At 22, Harrison was by far the youngest person in the room. He’s not bidding online because he wants to speak to and learn from people who’ve been in the industry for years. “It’s like a community there,” Harrison says. There is an extra charge for online buyers, which he thinks is “ridiculous”, depending on how much you’re buying. (Saleroom charges 4.95% to bidders; Easy Live Auctions charges 3.6% inclusive of VAT, or a flat fee of £3.)
Bidding in person is special, especially if it saves you money. But online has its conveniences. And, as much as I hate it, “Picasso” hangs behind my desk as a reminder to check dimensions and as a totem of my sometimes delusional optimism.