Oh, how times have changed

By Christopher Proudlove

An old photo of mechanical music fanatic the late John Nixon, pictured with his 19th century Pasquale barrel piano. It sold for £1,750 against an estimate of £500-700, Click on the picture to hear it on Youtube

When we first started going to auction sales -- we furnished our first home almost entirely from them -- our favourite was held in the village hall hired each month specially for the event. The auctioneer arrived on Friday morning and spent the day receiving goods from anyone who cared to turn up with something to sell. Stuff poured from the backs of lorries and vans, family cars and, on one occasion that I witnessed, the bottom of Silver Cross pram. And yes, the pram was left to be sold too.   There were no catalogues in those days. Your goods were given a code which, if you were lucky, identified them apart from everyone else's and lot numbers which you were expected to stick on yourself. Naturally enough, this led to a certain amount of confusion -- probably deliberate on the part of some of the more unscrupulous individuals who used the place -- and that was that. Viewing happened for a couple of hours that evening followed by the same prior to the start of the sale the following morning at 10.30, whereupon the auctioneer took his place on the rostrum.  Actually, that’s not right. Sometimes, there was so much stuff that it overflowed outside into the car park. In such circumstances, if you owned something that was capable of withstanding bad weather, you arrived for the sale to find your property lying where you left it the day before. It was a bad sign. The stuff outside was knocked down very cheaply, specially if it was raining.  But back to the sale proper. With luck, the auctioneer started at lot one and proceeded at an alarming rate of about 120 lots an hour, hopefully in chronological order. If the next lot couldn't be found, which was often the case, the auctioneer would skip to the next one that could, presuming the wayward lot would turn up in the course of events. Sometimes it never did.  Those Saturday morning sales were remarkable for all manner of reasons. Apart from the fascinating people-watching opportunity they offered, they were also fantastic learning grounds for keen novices like us and there were also some amazing bargains, specially if you knew what you were doing. There were times when the auctioneer was laughing so much that he was incapable of proceeding and times when the audience was laughing so much that not a single bid could be elicited from it.  We bought a lot of junk, and actually some quite good things which today, five homes later, still hold pride of place. Bidding was rough and ready. You shouted "Yes!" or "Here!" when you wanted to join in the fray and so skilful was the auctioneer that once he'd taken a bid from you, he came back to you as the bidding progressed until such time that you dropped out. Of course, the room was always packed with dealers and the auctioneer knew each of them personally and exactly what it was that each would buy.  If you were fortunate enough to beat one or other of them, you were expected to call out your name to the auctioneer's clerk, who entered it against the lot on his sales sheets. Once full, the sheets were ferried to the office (actually the village hall kitchen) as each became full so that names, lot numbers, purchases and prices could be tallied and invoices made out in time for the end of the sale. All of it was done by hand and rarely was there an error.  It ain't like that today. Now, mobile phones, computers, digital cameras, broadband Internet, Twitter, YouTube, iPhones and Google have revolutionised the process of buying and selling at auction. It seems like innovation follows innovation almost on a daily basis.  Auctioneers have not been slow to embrace technology. The first thing to go was buyers having to shout out their names. Now, you register to bid and are given a numbered paddle or card which your purchases are recorded against. Naturally, invoices are computerised.  Next came online catalogues and some auctioneers have actually dispensed with printed versions altogether on the premise of saving paper but no doubt saving money in the process. Online catalogues allow Ukauctioneers and the salerooms they represent to alert buyers by email when specific objects come up the sale. For example, if you're looking for a Georgian D-end dining table, you tell the UKauctioneer's website the appropriate keywords and it will email you each time they appear in a catalogue.  Another new feature of the auction scene is Twitter. I'm still coming to terms with this micro-blogging service in which you're supposed to tell people what you're up to in 140 words or less. Innovative UKauctioneers and their auctioneers have adopted the idea to tell their clients, or “Followers” as Twitter likes to call them, when new catalogues have been posted or other features of their business.  I'm also still learning how best to use my new iPhone, but one of the applications it boasts allows me to browse any auction catalogues anywhere; get real-time auction results; email lot details to friends and submit objects for appraisal, all from the comfort of well, anywhere I like. It won't be long before every auction-related service has such an “app” of its own.  The latest great idea at the time of writing, at least as far as I'm concerned, involves YouTube. For the uninitiated, this is a website which allows anyone to upload and/or download high-definition videos with stereo sound of anything that takes your fancy.  Congleton, Cheshire fine art and antiques auctioneers Adam Partridge harnessed this brave new world to help promote the sale of an amazing single-owner collection of what collectors called mechanical music -- that's the stuff that our forebears listened to in the days before electricity. Click here  and you’ll be presented with a selection of downloads featuring some of the Symphonions, Polyphons, barrel organs and phonographs from the John Nixon Collection that were sold recently. Not only can you see them but actually hear them working too. The juxtaposition of old and new was never more pronounced.  These days auctioneers’ websites allow you to read their complete sale catalogues, with each lot illustrated; request a condition report on any lot; leave a commission bid and even join forums to discuss, well, anything you like with others in a saleroom’s buying community. Will live auctions disappear altogether? Unlikely, I for one would much rather go back to the village hall than stare at a computer screen any longer than I have to. But the computerised services offered in this digital age make bidding and buying a breeze compared to the old days.