Let's Talk About: AUCTIONS! Why I Do Auctions As A Vintage Shop
Here is a topic I honestly never thought I’d talk about: AUCTIONS.
In the past year I’ve delved into the work of purchasing estates, which is a whole topic in and of itself! The amazing part is being able to find amazing pieces as they are in someone’s home and seeing a glimpse into their lives.
The downside is that when you purchase things from estates sometimes you have to take EVERYTHING instead of picking and choosing. It’s very much an all or nothing scenario.
The question is: what happens to the things I don’t want/ can’t sell? AUCTION IS OFF, BABY!
You may ask, “What are the things you can’t/ won’t sell?”.
Here’s a list of what I’ve auctioned off so far:
The auction world isn’t totally foreign to me since I am first and foremost a collector. I’ve purchased from auctions, but have never sold things in auctions especially in this capacity. To say it can be intimidating is a huge understatement! However, I am BEYOND happy I did!
One of the biggest stresses for any small business owner particularly for vintage shops is that we tend to acquire a lot of stuff and often have little space for it! From talking to my fellow vintage shop owners this is something we ALL have in common! What we also have in common is that we all get overwhelmed and don’t know how to start flushing things out. The main reason for this is that we don’t want anything to end up being thrown away especially when these things have so much more use left in them!
Isn’t that the common thread for any vintage or thrift shop? Showing people there are so many more uses for what we wear and use, not just adding to more waste and garbage!
This leads me to what my favorite piece I’ve auction off is and that would be this DELICIOUS Chocolate Brown Velvet Wedding Dress from the 1920’s.
I bought this in a lot from a local artist who received it from her Mother-in-Law and just didn’t know what to do with it. I’ll post a photo of it below, but it had beautiful, handmade lace, bishop sleeve jacket, bow and matching hat! Of course it had some conditional issues since it’s almost 100 years old, but issues that could easily be mended.
I knew that an auction would be a better fit for this piece because I never could have put this on the sales floor due to it’s age and fragile nature. I made the right decision because the woman who won the auction reached out and said she was adding it to an online wedding museum in California. Not only did she want to preserve this beautiful piece, but she actually wanted to know the story and information behind it! Such a win on so many levels!
Taking the step of joining the auction world made me feel like a fish out of water. Selling things in mass quantities to people without any other interactions other than an email here and there takes the familiar level out of it. I love to talk to customers about where I got things from and see their excitement! In the auction world, it can be very abrupt and final. However, having the ability to clear out hoards of things in a quick amount of time has been a game changer for the shop.
What have I learned in the past month and a half doing auctions? That I should’ve done it sooner!
Interested in learning more about my auction process? Let me know below!
