My father, my brother, and I were having a bit of a chinwag when the phone rang. I–being nearest–answered with my normal chipper inflection, “Savo Auctioneers.”
“Yes,” came a man’s voice over the receiver, “I see that you’re selling some guns in your next auction. I’m wondering if you have any Springfield trap doors.”
It was midsummer, 2001. I, my father, and my youngest brother Joseph (who was working with us at the time) embarked upon an estate pickup to West Side Scranton where we were greeted by three, better-than-middle-aged sisters. Though the youngest of these women is now a fuzzy memory, the middle and the eldest sisters stick out in my mind.
I was alone in the gallery, setting up for an approaching auction, when two women (I’ll call them Dense and Denser) walked in to have a look. Dense and Denser perused the inventory, making squealing quips and clucks. I gave them a few minutes to walk around before greeting them and asking if I could be of any assistance.
When I look upon the magnificence of the Empire State Building or the majesty of the Nicholson Bridge, I wonder how the generation that created such wonders in the first part of the 20th century could also create some of the dumbest, most asinine, chop-busting houses ever made. I become bewildered at how an American society with such architectural visionaries could allow some of their contemporaries–mere baboons with hammers–to construct familial living quarters with five-foot high basements, 22-inch doorways, and six-foot tall bedrooms with 20-inch square cutouts in their cranium crunching ceilings as the means to enter the “attic.”
Whether at our gallery, on call at an estate, or at a charity appraisal fair, there are times as auctioneers and appraisers that we are forced to burst bubbles. Sometimes, we’re shown something that is believed by its owner to be of high value, only to dash the hopes of the presenter. Other times, we’re shown something about which we’re given an elaborate or incredible story, only to contradict and disprove the teller’s tale. We do so not with malice, but with a responsibility to be honest and to share our knowledge with those who have come seeking it.
We, the Savo Auctioneers, are about to become the subject of a documentary series for a national cable television network.
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