Auction Post Mortem - July 2024

It has been several weeks since my last Auction Post Mortem blog post. Aside from the fact that I have been so unbelievably busy I haven't had time to sit down and write one, the hiatus is also because they're a lot more fun to write, and presumably more fun to read, when things are going well, and I'm not just listing flop after flop, airing my grievances and small business struggles. But this week's auction was so damn fun, so enjoyable, and so successful, I'm feeling entirely rejuvenated, and really ready to kick it into gear. 

I popped by one of my favorite Monadnock Region antique stores this past week, Fairgrounds Antiques, bordering the Cheshire Fairgrounds in Swanzey, NH, a store where I once had a line of booths. I ran into a friend who used to work there, who was talking about how nice it was to be out antique shopping, because nothing quite relieves stress like some antique retail therapy. When she said that, I reflected on the predicament of antiques being your livelihood, your job, and your source of stress, rather than an escape from it. It's a pretty good problem to have, but I do envy the times when I would walk into an antique store for the pure enjoyment of it, without wondering how I can use it's contents to pay my bills, put tofu on the table, put pizza in my belly, put kibble in Spotty's bowl, put beans in Liza's garden, and so on.

I do still get an immense amount of joy from discovering old and unusual objects, and I'm committed to keeping that joy central to what I'm doing. That hasn't been reflected in the last few auctions I've held in July. Since I started auctions, I've had a spreadsheet where I track the numbers, and on that spreadsheet is a little graph, and on that graph a little trend line that was reliably pointing upwards for the first two years of my auction career, but this year has tilted in the other direction. There's a million ways to explain this change, and I'm sure global economic anxiety is no small part of that explanation. But on the ground, I'm finding I'm having to pay more for antiques than I was a year ago, I'm selling them for less than I was a year ago, and the money I'm selling them for is worth less than it was a year ago. That's tough, and made a little tougher when I see the bidders in my peers' auctions on Facebook and Instagram throwing heaps of money at them for like goods. 

Anyways, I've been working myself to the bone to right this ship. Notably, since my last blog post, I took what I learned in my education at the Missouri Auction School earlier this year and applied it to the NH State Auctioneer's Exam. After I took the test in Concord, NH, I hit the antique store in an adjacent building. I left empty handed, but on the walk back to my car an email popped up from the NH OPLC with my official Auctioneer's License, Number 7005. That made me pretty happy. Aside from getting my professional bona fides in order, I have been burning the midnight oil... And the 1am, 2am, 3am, 4am, 5am, 6am, even sometimes the 7am oil... Revamping my website with a suite of new features, with the help of Chat GPT who is way better at web coding than I am.

I think part of what might have accounted for things being a little slower on my corner of the internet is that I've almost entirely stopped paying for Instagram Ads this year, because giving money to the Meta machine makes me a little sick to my stomach. That said, Insta ads work, and many of the customers I have now found me through those boosted posts. For whatever reason, the organic reach just isn't going to happen for me, and I don't have the time to be staging pretty pictures, and churning out catchy reels to please the almighty algo. Anyways, last week I threw a $200 boost on a post... And it seemed to be totally worth it. So much so that when I just got a notification from Instagram that for the low price of $480 fucking dollars for the year I could get a fun little blue check mark next to my name... I paid it. Here's a portrait of me after I sent the money: 🤡.

I'm not going to use this blog post to really get into the nitty gritty of this past week's auction, but it was a really, really good one. It felt like we were back alive. Not only were the bids a bit stronger, and not only were there a bunch of new faces, but most importantly, the chat was more lively, and we were all laughing and joking as was always the case. I feel like we've lost a bit of that over the last few weeks, and that might be because I've been so damn cranky and sour on the whole thing. But I think the return of the lightness and levity to my voice was noticeable this week, and made it more fun for everyone. As far as the flights, floats, and flops of these post mortem blog posts, I think I am going to leave those behind, and do these posts a little different.

If you do want to see the price results from this last auction, I set it up so that you can see the sold prices of items on the Auction Hub if you're logged into your account. You can do that here.

If you want to see the full price list, including what I paid for stuff, where I got it, and other insights, I'm now offering that as a nicely formatted digital download PDF for $1.99 here.

I think that's pretty much it, but I wanted to thank everyone for always being so cool and accepting of me and my idiosyncrasies, my mood swings, my joy, my humor, and my taste in material culture.

One quick note on skipping Brimfield. Liza and I were walking around one of my favorite back roads NH flea markets on the weekend-eve before the July Brimfield, and I was absolutely killing it. My cart was packed, I already had a bunch of stuff at home for the coming auction, I was tired, it was hot, and it just dawned on me: what if I skipped Brimfield. I explained the idea to Liza, and she seemed to like it... I mulled it over a little bit more, and then decided to make it official. With flea market dealers as my witnesses I got down on one knee and proposed to Liza... That we skip Brimfield. Well folks, she said yes!!! And we did, and I didn't miss it at all, and I honestly might never go back. Brimfield is so fucking great. It's paradise if you love antiques. You will see the coolest things there that you'll see anywhere. But as an antiques dealer of limited means, it's pretty depressing, because most of the stuff I really love is so totally out of reach price wise, to resell or to keep for myself. I'd rather stick to my smaller local and regional markets where I can usually afford to buy the coolest thing on the field, and where I see the same dealers every week. Anyways, child free and I think Brimfield free is the life for me. But we'll see how long I can stay away.

Okay, thank you for reading. I have lots of ideas floating around my head about how to continue to inject new life into Memory Hole. More in-person barn hours, more website features, more virtual barn sales and pop-ups, more consignment, more buy-it-now website drops, and so on and so fourth. Stay tuned, stick with me, and let's keep this fun. Thank you all!