For most people, the sound of an auction is unmistakable.
The crowds of people milling around long rows of tables stacked with items of all kinds, from books to furniture to children's toys, and gardening tools, old kitchen gadgets that — depending on your age — you might or might not know what they're used for.
The possibilities are endless.
At a recent visit to a Springfield auction, when it got underway, the auctioneer’s banter began, sounding something like this.
"You're buying both the marbles, all right. Don't lose your marbles. Get $10 and go, $10 dollar on our $10, $10, $10. Anybody buy me $10? I got $5, $7 and a half? I'm gonna get $5, $7 and a half. And now $10, and $12 and a half, $12 and a half, $12 and a half. And $15, $17 and a half, and now $20, now $20. Anybody buy me $20? Anybody buy me $20? Now $20. Anybody buy me 20? It'll be $20 Anybody buy me $20?..... Sold at $17 and a half, straight back to number 8."
The process happens over and over until as many items as possible are sold.
Auctions take a lot of planning and a crew that knows what they're doing.
At the auction, an integral part of the crew on that day was auctioneer Darrin Johnston.
"Today we're selling for a lady, her and her husband are downsizing," he said. "They have been collectors and dealers for many, many years. One of the more fun auctions to put together because we had a lot of totes that we moved stuff in and every tote you opened had a different treasure."
Johnston said becoming an auctioneer was his childhood dream but life led him down another path first.
While he was at Wilmington College, he started at the local radio station in Wilmington, became the station's full-time farm news director.
He later worked for a network of radio stations across Indiana, providing weather and market news for farms.
"And then I had the opportunity to come back to Ohio to go to a radio station out of Columbus, WRFD, whose signal reached 80 of the 88 counties," he said.
So well that Johnston spent about 25 years in radio. Then a format change at WRFD put him back on the path of becoming an auctioneer.
Today he works for Harvey Plus, a real estate brokerage based in Springfield. Johnston said the region has a lot of good auctioneers and he humbly counts himself among them.
"A large part of being an auctioneer is reading people," he said. "You know, are they really done or are they just thinking about it? Or are they not going to bid again? Those types of things."
He said he would encourage anyone that is thinking about selling their items at an auction to contact two auctioneers and see who they feel more comfortable with.
"It's more about a comfort level. Who do you really connect with and trust to handle your merchandise?" he said. "And we all have a saying 'The best auction is the one I didn't take.' Because the auctioneer has to be comfortable with the seller as well. And if the seller has unreasonable expectations, maybe that's a reason not to get in a business relationship. And it is a business relationship, but it's also a personal relationship."
If there’s a downside to the auctioneering world, Johnston said it’s one that could play out down the road.
"If you look at the crowd around us today, there's not a lot of young people," he said. "My kids, when they moved out of the house, their pots and pans, their silverware, most of their furniture came from an auction. They learned to appreciate it.
"A lot of kids today want to start where mom and dad are, not where mom and dad started. And they would rather go to Ikea and pay three times the value for pressboard than they would to go over here and pay a couple hundred dollars for this beautiful bed we have sitting over here against the wall that's a priceless antique built solid that will outlive them."
For now, auctions are a year-round business for Johnston and his colleagues so he’ll continue to live out his childhood dream.
"If they've got something to sell, I'll be there," he said.
