Auction Virgins

Husband and I strike again.

There was a contents auction around the corner by our house. Sadly the Mrs. of the house had passed away and the Mr. was moving out. Poor man. Our neighbor, who has a grapevine that extends throughout the entire town, knew the couple a long time and watched the festivities from her porch. We decided to check it out. We had never been to an auction before. In our hometown, estate sales are the popular choice but apparently in our adopted home auctions are the way to go. I was pretty excited to go even though I didn't expect to walk away with much. Oh, how wrong I was.

It started innocently enough with buying a box of goodies for $3. I had my eye on apple bakers in there which are super cute. They are definitely adding the ranks on Etsy. After the lawn boxes, the backyard and basement had been auctioned they headed to the porch where, in my opinion, the most interesting items were. There had to be at least 50-60 people around us and it was getting more competitive. There was a very ornate silver plate tea set which was fun and we got in a bidding war over it but I couldn't bring myself to spend $30 so we lost that. There was a fantastic silver plate pitcher that caught my eye. It looks like hotelware and I can imagine the elegant Grace Kelly attending a luncheon where this pitcher would refill her water goblet. I was the only one to bid on it, along with other silver items in the flat, for $3. I accumulated quite a bit of silver plate, some of it just too neat to pass up.

After half an hour the ledge was lined with flats of crystal glassware, vases, more silver, and other breakable oddities. The auctioneer set the bid, all contents on the ledge $5. Everyone hesitated and husband and I looked at each other. It was ours. There were at least 7 box flats, a giant crystal punch bowl, etc. Altogether I think we wound up with about 75 different items. Not one minute after we purchased the left overs two gentlemen came up to us, one wanted this awful black vase for $3 and the other wanted three porcelain eggs which we gave for $1. So technically we paid $1 for 75 miscellaneous items. I think that's a pretty epic win.

Despite living two and a half houses away we had to bring the car around to pack all of our stuff. Mom and Dad-in-law came over later and went through the stuff with us. They were excited about all the things we got. We spent a grand total of $17.60.

The auction was so fun! We did amazing for our first time and I can't wait to go to the next one!! It's a little bit of an adrenaline rush when you're victorious after a bidding war or when you spend next to nothing and get fantastic surprises. I really should start taking pictures and cleaning the items to get them Etsy ready but I am exhausted. As it is husband and the puppies are sleeping next to me. Sweet dreams. <3