A beautiful morning today and, with little else to occupy my mind, I indulged one of my passions, a few
hours at the auction. Every Wednesday morning the great and good of Newark and lots of others gather opposite the castle on the riverbank car park for the weekly general auction sale.
I’ve been once or twice before and can confirm it’s a proper collection of tat from around the world. I think they get most of it from house clearances. The good stuff gets sold in their auction rooms and the tat gets lined up in rows on the car park every Wednesday. The format is for the auctioneer to appear at 9.30. He then sells all the timber first, followed by the bikes, then works his way up and down the rows of tat. He’s accompanied by a helper who holds things up or opens bags and boxes to allow bidders to see inside, and a lady who collects the money. Unlike most other auctions there’s no need to register, you bid and then pay for the item straight away in cash and simply walk off with it.
I saw one or two seasoned buyers with all their purchases lined up in a free space along a wall with their wife’s guarding the stash while they carried on bidding. The timber looked of a reasonable quality and went for well below the price you’d pay in a DIY shop. The bikes were mostly rubbish and quite a few were still covered in dirt where they’d been dredged from the river. One chap managed to secure 12 bikes for an all-in cost of £9. The few good ones sold for well over auction value. Indeed one sold for more than I’d seen a similar one on Ebay. The rows of tat were arranged pretty much as they fell, in no particular order. The other items generally sold for what you’d expect them to fetch in an auction, basically a pound or two each item. There were lots of vans in the car park, none of them new, few of them with business names on the side.
I really enjoyed it and best of all I resisted the temptation to buy anything, which, as far as good lady wife, is concerned is a real bonus.