Some you win, some you lose.

Posted by Meredith Greiling on Wednesday 04 November 2009

There's a real buzz about buying things at auction.

I don't just mean eBay type auctions. I mean proper bow tie-wearing, gavel-toting, paddle-wielding auctions. Now and again we get a tip-off about an item that we would want for the collection coming up in a sale and the excitement is irresistible.

It doesn't happen that often, but we have bid on two lots this year, so I feel like an expert on the agonies and the ecstasies of the auction house.

The first was a beautiful glass goblet engraved with a portrait of a ship that was built in Aberdeen in 1822. The schooner carried coal between Sunderland and Aberdeen and was wrecked off the Aberdeen coast in 1833. The glass itself is a large rummer type (from the German word Roemer, meaning Roman, and nothing at all to do with rum, sadly) and beautifully engraved with a wreath of flowers surrounding the inscription and a three-penny piece trapped in the stem. The photo in the catalogue made it look so sparkling and beautiful.

We had received the tip from a colleague back in January that the glass was coming up in a sale in Newcastle in March, but the catalogue price was prohibitive without some additional funds coming from somewhere. Initially, I discounted bidding for it because of the price, but it was such a lovely thing that it haunted me a little and it seemed too good to not at least try for it.
That's when the National Fund for Acquisitions comes in handy. A long application form and some frantic phone calls between Edinburgh and us and we got the ok to bid a substantial amount over the catalogue price, and with matched fund from our own Friends organization we felt confident that we had a fighting chance of winning.

The NFA experts felt that to stand an even better chance of winning the glass we should really be there to bid on it in person. So I got the exciting opportunity to take the train down to Newcastle to bid for the glass myself.

It was absolutely nerve-wracking. I was so nervous, as I sat impatiently waiting for the sale to get to our lot that I had to practically sit on my paddle to stop myself accidentally bidding on the wrong item in my twitchiness. As the lots went by I could feel my heart pounding. When they called the lot number I think I went into the 'zone' that athletes talk about; there was just me and the auctioneer. I couldn't think or focus on anything else and when it was all over I had to ask the person next to me what had happened.

My boss had told me that whatever I did I must not be the first person to bid; play it cool and let someone else show their hand. So that's what I did, well, what I tried to do. The auctioneer called the catalogue price and slowly started counting backwards, "four hundred, three fifty, two hundred, who'll give me one hundred pounds?" I suddenly panicked that they'd call a No Sale and I'd have to go home shame-faced and empty-handed so I stuck my paddle in the air and so did one other person. From then on it was just me and my rival volleying bids like tennis players. I like to think that he saw the steely look of determination in my eyes and realized it was a lost cause, because he ceded defeat and victory was mine.

The second auction was sadly nowhere near so exciting. This time the item for sale was a ship's bell from a Hall Russell trawler, the Ben Alder.

As you may know, our other website, www.aberdeenships.com, has information on all the ships built in the city, including details about their careers and fates. On this website are details of the daring rescue made by the crew of the Ben Alder of a Norwegian barque, the Oscar. In fact we have a painting depicting the dramatic scene on display at the Maritime Museum. The auction house had clearly found the website interesting too as they sent out a press release about the bell in the sale and recounting the story of the ship's involvement in the rescue and no doubt raising a lot of interest.

There was no time to get additional funding from another source, but we put in our best bid. Sadly, so did plenty of others and the price rocketed way out of our range. The short notice had also meant that we were only able to bid by telephone so at least I hadn't traveled to Shropshire just for the pain of traveling all the way back without a prize.