An Auctioneer with Total Recall

An invaluable tool for any auctioneer is a good memory. Can an auctioneer get by without one? Yes, as long he recognizes it as one of his shortcomings. It is when an auctioneer thinks he has good recall and doesn't; that is when he gets into trouble. As long as an auctioneer realizes up front that this is a problem for him then he can find various ways to compensate for it. There are a number of methods available to help one improve their memory.

Some auctioneers try to impress their audience by remembering everyone's bidder number at an auction. Some buyers will correctly hold up their cards when bidding but many others will gesture with their hands instead, or worse, wave their catalogs or their hamburgers in the air. Some auctioneers just hate to say, "What's your number, sir?" or "What's your number, ma'am?" This can be a clerking nightmare if the auctioneer tries to remember someone's number but does not remember it correctly.

You cannot count on people in the audience to notice when the auctioneer calls out a wrong number. Heck, some of the people in the audience don't even know what their own numbers are. When it comes to accurately recording bidder numbers the buck stops with the auctioneer and the clerk.

A steel-trap memory is hard to find. We only know one auctioneer who actually owns one of those and we have to say it is pretty impressive. This guy had his own auction house for quite sometime but he gave it up in order to freelance. For a number of years, he called for one of the local monthly auction houses in our area.

This auction house used to get unbelievable crowds. People would be packed in like sardines - standing room only and not much of that. This auctioneer only needed to see someone's bidder number once then he never needed to see it again. People knew this so it became somewhat of a game and, after they bought their first item, they would purposely not show him their numbers again.

Is this a smart practice? Gee, no. As a former auction house owner, thinking about it gives me nightmares. But in his case - it worked. According to the owner of that particular auction house, in the years this auctioneer called for him, the guy never made a single mistake. Personally I have trouble remembering my own phone number.

One year, this particular auction house had a sale on April Fool's Day. Never one to pass up the opportunity for a good practical joke, I attended the auction and convinced the owner to give me two bid numbers. I waited a little while and then I bought an item and held up my bid card. The auctioneer called my number. I had him! Now he was at my mercy.

About twenty minutes later I bought another item without showing him my bid card. He routinely announced the final bid price along with my bid number, which he had committed to memory earlier. From the back of the room, I proceeded to nonchalantly announce to the auctioneer that he had called out the wrong number. To prove it I held up my bid card - only I held up the second bid card that the owner had assigned to me. There was an audible gasp that went right through the entire audience. The auctioneer was absolutely dazed - like a deer caught in the headlights. His spotless record was suddenly in tatters. I savored the moment before yelling, "April Fool's." It was one of my better practical jokes.

Don't think I went on my merry way unscathed. Plenty of people, including other auctioneers, would go to great lengths to get the best of me every year on April 1st.

Written by Anne Benedetto, Auction House Talk
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