By Emily Rinaman, Technical Services Manager
A crowd of dozens of people packed closely together watch a man on a platform. This man is pointing his fingers at specific people and speaking gibberish. The smell of hot cider and doughnuts fill the crisp fall air. It’s not a revival or a concert. It’s an auction.
Tiffin and Seneca County has held numerous auctions throughout its history with some more notable ones happening fairly recently. But the vibe of an auction has drastically changed, even in just the last few decades. Gone are the days when auctions were an anticipated social event in the community.
Before automobiles when travel was difficult, especially in rural areas like Tiffin, auctioneers enticed a crowd by offering lunch. Well into the 20th century this was a standard practice, and the Risingsun Centennial booklet mentions that auction attendees in our area often received a free head of cheese and apples.
One of the most noteworthy auctions in Tiffin was the estate sale for Tiffin’s suffragette, Louisa K. Fast. Rodney Young, a local historian, did extensive research on Fast and gathered the information into a report (T-SPL owns a copy in the local history department). He included verbiage from the newspaper advertisements for this auction, held Nov. 6 and 8, 1978, at her home on 115 N. Sandusky St., which listed Victorian furniture made from walnut, cherry, maple, pine, mahogany, and oak, some hand-carved, as well as framed oil and water color paintings, some with signatures. The house itself, one of the earliest homes on Sandusky Street, was sold a year later to a local couple who had plans to restore it.
The Louise K. Fast estate auction was held on Nov. 6, 1978. This image belongs to the Seneca County Historical Museum.
Another major auction in Tiffin was the liquidation sale of the Daughters of the American Revolution home in the fall of 1989. At this sale, items crafted by Junior Home kids, including cedar wardrobes and stone benches that had been placed throughout the property were some of the large items sold. The auction attracted over 1,000 people, with 603 registered bidders.
The trifecta rounded out on May 29, 2000 with the sale of items owned by the Tiffin Women’s Club, a community service group whose numbers had dwindled by the late 1990s. For many decades, the club’s members hosted numerous card parties, piano recitals, skits and other social events at their building on 155 Parkway before it was sold to Draperies by Dawn (which is no longer in business). At this auction, they parted with their silver service, grand piano, drop-leaf table, an 1850 plank-bottom chair, a Windsor chair, a Washington desk and a Tiffin Glass punch bowl.
As late as the 1990s the Tiffin Historic Trust was putting on similar annual antiques/collectibles auctions on a smaller scale.
While antique furniture was once a hot commodity at auctions, particularly during this time period from the 1970s-1990s, the passion has shifted to other things. Bill Jones, a Tiffin native who owns the local Remax realty and is a licensed auctioneer, said he’s noticed a major shift in the atmosphere of auctions within the last 10-15 years. Modern technology like eBay, Craig’s list, online garage sale sites on Facebook, and others are drastically changing the way people buy used items. In fact, he says most of the people he notices attending auctions now are wholesalers, retail shop owners who set up tables at flea markets or even online-only business owners.
Another reason the auction scene has changed is lifestyle. One or two generations ago, Jones explains, people weren’t as mobile as they are now. These days, people move locations more often and don’t want to drag those large and delicate items along with them. Therefore, general household and estate auctions are not well-attended like they used to be.
Taken from the Ohio Memory website, to which the Seneca County Digital Library belongs, is a photograph of a farm auction in Castalia in the 1970s. Matt McGookey of Castalia, Ohio is the photographer. The item being sold in the picture is assumed to be a sausage press.
Over half of the auctions Jones performs are simply for charity. It’s these sorts of “niche” auctions that now draw larger crowds. For many years, he has auctioned for the Seneca County Fairs’ livestock sales (4-H/FFA) and his favorite auction to date was a charity auction for the Sisters of St. Francis which he co-auctioned with Jerry Anderson, a former Northwest Ohio news anchor who also happens to have an auctioneer’s license.
Some of the “niche” auctions mentioned in various documents on the Seneca County Digital Library include a fundraiser auction at Columbian in 1957 which took bids for an organ and coin auctions hosted by the Seneca Coin Club.
According to Jones, especially around the Seneca County area, livestock sales and auctions on farm machinery and other heavy equipment still remain the most popular. These particular auctions have gone on in Seneca County for several decades. In 1967, the Sisters of St. Francis discontinued their dairy operation and auctioned any remaining cattle. In the mid-to-late 1800s, livestock in the area was often introduced by traveling Texas horse auctions, which was, according to an Advertiser-Tribune reporter summarizing a sale on June 24, 1880, “extremely risky.”
The requirements for becoming an auctioneer and maintaining a license has also gradually changed throughout the last century. Currently, Ohio is one of 27 states that require auctioneers to be licensed.
Auction schools sprung up in the early 1900s, the first being the Jones National School of Auctioneering and Oratory in Davenport, Iowa, which was founded by Carey M. Jones (no relation to our Bill Jones of Tiffin). “Back then people believed you had to be born with a natural talent for bid-calling, kind of like singing,” chuckles Jones. Case in point, in the Tiffin City Directory of 1878-1879, only one auctioneer was listed, a J.B. Dockweiler. Today, Jones joins a handful of other auctioneers in Seneca County, including Jay Feathergill from Attica, Nick Fondessy in Fostoria, Ned F. Gregg Realty in Sycamore, Bonningson & Associates from Clyde and Jones’s mentor, Mike Watson in Tiffin.
Jones attended the Ohio Auction School in Groveport in the early 2000s, which required 85 hours of in-person coursework over a 2-week period before moving onto completing a one-year apprenticeship under a licensed auctioneer, bid-calling at a minimum of 12 auctions, which Jones did under Mike Watson’s leadership.
Works cited:
Brandly, Mike. “A History of Auctions.” Auctioneer Blog. https://mikebrandlyauctioneer.wordpress.com/auction-publications/history-of-auctions/
Centennial of Sisters of St. Francis. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/36274/rec/1
History of 155 Frost Parkway. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/53190/rec/1
Jones, Bill, licensed auctioneer, Remax Reality, Tiffin, Ohio. Interview on March 21, 2022.
The Junior Homekid December 1989. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/47925/rec/1
Ohio Auctioneers Association. “Find an Auctioneer.” https://ohioauctioneers.org/index.php/find-an-auctioneer/
Palmer, Brian. “Why do auctioneers talk like that? To put you in a trance.” http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2010/11/why_do_auctioneers_talk_like_that.html
Preservation Post April 1996. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/39826/rec/6
Risingsun, Ohio 1874-1974. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/30016/rec/1
Seneca County Digital Library. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/search
Smith, Howard. “The What, How and Who of It: an Ohio Community in 1856-1880.” Seneca County Digital Library.
Tiffin City Directory 1878-79. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/29886/rec/1
Tiffin-Seneca Sesquicentennial 1817-1967. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/25130/rec/1
Yearbook Columbian Blue and Gold 1957. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/8230/rec/1
Young, Rodney. “Louisa K. Fast Research Report.” 2021.