Making an offer

A day at an auction

Donnie Pidgeon is eyeing three things among the lots of items up for auction today.

A barrister’s bookcase, the stained-glass window and a sign. They will do well he says.

It is Saturday morning, late September, and the Kemptown community hall between Truro and New Glasgow is busy as people walk around, viewing what is on the block today at the Pidgeon Auction.

Donnie and Verna Pidgeon have been in the auction business since 1977 and have developed a keen sense of what their customers will like out of what their clients want to sell. They have been calling auctions through the good times and bad.

They have sold a comic book for $79,000 and even auctioned off a human skeleton.

“It hasn’t always been great,” says Donnie, days prior to Saturday’s event. There have been lean times in the industry just like others.

When the Pidgeons started in the business there were more than 100 auctioneers in the province. Now, he says, there are only about 20 who are active.

At Pidgeons, they still manage to employ around eight staff – all are youth from the area. When the Pidgeons speak of their employees they sound more like family.

They have helped teach one to drive a standard and have stepped in to assist the others when needed.

Verna says past staff have grown up and moved on with their own lives, education and careers but still drop in or send cards during the holidays.

At today’s auction, customers study the items and create a bidding strategy to get them. Those at the auction come from around the region’s provinces but that won’t be their only competition. They will also be bidding against people from the United States and England who have emailed in bids on the lots they want.

At the end of the day the three pieces he expected to catch the crowd’s attention did well, says Donnie. The barrister’s bookcase sold for $550, the stained-glass window for $350 and the B&A sign for $250.

Donnie Pidgeon takes bids on an antique hand cranked medical magneto at the auction held at the Kemptown community hall.

Auctioneer Donnie Pidgeon watches as bidders walk through Box Village, an area filled with boxes of items to be auctioned off.

Charlie Fendley of Montreal and Rhenore Collins of Bass River, N.S., enjoy a moment before the bidding begins.

Auction regular Terry Reddick sifts through some of the tools up for grabs.

Andrea Quesnelle of Halifax keeps an eye on an item up for auction.

Armed with white paddles, auction-goers place their bids on items.

Captured through a window, one auction-goer takes a serious look at one of the items up for sale.

Pidgeon starts the bidding of some of the items in his Box Village.

A bidder reads the paper as he waits for the auction to begin.

Charles Barker stands outside the Kemptown community hall. It is his collection of estate items that were on the auction block.