Word: auctioned
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...rusty manure spreader or junked '67 Plymouth sagging in the sideyard. His self-pleasure is bubbly and innocent. A visitor asks whether it is true that he takes 20% from each sale. "Yes!" he says, beaming. He is delighted to be ringmaster of the classiest and priciest midsummer auction in a state where every third cowshed sells antiques. But now, on the auction block, Withington's rhythm slows. "Twenty-two thousand to 23,000, do I have 23?" He has stopped bouncing. A pause, then "Yes, now 24,000, yes, 25?" A longer pause. Here, if the article on Withington...
...Kenneth Hammitt, a veteran dealer from Woodbury, Conn., ran his eye approvingly over its shaped serpentine top and guessed that it would bring about $25,000. Then Jack Partridge, an old friend and adversary from North Edgecomb, Me., showed up with a couple of Withington's helpers. As the auction hands turned the chest over so that Partridge could check its construction, Hammitt laughed and said, "It's junk, it's all new. Go home, Jack." Partridge, an Englishman, haw-hawed delightedly. "Yes," he said. "Dreadful stuff. Such a pity...
...Americana catches the attention of Mable Lomas, the 82- year-old proprietor of Anderson's Antiques, in Hopkinton, N.H. She is said to be the most respected dealer in the state, and her rules are stern: "No oak. No kitchen stuff. No collectibles." Mrs. Lomas has attended Withington's auctions almost since his first, in 1949, and like other dealers, she credits him with putting on the best show around and with being fair. He will not offer pieces with reserve, or minimum, prices, for instance, and does not accept phone-in bids. Does Withington guarantee what he sells...
Half an hour into the auction, Withington has taken off his snappy blue blazer. Four hours after that, with the major pieces long gone (and the fiddled bureau, its adulterated state duly announced, sold for a scrawny $2,600), he is still juggling bids and telling jokes. He describes a couple of grotesque female figu- rine candlesticks accurately as the "weirdest and most atrocious things in the sale" and knocks them down for a piffling $170. A colonial dog dish -- so Withington says -- goes for $525, cheap...
...looks doubtful, but he spends $250 on a Tlingit basket that he can almost certainly resell for $400. Withington knocks himself out to move a large wooden cheese box for an outrageous $300, and with a final handclap -- one clever scamp applauding himself -- his performance and his 1,884th auction is over...