HOUSEHOLD GODS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19990, 5 November 1927, Page 8

HOUSEHOLD GODS

THE AUCTIONEER’S DAY PASSING OF AN OLD HOME. The atmosphere of an auction sale of household effects, which term, be it remembered, embraces anything from I kitchen pots to household gods, varies according to the character and age of the home. The sale may gallop along on the comedy note, it may be a commercial episode purely and simply, or it may touch the heart-strings with a little wistful pathos. One speaks solely from the point of view of the casual observer who knows nothing of the reason of the sale but forms his opinion from what iie sees. One drifted into an old home where an auction sale was proceeding, inspired only by journalistic curiosity, and within ten minutes ran a grave risk of buying a bargain. The auctioneer looked hard in his direction and promptly added another ten shillings to a dear old chair that was surely blood brother to those grandma had. The horsehair certainly had disappeared but the wood and its wonderful curves were just the same and in imagination one could almost see the horsehair sota to match ami the glass case full of; stuffed birds —those very dear birds—and the shepherd and shepherdess ott the marble mantelpiece and the picture of Miss Standish. The round mahogany table must surely be about and one waited expectantly for the fragrance of la vend ar to carry one back through the years to a home where happy children made rare holiday. To return to the bidding for the ehair, it turned out that tbe auctioned had not interpreted,' the chance movement of one’s head as a bid and so it went to the right person. One decided to keep one’s eyes off the auctioneer in case some piece of Victoria walnut should be acquired by accident, and continued to watch the proceedings. Women Dealers. Women formed 90 per cent of the crowd which thronged the rooms a . made them stuffy. One could not help feeling that this invasion of an old home bordered on sacrilege. Yesterday none might enter without the right of friendship or invitation; to-day every passing stranger might walk in, peer and pry, paw the gods of the ‘home and. carry them off for the lowest possible price.

Mitch of the buying was done liy dealers, mainly women dealers, whose demeanour was in marked contrast with that of the “old soldiers” who find auctions a pleasant entertainment and that of inexperienced young women who have one or two things they want to buy. The dealers know the auction game from A to Z, they never need to tell the auctioneer their name and they act in the casual manner of the old-time horse-dealer. Here is an article of the lavendar and lace period. Tho inexperienced young wife who has a soul above the furniture fashions of 3927, with blushing heartthumping self-consciousness, succeeds in whispering “fifteen shillings.” A calm’ lady sitting on a table at the other side of the room and gazing at the piano shakes her umbrella aloft and the auctioneer says “seventeen and six,” the umbrella waggles agatn and then a woman sitting beside the auctioneer nods her head and the thing is hers. Neither she nor the wom<-a who brandishes the eloquent umbrella knows anything of the stress suffered by the young -wife. Inveterate Bargain-Hunters. As a matter of fact, however, the average woman is a born trader, an inveterate bargain-hunter, a cold-blooded commercial opportunist. She bids prices that would maks the average man blush with shame, and despises hrs weakness. But this is often her undoing for the sale puts almost the gamblers’ spell upon her and she is liable to buy many bargains which are not of much use to her. Not so the women who are profession dealers. They keep their heads .and never forget their limit. The most prominent among them know more than ordinary values; they know china and china, and the sort of furniture that possesses antique value. At the sale m question a dower chest was run up £3O in 30 seconds and would have been knocked down but for a doubt as to the auctioneer’s statement that the piece was probably 100 years old. To prove his claim he asked those interested to examine the make of the drawers and then sold the piece lor £ll 10s, still affirming that his judgment was right, as probably it was. Most of those who examined the drawers were women. Old-fashioned Furniture For choice of china there was brisk bidding and all the patter of tho auctioneer about one vase having only one good side, “which was as much as most of us had,” did not matter. He could display all. the tricks of the rostrum, visibly swallow his emotion over a price offered for a mahogany warddrobe with kauri side, and deplore the manner in which opportunity was being missed, but the dealers could not ue moved. Once be **called” them, as they say in poker. The articles involved were a bedstead and' a dressing-table, tremendously Victorian in. the amount of elaborate superstructure. “Youwill be offered nothing else until you buy these,” he said.’“The set cost £7s.*’ He did not mention the date, however. One went for £3 and the other for £4. Perhaps the buyer wJii use their “tophamper” to make the backs of chairs designed for the use of iZhose who preside over lodges. Alas for the books They were in bundles. They had* no name and no author as far as the auctioneer was concerned. “How much for the novels'? One shilling each, one and three, one andi six. You take the lot? Right.” A bundle of “assorted books” wont for 14s. It included: a dictionary. Another lot. including “Sixty Years a Queen” —the Queen who reigned when this homo was first furnished —solid for nine, shillings, and a mendod piece of good china brought half a crown, “hardly the cost of the rivets,” said the auctioneer.

The sale had its pathos. Ghosts of the past wore there.