The Auctioneer

We were like gunfighters as I stared out across the room, except I had a microphone and they had paper plates stapled to sticks.

Of all the unlikely people, I was asked to be the auctioneer for a church pie auction.

“You realize that I have never been an auctioneer before?” I said to the women standing before me.

“You will be fine,” they assured me. “You will be among friends.” Well, that’s like saying, “You will be fine riding on the back of Hurricane the Rodeo bull. You’re among friends.”

The pie auction was held at our church every other year to raise money to supplement our youth camps. In previous years, a man who I greatly respected and looked up to, Jack Pace, was the auctioneer. Sadly, cancer took his life.

So how does a first-time amateur prepare to be an auctioneer? I went to YouTube and watched professional auctioneers at sales and auctioneer-calling competitions. That was intimidating.

Next, I went to the nearest full-length mirror and practiced my best Porky Pig impersonation. Adding to that, I used my pointer finger and rapidly flipped my lips up and down like giving the raspberries because you see, a professional auctioneer is merely a person who speaks fluent Porky Pig while giving the raspberries.

After practicing this pattern for what seemed like days, I was informed that people don’t want to hear the fast-paced banter of a professional auctioneer, which they can’t understand anyway. They said, “Just be yourself. Everyone knows you’re an amateur.” (When my back was turned, I knew they added, and a sucker.) That took a lot of pressure off me. I was having a difficult time keeping the raspberry slobber off the front of my white dress shirt.

I next worked on skip counting by fives, tens, and twenties. You want to stay with a pattern that you know. I find that I am pretty good at increasing the bid by even fives. I’m not so good at increasing the bid by multitudes of 17.

To be an authentic auctioneer, one should dress the part. Making a trip to JC Penney, I bought a white dress shirt, black dress pants, black shoes, suspenders, and a bolo tie. I next went to a country store and bought a black cowboy hat. Lastly, I bought a whacker, or gavel, or meat tenderizer, depending upon how you look at it. Now there was no doubt that I was a real auctioneer.

How would you describe my auctioneering style? Not with the seriousness of the professional. The words, incompetent, inept, and bungler come to mind. I am the Victor Borge of auctioneers and I prefer to keep the bids moving while the audience enjoys themselves and has a great laugh during the evening. It is not uncommon for me to completely forget where the bid is at. I have even been known to send the bid down instead of up. My wife says that sometimes I get so frantic, jumping around the stage and yelling at bidders, that she breaks out laughing. If my banter makes the crowd laugh, I feel like I have done my job and I get invited back to do it the next year.

At a fundraising auction, there is the possibility that you will get a deal, but the purpose of the auction is to support the organization. Most likely you will pay through the nose for whatever you win. Consider that at my last pie auction, pies were bid up to $400.00 each. This year’s auction raised over $10,000.00 but that was because the attendees believe in the youth camping program and want it to continue for years to come.

As my reputation as “The Comedic Auctioneer” has grown, more non-profit groups have called for my help. First, I make sure they understand that I am not a professional and secondly my fee is a piece of pie or whatever they are serving that night.

It is odd, but for two hours at an auction whether bidding up pies, gravel, travel tickets, or sides of beef, I am no longer Marty who is totally out of his element. I become Marty, the imposter auctioneer who makes the crowd laugh while they are losing their money. I wonder if I could be considered a Marvel character.

So, I stand at the podium on the stage staring at the crowd of gunfighters. I take a deep breath, transform into someone else and tell myself, it’s showtime!

“Who’s going to give me $25.00 for this banana cream pie? $25 there! Who’s going to give me $30?

** Video Credit: Rebecca Montgomery

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