Celebrating National Auctioneer Day!
“Auctions and Auctioneers”
by:Sam Hatcher
Auctions and Auctioneers – almost everyone has been to an auction of some type in their lifetime. For those who haven’t, it is a piece of Americana that is simply enjoyable and should not be missed. Friends, relatives, and even enemies congregate at the auction location, where a test of wits and wills are handed out, with the top bidder coming out victorious. On the world stage, auctions have been around since approximately 500 BC, when ancient Greeks would sell women for wives and other various goods. In the good old USA, auctions came with the Pilgrims in the 1600’s, as an auction was the quickest way to turn assets into cash. The ascending auction method was used, where bidders were asked to raise their bids until a sale price was realized. The auction chant used by the auctioneers is known as a bidding call, auction cry or cattle rattle. They use a rhythmic chant combining current bid, next asking price and filler words such as: “Will ya’ give me” – “Can I get” – “ looking for” to prompt bidders to bid.
Beginnings of Northwest Ohio Auctions
Over the last 100 years, Northwest Ohio has been blessed with many notable auction companies and auctioneers. A few are listed below.
One of the oldest auctioneer firms still in business today is Gorrell Brothers, headquartered in Paulding, Ohio and started by Jesse Don Gorrell and his brother Keith in the 1920’s. Jesse taught school and sold horses on the side, getting “for sale” messages from local barber shops in the area once a week, as this was before the advent of telephones in every home. Keith billed himself as the “world’s largest auctioneer”, clocking the scale at over 300 pounds, which ultimately contributed to his untimely early death, leaving Jesse as the sole owner of the business. Jesse had two boys, Chuck and Cliff. Chuck started in the auctioneering and real estate business in Hicksville, Ohio, Cliff started in the Paulding, Ohio area in early 1951, working at Weatherhead in Antwerp, and running a real estate and auction business on the side out of his home in Paulding. Cliff’s son Larry joined the family business in the 1970’s, acquiring Uncle Chuck’s location in Hicksville, running that office until 2006. Concentrating on a more user friendly auction environment, he started having indoor auctions in the mid 1980’s and win 1990 he built a large indoor facility at the north edge of Paulding. Larry’s son Donny, and now grandson Zach, are the 4th and 5th generations to have joined the ranks of the family business, proclaiming “we sell the earth and everything on it”, which was a slogan originally created by Cliff in the early 1950’s.
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