The Gun Auction

Dan Williams
Essay 2: Observation
1080 Words

About 100 people filled the hall at Wrights Auctions in Newport. Appropriately for a gun auction, the hall was at the back of a sporting goods shop – also owned by the Wright family.
At least 80 percent of the people in the hall were men. Most were middle aged and wore the rural uniform of plaid shirts, jeans and baseball caps. Many knew each other.
As the audience waited for things to start, a snack vendor sold hamburgers and fries from a trailer in the parking lot outside the hall. A breeze blew the smell into the hall, ensuring a steady supply of customers.
The bidding sheet listed 120 guns and, incongruously, one gas-powered remote-control car. Many of the manufacturers were familiar: Winchester, Browning, Mossberg, Ruger. Some names were new, and expensive-sounding: Franchi, Stoeger, Benelli.
The shotguns included pumps, autoloaders, and single-shots; some were in new condition, still in their cases. The rifles ranged from lever-action weapons that would be at home in a Wild West movie to modern bolt-action hunting rifles with powerful scopes. The calibers on the handguns started at .22 and stopped at .50. There were revolvers and automatics, small .38s for the ladies and monster .45s for the Dirty Harry set.
The guns were front and center, laid out on tables. Prospective bidders moseyed from table to table, noting the condition of the guns, occasionally picking up a shotgun or rifle and aiming it at the ceiling to get a feel for it. If they liked a specimen, they noted the lot number on their three-page bidding sheet.
Handguns were kept in a glass case. An attendant showed each one individually and made sure they were all returned.
Twenty-five rows of folding chairs faced the front. The chairs were hemmed in on the sides by antiques and other items that would go under the hammer after the guns were sold. At the back of the rows of chairs, Wrights had placed a group of antique couches. Smart bidders grabbed those seats first and settled in with plates of fried food to await the start.
It came at 10:07, seven minutes late.
The auctioneer informed the crowd a computer wasn’t working properly, so winning bidders would have to wait 30 minutes before they could pay for their weapons. He also reminded everybody that each purchase would involve filling out a federal firearms form.
The date was Sept. 11, so the auctioneer asked everyone to bow heads for “a minute of silence for the victims of 9/11.”
Five seconds later, he said, “May God be with them all,” and the auction began.
He started the bidding on a Mauser rifle at $500. When he got no takers, he dropped the price $100, then $200, then $300, keeping up his auctioneer’s speed-patter all the while. At $100, someone finally raised a bidding slip. The auctioneer lifted the price in increments of $25, but only twice. It sold for $150.
He started the bidding on a Winchester Model 12 pump shotgun at $400. Getting no takers, he cut the price in half to $200 and got one bid. Another bidder jumped at $250. A third chimed in at $275, and won.
A pattern was emerging: The auctioneer started the bidding relatively high, then slashed the price when nobody raised a bidding slip. Occasionally, bidders would push the amount up to the original asking price, but this was rare.
A TEC-9 semi-automatic handgun caused a stir, but went for only $300.
A Winchester Model 1400 shotgun with a turkey choke sold for $250.
Another Winchester started at $500, then fell by half. However, the bidding heated up when a large gentleman in the rear jumped in. His bidding slip identified him as No. 147. He wore a camouflage cap and shirt. His jeans were held up by suspenders. The bidding quickly rose back up to $500, then $525, $550, $600, $650, $675, $700. The large gentleman finally won with a bid of $750. The auctioneer, who obviously knew Mr. 147, called out “I know your wife wanted you to buy it!”
Muzzleloaders begged for bidders. A .50-caliber Knight Big Horn started at $100 and sold for $100. A Goddard .50-caliber went for $75.
A J. Stevens single-barrel 12-gauge shotgun went for $85. The reason was stamped into the barrel: “Pat’d Dec. 11, 1900.”
But some antiques fetched handsome prices. A Winchester Highwall rifle went for $3,000 to a buyer who left a bid during the preview session the previous day.
One older man wearing a blue hat and blue checked shirt won the bidding for a .22 rifle, but then his attention wandered. The auctioneer called out, “Brian, what’s your number?” Brian’s neighbors had to poke him.
The auctioneer lost patience as the auction progressed. If a gun wasn’t getting much action, he cut the bidding short rather than try to squeeze another $25 out of the weapon. He made an exception when he thought the bidders were severely undervaluing a gun.
“This percussion cap rifle was made in Derby of local maple,” he said as the bidding for a handsome long gun stalled at $400. “It’s a matched set – percussion cap rifle and pistol. You’d pay a fortune just for the wood.” The pair sold for $500, with the auctioneer telling the winning bidder, “You got a really good price on that, a really good price.”
The computer problem was solved, and buyers could start paying for their guns. To do that, they had to stop at a counter at the back of the hall where a man and two women took their money and gave them a receipt. The younger of the two women had trouble working her computer because she was missing an arm.
Customers had to take their receipts into the sporting goods shop, where the auctioned guns were lined up against a wall according to bid-slip number. The rush hadn’t started, so the men behind the counter had time to chat.
“I’ve never done this before,” one clerk confided nervously. After a customer filled out the federal form, the clerk had to call the National Instant Criminal Background Check System and read the information to someone at the other end of the line.
The first transactions took 20 minutes. If the men behind the counter didn’t speed things up, they would still be there on Sept. 12.
“It’s going to be a long day,” the clerk said