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By 6:00 p.m. Friday evening May 20th, radios and related items were filling up the auction room. We were in for a busy evening, kicking off NARC's 25TH annual Radio Daze event with a huge auction! The room was filled with consoles, wood and bakelite table radios, boxes of tubes, paper and everything else imaginable. There were even some big Scott radios, like last year. At 7:00 p.m., NARC's new auctioneer, Frank Rasada, started selling. He had lots of help this year; Jim Thompson, Matt Hyman, Glen Berg, Bill Linder, Kip Wallace, and Bill Fanum held items up for the audience to bid on, or were spotters. There wasn't an empty seat in the house. Some items went for the minimum bid of $10, while others went for pretty good money. Only 32 of the 219 items didn't sell, either because they couldn't get the minimum bid or because they had a reserve price that wasn't met. The items were of very good quality this year. Some of the better items included a Scott All-Wave 23, a Scott Phantom, a 16-tube Scott, and an Atwater Kent 82 grandfather clock radio. There were also some nice cathedral radios including a nice Atwater Kent 84, a Marconi, and some Philcos. The better battery sets were a Radiola V, Grebe CR-9, a Federal 57, Radiola 26 and a Neutrowound. Some very nice Zenith Transoceanic radios, various advertising signs, and many other items were also sold. Frank did a great job all night, and his energy never wavered. Mary's color-coded tags were used again to evenly distribute each seller's items throughout the auction, making it more fair so no seller had all their items sell late when the crowd was thinning out. The reserve price system was different and worked better than last year, but will be tweaked again next year so bidders won't know the reserve beforehand. This year's auction was bigger and as good as last year. Frank was the front man, but he had a lot of help. Mary Farmer, Kim and Lynn Wagar, and Don Hauff managed the business end of the auction. They all pitched in to collect fees, get buyers, sellers and the auction items registered. They worked like a well-oiled machine and made everything run smoothly. Great job everyone! The next morning was overcast and it rained on and off all during the outdoor swap meet. The lot wasn't quite as full of sellers as last year, but still many good items quickly traded hands between the showers and we made the best of it. It became a more steady rain later in the morning and everyone moved inside where the hospitality room, manned by Lynn and Kim Wagar, Kip Wallace's mother Joy and her friend Theresa Jackson, got very busy. The contest had many great items entered again this year, including Bob Slagle's big 1930s Coca-Cola bottle radio which was awarded the Best of Show trophy, Kip Wallace's 1931 and 1932 British McMichael radios, Matt Hyman's matched pair of McIntosh MC-30 amplifiers, and many more. The program included the presentation of the Best of Show and People's Choice contest awards, an interesting in-depth presentation by Don Patterson about the history of Grebe and also about another of his favorite 1920s radio inventors, David Grimes. The program ended with our usual abundance of door prizes, thanks to the Kip Wallace family. Thank you all for coming, and a special thanks to everyone who helped! |
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