The day-to-day work that your local auction house undertakes, might seem mundane but we can tell you it is anything but! People are at the heart of everything we do, from guiding bereaved families at a time of loss, or helping a collector to decide what is the best thing for them, we offer a wealth of experience and specialist knowledge to buyers and sellers across a huge range of subjects and circumstances.

Early in the morning the team gets started, and especially at the moment that starts mainly with making sure the saleroom is a warm and welcoming place to be! Our office deal with a large range of email enquiries and phone calls; everything from condition report requests for one of the 3,000 upcoming lots across 6 unique auctions every month, to one of the vast number of online requests for valuations on items, this could be anything from a Moorcroft vase to a designer watch, a pristine Dinky vehicle or rare comic, to a fine single malt whisky; we never know what is going to come though from one minute to the next, it can be really exciting when an exceptional item pops up in our inbox!

Meanwhile, down in our salerooms and stores, our porters are helping the valuers to unpack and sort an enormous range of goods, from house clearances, to loft clear outs, dusty collections from distant relatives, unseen for decades to jewellery boxes and chests of militaria. Lifetime collections of football programmes or coin collections that reveal mint sovereigns. As Forest Gump said…..”you never know what you’re gonna get!”

Our general valuers are on hand ready to greet the next person through the front doors, carrying a carefully wrapped box, there could be anything waiting for appraisal and advice. Fortunately, there is always a someone from our specialist departments on hand to deal with a subject that requires more detailed, expert, knowledge and advice.

All day long, removal companies and couriers are dropping off consignments for future auctions and buyers are collecting their prices from recent auctions. A porter will be getting one of our vans washed and fuelled ready for the next home visit, our pack and post team are carefully wrapping and boxing valuable items for despatch and our saleroom assistants are organising and photographing catalogues ready to be uploaded online to one of our three internet bidding platforms, meaning any of our three million worldwide buyers receive notifications as soon as something they’re after is listed in an auction.

Our team of auctioneers are readying themselves to sell their next auction, chatting to journalists and press publications about exciting upcoming lots and in the case of our specialist comics valuer recently, filming a piece with BBC Breakfast on the subject of collecting annuals, that went out just before Christmas, fame at last!

Meanwhile, behind the scenes our IT support are making sure our tech is bang up to date and ready to host the next auction, our marketing team are producing adverts and email marketing to make sure buyers know exactly what’s coming up, our admin staff are compiling catalogues and our saleroom assistants are setting up sales.

As a member of our team regularly says, “It’s all go, there’s barely time for a cuppa!”

So, if you have something you’ve always wondered about or fancy a day out and taking a chance on bidding, come on down and say Hi, we’re always happy to help!