In all of the thirty years that I have been in the antique trade, nothing has excited me more than the Bob Dylan harmonica that we sold yesterday for just under £3,000 (£2,700 hammer + £270 premium). I have sold more expensive things - Georgian furniture for example - but nothing like this. Nothing so iconic.The moment the vendor entrusted us with his prized possession, I knew that we had a responsibilty to exceed his expectations, because sometimes auctioneering is about selling silver-plated flatware and sometimes it is about realising dreams. We realised his dream yesterday when a local collector outbid potential buyers from London, America, and Japan, and bought a piece of Bob Dylan history. This man has followed Bob Dylan all his life "I just had to have it" he said afterwards.
The saleroom erupted in applause at the fall of the hammer. Actually, that brings me onto the real story here. You see, I don't have a hammer or a gavel. I have a pen and a clipboard: we're not Sotheby's. We are a provincial auction house that has made headlines across the world. We have sold something that all of the major auction houses competed to have in their catalogues. We are David and each one of them is a Goliath. They have millions of pounds in hand to dominate the market. We have a stone and a sling. So just how did we do it? How did we beat everyone else to secure the sale of such an important item? We did it by offering a bespoke service. We did it by having an intimate knowledge of our customers. We sold the harmonica for five times the estimate because actually we are pretty good at what we do.
Tomorrow is another day and another deal. Something else will be in the news and this will all die down. But be in absolutely no doubt whatsoever that Barnes Auctioneers is a business thriving at a time when good news is hard to find.
