Auctioneer Dale Higgins to give Historical Society program
~by Denise Van for the Greene County Historical Society
Veteran auctioneer Dale Higgins will sell the story of auctioneering through the ages, as well as tales from his 50-plus years in the business, at a Greene County Historical Society program on Friday, June 7, at the Grand Junction Community Center, 212 Main St. E.
The 12:45 pm free program will follow a noon lunch provided by the Grand Junction Horizons Club.
As a young man back from the service, Higgins worked on tractors and on other equipment engines. After his customers urged him to become an auctioneer, he worked with professional auctioneers for a few years, and then in the early 1990s went to auctioneer school, where he learned the “chant,” and the business and legal ends of the business.
Auctioneering has been around since before the Christian Era, according to Higgins. “But it really got started in the U.S. after the Civil War. Army colonels were put in charge of selling off war equipment. That’s why auctioneers often are called ‘Colonel.’”
Live auctions are few and far between these days.
“Years ago, farm and estate sales were held right on the property. People would make an auction an outing. They’d bring a lunch and stay all day,” Higgins remembers.
After the January 2020 COVID outbreak in the U.S., most auctions went online.
“Now we take photographs, put them on the Internet and people look at them, and it’s just as if they were there,” says Higgins.
Once, while wintering in Arizona, Higgins managed an auction of 50 old tractors and several old airplanes. “There aren’t 50 buyers for old tractors in the whole state of Arizona,” Higgins told the seller. He sold them on the Internet.
What’s the most interesting thing he ever sold? A homemade gyrocopter that he found in a farm shed as he prepared for an auction, he says. “It’s surprising what you can find in farm sheds.”
Higgins, who lives in Grand Junction, has many more tales of his life as a “Colonel,” selling farmland and equipment, antiques and rare finds in Greene County and throughout the country.
Lunch costs $12. Please call a Historical Society community contact or 515-386-4408 by Tuesday, June 4, to reserve a seat at the table.
