Long-time auctioneer shares trade secrets


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Harold “Arky” Vaughn learned his calling early on, and became one of the area’s top auctioneers, earning him a spot in the Ohio Auctioneer Association’s Hall of Fame.

Vaughn took the hot seat Thursday evening for Miami Hamilton Downtown’s monthly “What’s Your Story?” series.

“One of the early concepts of this series was to have ordinary people tell their extraordinary stories,” said host Shaun Higgins.

He first asked Vaughn about his nickname.

“I had the bad habit of playing a lot of ball when I was young,” he replied, and people started calling him “Arky” after Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop Floyd Vaughan, who was nicknamed “Arky” because he was from Arkansas. “It stayed with me all the way through the service and all of my life. If someone calls me ‘Harold’, I don’t know to answer.”

Vaughn was born on Vine Street in Hamilton and grew up in Millville. He graduated from Ross High School, but was drafted before graduation day, and his mother had to pick up his diploma in his place.

“So I didn’t have a lot of schooling,” he joked.

But that was OK because he knew what he wanted to do with his life.

“My father was in the livestock business, so I went to auctions with him every day,” he said.

He said that he used to practice his auctioneer’s patter, imitating the auctioneers he’d just heard, when he was driving trucks for his father, and would practice all through his Naval career as he helmed an LST landing vehicle.

Indeed, he helmed LST 752 out of its berth in Pittsburgh, down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, through the Panama Canal and into the South Pacific.

“I steered it into Japan after the war was over taking occupation troops there and got to steer it back under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco,” he said.

When he returned home, he went to auctioneer school in Decatur, Ind. He said they taught aspiring auctioneers different ways of calling an auction, but everyone ended up with their own style.

Although he called every kind of auction there is, from estate sales and sheriff sales to fair auctions and charity auctions, Vaughn said he never had one specialty.

“I always had help that was knowledgeable,” he said. “There’s no way you could know all about cattle and all about antiques yourself, but you learn by doing. You’re a lot smarter when you’re 35 than when you’re 21 or 22.”

He said that he also relied a lot on the clients to tell them how they felt about the items he was selling, although he would often have to give them a reality check on the value of things.

“You’re not a miracle man,” he said, “and sometimes it depends on the seller.”

If a man is popular and had a reputation for being trustworthy, he said, his auction could be more successful than a man who had a bad reputation.

Vaughn said that setting up an auction was important to its success, that people liked to see what they are buying, and even if a client wanted to do their own set-up, he would send a man out to advise them.

But it always came down to the value of the merchandise.

“If you had something sell-able, you could hold an auction at midnight Sunday,” he said, “but if you had to have a bigger crowd, you would do it on a Saturday.”

If an item wasn’t getting the kinds of bids it should or if the seller wanted to get more than it was worth, Vaughn said they would “romance” the item.

“If you don’t have value, that’s when you talk,” he said. “If you think you have the value of what it’s worth, you sell it, but you never let them know when you’re going to sell.”

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