Dan: 0:00

Joe Bodnar was a runner for an auctioneer when he was 17. A runner carries merchandise, delivers it, helps with the auction, that sort of thing. But he wasn't calling bids at that point. He needed to learn the skill first, so he practiced.

Joe: 0:17

I was like mimicking him going, you know, am I doing my 20, gonna buy thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy? And he goes, know what? You wanna be an auctioneer? Let me teach you.

Dan: 0:27

The first thing Joe needed to learn was to count numbers forwards and backwards by fives, then by twenty-fives.

Joe: 0:35

You know, run it like five, ten, fifteen, twenty, 25, 30, all the way up to a 100 and then go backwards a 195, ninety, eighty five, eighty, seventy five, seventy, sixty five, 60. Going backwards is where it's gonna get tricky. You think it's easy until you start doing backwards.

Dan: 0:46

So that's what he did. He put in the reps wherever he was. He'd run numbers.

Joe: 0:52

Another thing we used to do is a lot of tongue twisters. So I would use things like Betty Bodnar bought some butter, but she said this butter bitter. If I put it in my batter, it would make my batter bitter. But if I buy a bit of better butter, put it in my bitter batter, it would make my bitter batter better. So this bitter, Betty Botter, butter, bitter, butter, put it in my bitter batter, made my bitter batter better.

Dan: 1:09

This is maybe the best thing I've ever heard on this show. That was amazing. Today, Joe runs his own auction company, Bodnar's Auction, based in New Jersey. He auctions antiques, collectibles, personal property. It used to be in-person. Now he auctions stuff online.

Joe: 1:28

You know, when somebody goes through some kind of change, whether that's through a divorce, that's through death, and you have to sell your stuff, that's usually when you see me come in, roll in, and, work hand-in-hand in helping you get rid of your stuff.

Dan: 1:42

It's a job that sparks a range of emotions.

Joe: 1:46

Every sale before an auction, I'm nervous. It's that adrenaline rush of going up there and and getting the most I can for you. And when a sale's hot, it's the greatest feeling in the world and and you're in euphoria, the whole business is great. And then when you have a bad sale and and prices are terrible and they beat you up, you just wanna go off yourself and you're just like, what the hell just happened? That's what that was the worst day of my life.

Dan: 2:22

I'm Dan Heath, and this is What It's Like To Be. In every episode, we walk in the shoes of someone from a different profession, a seismologist, a homicide detective, a baseball player. We wanna know what they do all day at work. Today, we'll ask Joe Bodnar what it's like to be an auctioneer. We'll talk about how he distinguishes treasure from junk, the tricks to get people bidding emotionally, and what was the biggest score of his whole career. Stay with us.

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Dan: 3:34

Before Joe decides whether to work with a new client, he's gotta figure out whether what they have is worth auctioning or not, which is an art unto itself.

Joe: 3:44

What I love to always say to people is, hey, what you think is junk is what's worth money and everything you think is worth money, that's the junk. That's usually how it works.

Dan: 3:52

Oh, tell me about that. Like, tell me about those two sides of things. Like, what if people think it's gonna be valuable that actually turns out not to be?

Joe: 3:59

Oh, it's always something that a family member really cherished or something, and they always probably told their child, hey, when I die, this is worth a lot of money. Don't give it away. Or you know, and the reality is a lot of that most of the time has more sentimental value versus an actual real value in the marketplace.

Dan: 4:17

Give me some specific examples if if some come to mind.

Joe: 4:20

Yeah. No. There, one great story. There was an estate where he was selling his mom's personal property.

Dan: 4:26

Okay.

Joe: 4:26

And she basically had tons and tons of jewelry, Lladros, silver, fine antiques. She had really beautiful stuff. But when I was came for day two, they had a pile of boxes out at the street for garbage pickup. And I and me, I look at everything. I I I'm I'm like a hoarder myself and and a treasure hunter. I open up these boxes and what he has on the street is a bunch of photographs. And it's a ton a ton of photographs of NASA satellites, spaceships, and things like that. I'm like, wow. This is great. And I pull them out, I put them on the truck, I go in, I said, what's the deal with these boxes? He said, that's garbage. We didn't know what to do with it. His father worked for RCA, and he was one of the scientists that worked on creating satellites for weather, weather satellites. And basically, I had 5,000 photographs of the history of RCA creating the weather satellites and spaceships and space shuttles and just unique stuff. It was all great. It was just really cool. So I go, well, listen. I'm gonna take it, and I'm gonna sell it for you. He's like, I was just throwing it out. I said, no. I'm gonna sell it for you. So we we take it, we sorted it. I made a group by lots of like twenty, thirty photographs at a time, and that part of the collection ended up bringing about $18,000 plus just for the photographs.

Dan: 5:51

Woah. And they were just gonna throw it in the dumpster.

Joe: 5:54

They were gonna throw it in the dumpster. They they dismissed it as, hey. This is just junk from where my father worked, and they were more concerned about, like, the collectibles that were in the curio cabinet. That was like, hey, this is where the treasure was. But I was like, no, the treasure that was actually more of a treasure than some of the collectibles they had, you know?

Dan: 6:12

So what are some of those things that they think are like super valuable and you're like, unfortunately, no.

Joe: 6:20

Precious Moments.

Dan: 6:22

What is that?

Joe: 6:23

Precious Moments are like a collectible that is sold at Hallmark that was really kind of collected through the eighties and the nineties, and they even still sell them today.

Dan: 6:31

Oh, I think there's like real syrupy figurines. Is that the...?

Joe: 6:35

Yeah. They're like a clear glazed figurine generally of a young child or a young boy and girl, but precious moments are one thing that everybody thinks. Beanie Babies, another prime example that...

Dan: 6:45

Oh, those aren't valuable.

Joe: 6:47

They are not valuable, not at all. You can think they're valuable, you can go online and look on eBay and you look at completed auctions and you might see one that's sold for a half a million dollars or $20,000 and they claim it's really rare. It is not selling. I don't care what you say, it's a bunch of baloney.

Dan: 7:03

Man, that is so interesting. So how like, you have such an encyclopedic knowledge of this stuff, do you just kind of build it up one piece at a time or are there certain like themes where even if you've never directly encountered something, you kind of have a vibe of whether it's valuable or not?

Joe: 7:18

Oh, no. Absolutely. No. I definitely have a vibe. I mean, started working for an auction when I was 17, and I just fell in love with the business. And really, before I opened my own place at 20, I was working six, seven different auction houses every month throughout the state of New Jersey by the time I was 17 through 20. So I really had a hands on and a feeling and looking at it. And yes, when you do it long enough, you have an intuition or you can look at something and it reeks of quality or reeks of something that is rare and worth money. That's why I always tell people photograph the entire room and let me look at the rooms because I what I am seasoned at now is I just know by what you collect, the kind of person you were, the personality you have, and the what kind of stuff you had. You know? Like, you know, the person who collects Lladros and Hummels and dinnerware and some silver, well, their mom definitely had jewelry in the house and everything else. You know, you you I really can fine tune and understand the psyche of somebody's collection and what's in their house and understand probably what's there, what you're not showing me just by looking at some photos of a living room, dining room, and a bedroom.

Dan: 8:30

I mean, isn't it tempting like like in this satellite photo situation? I mean, they're throwing it out. Aren't you tempted to say, hey, I'll take these off your hands? You know? Is that kosher or no?

Joe: 8:41

No. I wouldn't do it. It's not kosher because I mean, the reality for me, and this is what I love doing and I've learned through the years, I work on commission. I'm commission basis. So basically, I am working with you to get the most I possibly can for it. So by doing that, it's not like an antique dealer who's trying to buy it as cheap as possible and sell it as much as possible. So there is a conundrum if you're like an antique dealer buying stuff, but you're also auctioning and working with them. Yes. I can see where a conundrum can come, but that's why I prefer to just work with people on a commission basis and make the most I possibly can for everybody that's involved.

Dan: 9:20

Joe charges a commission fee of anywhere from 10 to 50%. Most jobs are around 35%. So the more an item sells for, the more the customer makes and the more he makes. So let's get into the actual auction itself. I mean, I know for our listeners, their number one association with an auctioneer is the voice, the patter. Can you give us just like a little sample of your own?

Joe: 9:46

Sure. It'd be like, 100 offer to go. 100 and over. 110. A hundred and one twenty. One thirty, one forty, one fifty, one sixty, one seventy, one seventy, one eighty, one eighty, one ninety, one ninety, 200, two and a quarter, two and a half. But, yeah, basically like that.

Dan: 9:58

So is there a name for that that patter that auctioneers use?

Joe: 10:02

It's just a chant, I guess. So an auctioneer's chant.

Dan: 10:05

The chant?

Joe: 10:06

The chant.

Dan: 10:07

Okay. I feel like when I've heard other auctioneers like, you did yours, it was just the numbers in really fast and kind of rhythmic mode, but it seems like some auctioneers have some kind of gibberish that I can't really interpret between the numbers.

Joe: 10:22

Then that would be like, do I get it by thirty? Get by forty? Get it by fifty? Gonna buy sixty? Now we're 70? Now we're 50? Gonna buy, gonna buy, gonna buy 80? Gonna buy 80? Gonna buy, gonna buy, gonna buy. I usually do this like a gonna buy 80. Gonna buy 90. Gonna buy a 100. 100 gonna buy one ten. 100 bid a one ten. 100 bid a one. 100 bid one. I have that. I kinda I filter around. It kinda depends where we're at. Once we start getting into big numbers, I'll just usually roll out with numbers and and going thousand dollar, gonna buy thousand, pound, gonna buy 1,000, gonna buy 1,200, gonna buy 13, get about 1,300, 1,300, 1,300, 1,300, and you're, like, giving that pulse to that poll. I prefer it that way. I think it's a little more clear to understand, and it's giving a decisive, like, I'm in your face. Here you are. Let's go. Let's go. You know? I don't know. That's kinda how I look at that, but there are other styles that are more filler words versus the numbers. And then you have a style like Sotheby's or Christie's where you're like, I have 30. Now I have 40 or 40,000 or I...

Dan: 11:17

Let me pause for a sip of tea.

Joe: 11:19

Exactly. And that's what it's like. It's and and that's I don't know. To me, that's not really auctioneering. That's like I don't know what that is. It's just something different.

Dan: 11:28

But the rapid fire pace isn't just an artifact of how it's always been done, it has a real function to it.

Joe: 11:35

For me, it's to keep it lively, to keep it entertaining. And every time someone bids, I'll pop my voice up a different octave, so it's almost like when a slot machine's about to hit and you're hearing that boom boom boom boom boom boom and it's going higher, higher, higher, higher. It's like raising the level and and bringing excitement. But it's really in my opinion, it's just showmanship and singing and entertaining and bringing entertainment to the table while you're spending your money.

Dan: 12:03

I mean, is it fair to say that the whole point of a live auction is to drive prices above where they should be? I mean, isn't that really what it's about?

Joe: 12:13

Absolutely. No. It's bringing you to an emotion and making you spend money and making the other person pay or you being the high bidder? I mean, it's like gambling is is really what it is. The business is kind of based on gambling. You're gambling that maybe the dealers that are there that are buying the resale, they're gambling on a piece. Maybe they're following somebody else on what they're bidding, and maybe, oh, they speculate that, hey, this might be really good because I know that guy buys artwork, and when he buys artwork, it's always worth money. I'm gonna bid again. Or there's a psychologically that you're winning, and every time you win something, I mean, on that aspect, what I've always found is once you bought one thing, within the next five lots, you usually bought something else because it gives you that adrenaline rush in.

Dan: 12:57

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Joe: 12:58

It always happens that way where if somebody buys something, two, three months later, they buy something else. That's generally how that works where they just get sucked in.

Dan: 13:07

Man, that is so I'm just thinking about how I've fallen into that exact trap. Like, a couple of times in my life, I've just, for whatever reason, been bored. I think it it was pandemic era, I'm, like, involved in these art auctions. And then, you know, I end up winning, like, three or four lots, and it's the competition that kills you. Right? It's like that at first, I'm making rational decisions, and this is worth about this much, and then somebody outbids me. I'm like, oh, I'm gonna get them and buy it.

Joe: 13:32

Mhmm.

Dan: 13:32

And then you end up paying, like, twice as much as you thought was reasonable. And and then, like you said, you kinda you get the juices flowing, and and, like, I'm literally in my office looking right now at this abstract painting that I don't even like. I don't even like this painting, it's just like it was won on the froth of other victories during that same period.

Joe: 13:54

Right. Yeah. No. It's a real psychological game, and some people are bidding with ego, some people are bidding because they want it for their collection, and sometimes something so rare that two people just go at it and you never know. It might bring stupid money. I mean, for instance, I remember I had a little Victorian rocking chair, like a child's chair. It was like a miniature rocking chair French, probably from like 1860, 1880. And two of my furniture buyers get in this bidding war and it was like, listen, the thing was probably worth $250, $300 dollars and the thing brings $5,000.

Dan: 14:34

Woah.

Joe: 14:36

And I remember afterwards I went up to to the buyer and I said, so what was up with the rocking chair? And he was like, well, I bought it I bought it for my son and I didn't want that other guy to have it, that stinker. But he used more choice words in there.

Dan: 14:51

It was like a spite purchase.

Joe: 14:53

Yes. It was an absolute spite purchase. Absolutely. And that's what I want. That's what I want in the setting. I want two people to go at it so they spend more than they should.

Dan: 15:04

After a quick break, Joe's biggest sale ever. Stay with us.

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Dan: 15:37

Joe has practiced at IDing valuable collectibles, but even he is sometimes caught off guard.

Joe: 15:45

During the pandemic, I had a collection of Magic the Gathering cards. Magic the Gathering is basically like a game, like Pokemon, very similar to Pokemon cards. But we had a collection of Magic the Gathering. The gentleman, his friend passed away, young, these guys were probably in their forties or fifties, and he passed away, gave it to his friend. Friend gives it to me. We look at it, I remember taking it in, and I said, well, okay, we can sell it. I'll do some research. I started researching it. I had someone come in and look at it.

Dan: 16:15

Did you know what these were, like when you started digging around?

Joe: 16:18

No, didn't. I didn't know anything about it. So I bring in this guy, he looks at it and he's like shaking and like like, do you know what you have here? And oh my god. And I'm like, wow, no. And then he doesn't really wanna touch them and he's grabbing plastic sleeves and putting each one in a plastic sleeve and he goes

Dan: 16:37

That's always a good sign when people don't even want to touch them.

Joe: 16:40

Yeah, I know, right? Don't touch the cards, you know? I'm like, okay. So at any rate, we come to find out that it's the alpha set and the beta set, which were the first two years of Magic the Gathering.

Dan: 16:51

Mhmm.

Joe: 16:52

And basically, they were pretty complete. Actually, both years were complete. And he pulls out fifties I think it was 50 cards, 60 cards. He says, listen, Joe. You should send these out to Beckett and get them graded. So, basically, you know, if you don't know what grading is, they grade comic books, they grade toys, they grade cards, and you send it out to a company. They they authenticate it. They look at it, they give it a grade from a one to a 10. And, obviously, the higher the grade, the more money it's worth because it's in pristine condition. If you get a 10, which is very rare that you can get a 10, but if you do get a 10, that's the out most outstanding thing you can get, and it's like the most rarest card or what have you that you can get. So dilemma one was, how do I get these cards from New Jersey over to Texas and have them fully insured? Because he's telling me, alright. You better insure it for at least a $500,000, and I'm going,

Dan: 17:43

oh my gosh.

Joe: 17:45

Yeah. No. Exactly. A 500,000. I'm going, $500,000. Oh my god. Right? So dilemma one was trying to figure out how am I going to transport a $500,000 of cards. I was ready to get on a plane and just take them myself, to be quite honest with you.

Dan: 18:00

You need the suitcase with the handcuff and all that stuff.

Joe: 18:04

Exactly. Absolute truth. So, you know, you you look at it and you go, well, the postal service was totally out. Even if you send a certified mail, they only cover it to 50,000 or something like that. FedEx and UPS, they charge like a $100 per thousand. So if you figure that math out, you're gonna it's gonna be, you know, $10,000 to ship it because of the insurance. So I came up with we got an armored car service. So I contacted an armored car service.

Dan: 18:31

Really?

Joe: 18:31

And an armored car came to my building here in New Jersey, picked them up, they flew them, and they arrived in Texas next day. And

Dan: 18:41

That is such a pro move. I love that. I love the armored car rolls up.

Joe: 18:45

Armored car. And it was only like $700 to for the armored car service. I'm like, fantastic. This is great.

Dan: 18:52

How does the math work on that's amazing.

Joe: 18:54

It is amazing. That's what I'm saying. I don't understand it. I don't care. It saved me a ton of money, and it was fantastic. And so we sent them out, get graded, armor car-ed it back, 1,200 or 1,400 total, then transport it back and forth. Beautiful. Have the auction. That sale brings $750,000. It brought $750,000. I'll never forget. I I went to bed the night before the sale, and online, the bidding was at about 80,000, and I was already kinda psyched, nervous, worried. But then woke up the next morning, opened up the account, and it was, pre bidding was now at 250,000. I'm like, oh my god. And I just remember we started that sale and everything. You know, the first card out of the box brings 50,000. The next one brought 40,000. Another card brought 20,000. Another one, 7,500, 6,000, 5,000, 3,000, 8,000, 5,000. And before you know it, you add up, you're at $750,000. And I was like, you know, home run. Home run. Because during the pandemic, you know, with this kind of business, you're you're it's a gamble. I could tell you right now, I I've almost been out of business four times in my career. It's a business based upon what you find in someone's house or what collection walks through the door. So if you're finding a bunch of junk, you're dead and stinking. And then you find a good collection, it gives you morale, and you're all good again. Well, you know, this was right during the end of the pandemic, and we were, like, in transition from going from a live sale to an online sale, and we were just falling behind, falling behind, falling behind, and this just made the year made up it made up for the it made up for the entire loss of, I guess, 2019 that was. Right? 2020. So whatever year that was, I lost my ass and this saved my saved my butt.

Dan: 20:37

It makes me curious about your pipeline, this idea of kind of panning for gold. If you get a 100 people reaching out and saying, hey, would you be interested in doing this? Like, how many of them have enough stuff to make it worth your while and actually get to an auction, and then how many of those auctions generate enough money to kinda be worth the trouble?

Joe: 20:59

Oh, man. So this is the greatest story that I say about Storage Wars and things like that. Such a crock. You you watch storage wars and everything's a score, almost a score, whatever. You know how many 100 or 200 storage units you have to buy in order to, like, find the one golden one that makes you money. So with that being said, I would say, realistically, we get 20 to 40 inquiries a week, and out of those 40, maybe two or three really pan out that have stuff. So it's weeding through stuff. And and really, like, the Magic the Gathering. Thirty two years, that is like the biggest score I ever had. You know? And and and I pray we're gonna have another one, and I'm sure we will because I truly believe that. Again, that's what keeps me in this business is that I'm I'm waiting for that next big million dollar deal. You know? But but any rate, no. A majority of the deals that I deal with and a majority of the deals that I think most people deal with, they're 2 to 3,000. You know? It's a 2 to $4,000 deal or a 5 to $10,000 deal. The scores where you start getting into contents or collections that are 20,000, 50,000, they're out there. I score them, I would say, three or four times a year. But then to score something that's a 100,000 plus, that's maybe once a year, maybe once every two years.

Dan: 22:19

The job rewards people willing to tolerate sifting through junk to find the gold, and sometimes you just get lucky.

Joe: 22:27

There was one instance where we were selling furniture, and there was a secret drawer in the furniture, and sure enough, we pull out a box of jewelry, and then we sorted it out and sold it. There was probably about, if I remember correctly, about 7 or $8,000 worth of jewelry in a hidden compartment in a in a dresser. So

Dan: 22:45

Wow.

Joe: 22:45

And I could tell you another great story was there was this mobster that we were selling stuff for. I'll never forget. We took his bedroom set because he he was actually in jail, and we had to come clear out his house. He was not happy about it. I I could tell you that. But we had to come clear out the house, and he we took his bedroom set, and he had a whole arcade down in the basement, and we took all the arcade games. There was pinball machines and car lifts and slot machines and just cool stuff. But, anyway, I'll never forget we get a phone call, and it's basically, hey. He's asking from jail that there's a secret compartment in that bedroom set, and he wants all his jewelry back. And I'm like, okay. I'm gonna find it. Don't worry. And I did find it and gave it back, but I was a little nervous. I'm like, I surely hope it's there because I don't wanna be blamed that I I took his ****. I mean, nuts.

Dan: 23:28

Exactly. You don't wanna be in the chain of custody for the for a mobster's jewelry.

Joe: 23:33

No. I do not. I do not wanna be a part of that.

Dan: 23:36

So Joe, we always end our episodes with a quick lightning round of questions. Here we go. What is a word or phrase that only someone from your profession would be likely to know? And what does it mean?

Joe: 23:49

Breaking up the pool.

Dan: 23:51

Breaking up the pool?

Joe: 23:52

Yeah. So breaking up the pool. A pool is basically when bidders get together and use collusion to not bid against each other and to basically suppress the price of the item so they can buy it for cheaper.

Dan: 24:06

Oh, that's a thing. Oh, man.

Joe: 24:09

A thing, a federal offense, you can go to jail.

Dan: 24:12

No kidding.

Joe: 24:14

Absolutely. So it's it's part of the Sherman antitrust act. You cannot manipulate prices at an auction where let's say, I have a collection of comic books and 10 comic book collectors show up at the auction, nobody else came, and those 10 guys get together and say, hey. Listen. It's just the 10 of us. You bid on that first piece. I'll bid on that second piece. I'll bid on the third. You bid on the fourth, and we won't set competition, and we'll buy every lot for $10, $15, $20, and walk out of here in thousands of dollars. So breaking up the pool would mean taking action to break up that, and you always have to pay attention to the games that are being played by the buyers to make sure you're breaking up a pool.

Dan: 24:55

How do you break up the pool? Like, what does that mean?

Joe: 24:57

There's a couple ways of doing it. So I would threaten. I would I would I would Tony Soprano them. I would say, listen, man. I know what you guys are doing. You wanna play? You wanna go to jail? I'll send you guys to jail. I would maybe buy a piece. I would run a piece up. So, you know, what was prominent back in the day was more the furniture guys would do this to me all the time. They would come in. There was five furniture buyers. They wouldn't bid against each other, and it would be me against them. And what I would end up doing is if I knew that was happening and it was like a thousand dollar dining room set and it was dead at a $100 and nobody else would bid, I would make some comments about pooling is illegal, this and that, and I would I would personally run them, run the price up to 700 or 800 and drop out. Or if I got hung with it, I owned it, and I'd take it someplace else and sell it at at another auction. That's how I'd break up the pool.

Dan: 25:49

What is the most insulting thing you could say about an auctioneer's work?

Joe: 25:53

You're not qualified. So basically, the most insulting thing you could say to me is, oh, I gave my sports cards to another auction because they're better at it, but here's the rest of my stuff. That is the most insulting thing that you could say. Or you could say, hey. Listen. I I gave the art all to Christie's because, you know, Christie's can handle it, and here's all my tchotchke stuff. You can handle that.

Dan: 26:15

Right. Here's the leftovers.

Joe: 26:17

Exactly. Or even to the fact of, hey. I gave all the jewelry to my local jeweler to melt. I did so great, didn't I? Or I took my coins to the cash for coin guy, and we didn't give it to you. It's absolutely insulting. Like, we're not qualified to handle it, and the reality is you did yourself such a disservice because the reality is if you put it in the auction and keep the collection whole, you're you're selling yourself short by not doing that because you can make more money by keeping it whole.

Dan: 26:43

What's a tool specific to your profession that you really like using?

Joe: 26:48

My gavel. I love my gavel.

Dan: 26:50

Oh, that's a good one.

Joe: 26:51

I love my gavel. My father gave me my gavel when I was 18 years old for the first auction I ever did, he gave me a gavel that has my name on it. As a matter of fact, it's in my hand right this second as we're talking. Is it really? Yeah. No. So this gavel

Dan: 27:05

It's like a security blanket or something.

Joe: 27:07

It is. It's a security blanket. So the gavel just feels perfect in my hand. It has authority on the auction block, and once you hear that hammer go down and it says sold, it's sold, and then when you really look at it, you think of how many millions of dollars have gone down on the gavel. It's it's so it's it's a legacy that I'll pass on to my kids and then they'll be like, that was his gavel that sold a $100,000,000, maybe a billion dollars by the end, who knows, that went through the thing.

Dan: 27:39

So you've been using that exact gavel for thirty plus years?

Joe: 27:43

Yes. Yes, I have. I have thirty plus years and I've used it.

Dan: 27:46

That is so cool. Is it hard or easy to know when to bang the gavel and end a particular auction?

Joe: 27:53

Hard. Yeah. No. You you get in a rhythm. So there there's two ways of looking at that. It's kinda like you gotta read the crowd. You gotta understand where they're coming from. A lot of psychological power in that. Then you have to feel if they're taking too long, you gotta hammer it down quicker to get them to just like, alright. I gotta bid quicker because you you control the whole feel of it. So sometimes if if it's going too slow, you hammer down quickly a couple times, that picks everybody up and go, I I better pay attention. I can't think about it.

Dan: 28:21

Gosh. That that's a great insight into psychology the way you're trying to get people not to think about it, to just feel.

Joe: 28:28

Yes. Absolutely. That's exactly I want you to feel it. I don't want you to think about it. You start thinking about it, it's no good. I can't tell you how many times someone checks out and they would go, I spent how much tonight? Yeah. No. Your bill's a thousand bucks today. Oh my god. It happened all the time.

Dan: 28:48

What phrase or sentence strikes fear in the heart of an auctioneer?

Joe: 28:54

I think a phone call from an heir that says we don't have right to sell it. A cease and desist letter the day before an auction that, hey, this particular family member is saying they own it, not them.

Dan: 29:10

Oh. So that's happened to you?

Joe: 29:12

Yes. Absolutely. It's happened to me in divorce situations. It's happened to me to someone that was evicted that wanted his merch back. It's happened to me with big corporations where something was worth a lot a lot of money, and there was some thought process on who had ownership, and I got the day before the sale, we're up to a couple $100,000 worth of bids, they gave me a system to cease, and we had a five month dispute, and it can happen. So yes.

Dan: 29:42

What's a sound specific to your profession that you're likely to hear?

Joe: 29:46

"Yep".

Dan: 29:48

What's that?

Joe: 29:49

Basically, a bid spotter, yepping bids. So with the auction process, you have not just the auctioneer, but you have a team and you have a you know, with with a real professional auction company, you're gonna have bid spotters that are working the crowd, and they're going up and down the aisles, and they're going, yeah. I got someone here. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Like, you see on Storage Wars...

Dan: 30:11

Okay. So someone might just be raising a paddle or something, and then your crony is saying, yep, so you know.

Joe: 30:17

Exactly. They're acknowledging a bid. So if you watch, for instance, on TV Mecum Auctions or if you watch Barrett Jackson, they have bid spotters. They're usually dressed in a suit. They're in the audience. They're raising a hand. They have a shoe and tie on, and they're yepping bids. I I would have the same type of people at my auction where yepping bids. I've even done that position where you you're yepping bids. That that almost comes more powerful to get someone to bid again because you get a section and you're there with the person and you're talking with them and you're actually right in their face and you're saying, you sure you don't wanna go another 200? The auctioneer is asking for another 200. You sure? And you get them in and then you yep the bid. But yep.

Dan: 30:54

I love that phrase, yepping bids. That is so good. What is an aspect of your work that you consistently savor?

Joe: 31:02

The treasure hunt. The finding the stuff in people's homes, the going through the items, the finding of something that's fantastic in the house, the thought process of going out and touching someone's life and understanding it, and then bringing it to market, and then it's successful just gives great joy to the business. And and really that treasure hunt of looking for that extremely rare item that you'll never see again.

Dan: 31:35

What was the last time that you felt that like jolt of euphoria when you found a treasure?

Joe: 31:41

Wow. So I didn't even get this deal, but I looked at a deal just like that about a month and a half ago down in South Jersey and it's still pending. I might get it, I might not, I don't know. I was just glad to go look at it, but I walked into this house, This guy's, her father's collection of music boxes, carnival ride music boxes, like a merry-go-round organ, big music boxes that play like a 32 inch metal disc that's from the like the turn of the century for the time you would play it, and it just has such beautiful sound. And that was not even a month and a half ago. As a matter of fact, I was debating to call her this week to see if she made a decision because I know she was going to shop it around. What she told me. And I was like, that's fine. What am I gonna do? Oh, man. It's really not about the money. The money would be great. Don't get me wrong. There's a lot of work there because you're talking about 56 organs and pianos. That's a work that I even wanna move it. I don't even know how I'm gonna move it yet. I I haven't figured that out totally. But there's stuff there that's like, you know, 8 to 12,000, 10 to 15,000. It's a couple $100,000 worth of stuff, so I hope it does come through just to say that I've sold it. That to me is more of an honor.

Dan: 33:05

Joe Bodnar is an auctioneer in New Jersey. He owns and operates Bodnar's Auction. We'll have a link to it in the show notes. What appealed to me so much about Joe's work was the treasure hunt aspect. You never know what you're gonna find in someone's home. Usually, it's something valuable but not special. But once in a while, you find those Magic the Gathering cards, and that is the payoff. It reminded me of the archaeologist Eric Cline and his hunt for historical treasure. On most days, he and his team might find some sherds. Remember, sherds are pottery and shards are glass. But every now and then, you unearth something mindblowing. He found a 4,000 year old wine cellar. These are variable rewards. You don't know when they're coming, and that kind of structure can be addictive. There are some classic experiments in behavioral psychology where, say, some pigeons get a bit of food if they peck a certain spot, and if they get food every single time they peck, then they self regulate. They peck, they eat. When they're hungry again, they peck some more. But if they get a bit of food after eight pecks, then 15 pecks, then four pecks, then 85 pecks, they're hooked. They have almost a compulsion to persist. And I think that's part of what's going on with Joe and the archaeologist and other guests too, but it's also oversimplified because this isn't some pointless addiction. It's not an empty variable reward like you'd get from a slot machine. It's almost like the intersection of addiction and meaning. The core work, the antique furniture and the pottery sherds is meaningful on its own merits, and then there's this powerful potential to strike gold. The big score that may come tomorrow or may never come at all, that's the anticipation that keeps you motivated. Spotting treasure where owners see junk, storing and photographing and cataloging the lots, building auction urgency through chant and pace, and knowing exactly when to bring the gavel down. Folks, that's what it's like to be an auctioneer. A shout out to recent Spotify commenters, Marie, Neil jp, SadieMoon, Sarah T, Jennifer T, Nick K, Wobblybits, Maris, and Darby. Thank you all. This episode was produced by Matt Purdy. I'm Dan Heath. See you next time.