Working Lunch
Working Lunch
Brian Braun of Braun and Helmer Auction Service
By Sean Dalton
Staff writer
June 14, 2007
So how long has Braun and Helmer Auction Service Inc. been around?
We’ve been in business for 31 years. My dad started the business in the early
70’s and I worked with him since I was a kid. I’ve been an actual auctioneer
for 10 or 11 years. I went to school for it in Missouri.
I’ve never seen an auction as a kid, but after watching you earlier
with those fourth graders at Wylie I have to wonder about you initial reaction?
I pretty much understood it right away. I was going to auctions all the time,
every weekend at least and during the week. My grandmother collected antiques
so I had an understanding of collecting antiques and the competition to buy
good stuff and get a good deal on what you are buying.
What’s your favorite item to deal with or venue?
This is tough. First fund-raisers are rewarding in that you don’t necessarily
get paid so much, but, like Monday night I did one for the Children’s Hospital
in Ann Arbor; and it felt good to benefit children in need of special care.
I’ve really enjoyed antique estate because you find some unusual things that
people really clamor to buy.
I always like farm auctions. There is a community of people that we are familiar
with and we know alot of the area farmers and they’re usually a pretty interesting
sale, and a lot of fun.
Farm auctions? Are we talking sale of livestock here?
Yeah, we’ve sold livestock and tobacco before. Usually auctions at state fairs
are for champion livestock. I’ve sold pigs.
How does one present a pig to a bidder?
They have a little pen and they set it all up or they have a ring and there
are bleachers around it and everyone is given a paddle, like usual. They’re
usually sold by the pound for 40 cents a pound, so bids go by the cent per pound.
You said estate sales are like someone’s life laid out on their lawn.
That has to be interesting.
Sometimes we work for a bank and they’ll give the key (to the house) and tell
us to take care of it, and the house might be full of things and you empty the
drawers and you finds a lot of interesting things.
You might find letters dating back to the Civil War. You just find all kinds
of interesting things in an estate. It’s that person’s entire life. They might
have a trunk in the attic with their school papers from the 1800’s from a school
that you heard your grandparents talking about.
Your neatest discovery?
There was a picture of Elvis Presley that was signed and the person we were
selling for went to Olympia Stadium (In Detroit) and got to see him live.
Weirdest?
We did the Saline Police Department seized vehicles and equipment auction a
couple of weeks ago and there was a big gold coin necklace thing that brought
$300 or $400. It was 14-karat gold and there was gold coins inside of it.
Are we talking like a “Flava-flav” medallion here?
Well not big enough for him, you know; he’s got the big clock. He’s got standards.
Great finds! Do you ever see stuff that you would like to have yourself?
Do you just snatch it up?
That’s one thing they taught us in auction school, that an auctioneer can bid
on anything he wants as long as it’s fair as long as he’s part of the process.
No “cherry-picking” eh?
Oh no. We’d never get another auction again if we did. If you cherry-picked
one thing everybody would know it - the son, the neighbor, the family.
If there’s something I want, I make sure that it’s almost over-advertised and
if I don’t get it, I’m all the more ecstatic, because it brought more than I’m
willing to pay. I wouldn’t want to cheat somebody out of it. It’s like somebody
that steals. I can’t deal with that.
It sounds like you’ve had your fair share of run-ins.
We see them at auctions trying to hide thingsin boxes in the backyard. But that
doesn’t happen as much.
We notice a lot of people start policing each other. We don’t have much trouble.
If we have a table for fine jewelry we set somebody there. It can be a pretty
bid temptation if you’ve got a diamond ring sitting there or something worth
thousands of dollars.
I take it you’re a big fan of “Antiques Roadshow”?
I like it. I’ve never watched anything on TV regularly. I’m pretty busy with
the family farm that’s been in the family 100 years this year. It’s just on
the dge of Ann Arbor and Dexter. So I have to get my centennial farm sign. I
just haven’t had time to fill out the paperwork.
So why did the Braun family go from sure and steady farmers to fast-talking
auctioneers?
Our family has enjoyed going to auctions like other auction-goers, but for some
reason my dad at an early age realized that farming wasn’t going to pay, so
he went to barber school in Ann Arbor and cut hair for 30 years.
Then he went to work for an agri-service company and on the side he was restoring
antiques and my grandmother got him on antiques, so he was buying things, fixing
them up, and trying to resell them, and kind of got the notion that he should
go to auction school.
At the time he said this to his friend and his friend said that he was crazy,
but then he said “Aw, heck I’ll go with you” and they went to auction
school.
Was your dad’s partner, Jerry Helmer, that friend?
Yep. Now Jerry has more than 2900 auctions to his name as our partner.
What made you follow in their footsteps?
My dad always wanted me to go to auction school. I had worked enough with him
at auctions and on the farm. I tried college and it didn’t work out.
You know when you’re in your early 20’s and you want to do something else.
I started a landscaping business and was comfortable with that for 12 years
and was quite successful, but my dad ended up getting cancer and we knew that
it was malignant, so I decided it was time I went to auction school and my dad’s
partner’s son went too, and two days after auction school we were doing it.
I went to auction school in 1996.
Any words of wisdom from your father that you would like to share with
our readers?
He used to tell me “It’s not what you make, it’s what you can save”
He’d tell me to save my pennies like a kernel a week and soon I’d have a bushel.
What is auction school like?
You learn everything. The main thing I got from auction school was the confidence
to get up in front of people. My mother said that as a kid I was afraid of my
own shadow. If I was with my dad I would walk close to him. I wasn’t the kind
of kid that would run off and climb a tree.
So being an auctioneer has made you face one of your greatest fears.
I’ve never thought of it that way, but yeah. I also learned the chant. I pretty
much knew the basics and had the groundwork for being an auctioneer from working
with my dad. It’s a two week course. You know I had always wanted to be a doctor,
but I figured, eight years of study or two week course? They send you a book
of tongue-twisters in the mail and they tell you to learn these number drills
and tongue-twisters and come to class.
Do you have regualrs? Who is the weirdest regular you have seen?
There are probably 50 or 75 that go to every single one.
Probably the weirdest one was when a woman came right up and bit my dad on
the chest one time. She just came running up and bit him.
She was nuts or something. I don’t know if that was her way of trying to bid
or what.
Before we’re done say, “Sally sells seashells on the seashore.”
You know what you want to.
Betty Botter bought some butter, But she said the butter’s bitter, If I put
it in my batter, It will make my batter bitter, But a bit of better butter,
Will make my batter better, So she bought some better butter, Better than the
bitter butter, And she put it in her batter, And her batter was not bitter,
So ’twas better Betty Botter Bought a bit of better butter.