While still in high school, I used to work at an auction house known as Northern Pickers in my hometown. The work may have been simple and for the most part lackluster, but just being able to see all of the things in different conditions and from different ages made every day feel new and exciting. When first walking in, there was never much of anything that would hold true value — only a variety of slightly rusted knickknacks and movies that nobody really likes that were suffering with slight water damage on the case — but once you walked further in, the true treasures started to appear.
Right next to the office of the building sat what I liked to call the “Porcelain Room.” Like the name implies, the room contained over a dozen different styled porcelain dolls; each one of their perfectly painted faces radiated flawlessly from the lone light in the lavish pink-walled room. The one doll that stood out the most was this large one set in the center of the room; her blond hair was slightly below her shoulders, which matched well with her white dress, still clean after what I can assume was a long existence. It was always slightly unsettling to be in there, as all the eyes of the dolls seemed to stare into my soul and the frailness of all the dolls made me nervous to actually touch anything in fear of breaking them.
Down the hall from the “Porcelain Room” was an even smaller room which was home to an old broken down record player. Although it was broken, the record player was still a beautiful sight: the wooden casing appeared freshly polished and shiny, and the actual machinery of it, despite not being able to work, looked as if it had been taken good care of. The record player’s roommates weren’t as interesting, however, as most of the items left were rusted saws, hammers, and other tools. The only other slightly interesting things were an old reddish-black bowling ball with a small crack, a slightly yellowed pack of old coke-cola bottles with liquid still in them, and a collections of Prince Albert (in a can!) containers.
The last room in the building was a garage, but to be honest, it looked more like a dirty museum then a garage. Just walking in, you can already see a bunch of different styled tables, desks, and chairs bunched up together in front of the door, the colors and styles all blended into one incomprehensible mess. Off to the far left side of the garage, layers upon layers of rusty, dented golf clubs were being guarded by a collection of old toys, the occasional one missing an arm or a leg. Towards the far right side of the garage, however, an army of various garden gnomes and lawn flamingos, all of them dusted and with some form of paint damage, appeared to be waiting for the right chance to escape their dark and cold prison.
It was an interesting place for sure, and I quite enjoyed the small amount of time that I worked there. While most of the time I just took pictures of stock and organized items, just being around all of these antique items was a reward in itself. Items hold a lot of stories in themselves, and being able to be around all of the different histories and individual stories of these items was what kept me going.
