Over the years, auctions have become the social hotspot for finding rare treasures. On a normal day, auctioned items would range anywhere from art, antiques, collectable cars or luxury real estate. But, on certain occasions, there are some questionably “bizarre” items up for grabs.
Auction technology company Chant Laboratory’s Founder and CEO Joff van Reenen has been South Africa’s most renowned auctioneer for three decades. van Reenan says bidder appetites ceased to shock him years ago – on the day he successfully sold a set of pre-owned false teeth.
“Someone buying used dentures was weird, but surprisingly not the strangest part of that day.”
To van Reenan, selling used dentures is just an average day at the office. A few minutes after he sold the pre-owned gumdrops, the owner of the new set of pearly whites, popped it into his mouth and tried to bite with them. I mean, that’s a reasonable thing to do, how else will he know if it’s functional?
The sale of dentures is only the tip of the iceberg in a long list of strange items put up for auction.
Strange auction item: Deceased Estate sale edition
The auction that tops his personal weird list and also caused his biggest quandaries, was a deceased estate sale. The executors compiled an inventory of the home’s contents. Every item for auction was marked, including a suspicious ‘wooden box’.
“Imagine my horror when I opened it and found the recently deceased owner’s late husband’s cremains inside!”
Van Reenan naturally tried to withdraw the box from the auction, but the executors were adamant that if it was on the inventory, it had to go.
“I was stymied for days before the sale; wrestling with how to respect both the executors and the cremains. Then I had a brainwave.”
His solution was to invite a local priest to the auction. The priest – who probably agreed that this would be a strange sale – bought the “wooden box” for R25. He then performed the last rights on the cremated remains and buried it. It ended in a win-win for all.
Other items that have made it onto the renowned auctioneer’s list of weird items over the years include a stuffed ostrich and two cemeteries – one of them “partially tenanted”. He says the country is a long way from cornering the bizarre auction market.
But, auctioning these weird items is only half of the problem. The other half has to be the bidders. The amount of courage you must have to not only raise your hand in a room full of people, eager to buy some dentures, and then proceed to take it for a spin immediately after.
At some point, the need to buy an item that will actually be useful to you exits your body. That spot is then replaced with a very competitive spirit. The feeling of “winning” and now owning an item, outweighs its practicality.
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