Introduction
IT ALL STARTED WITH Mrs. Butterworth.
In St. Louis in 1986, I was the auctioneer for my first antiques auction. Near the end of the auction, I heard loud outbursts as two men engaged in heated disagreement over an old, empty Mrs. Butterworth's maple syrup bottle. This was not a valuable item—it had been included as part of a box lot that sold for less than a dollar.
What am I doing? I wondered. There's got to be a better way to conduct auctions. At the time, I had a job as the director of the Saint Louis University Recreation Center. I had just used all my vacation to attend auction school and to set up for that antiques auction. I knew I absolutely loved being an auctioneer, but two men fighting over an empty maple syrup bottle? ...
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