Christmas is approaching quickly. We were fortunate enough to get tickets to the St Olaf Christmas concert last Thursday evening. This is a wonderful way to start the Christmas season for us. If you are interested, the concert will be rebroadcast several times on WCAL (89.3).

On Monday evening I attended an auction at Tracy Luther’s auction gallery in North St Paul. Tracy had a nice pre-Christmas antique and gift auction. It was fun to watch the auction. Tracy has a good auction crew. They really kept things moving. Tracy and his associate sold 490 lots in just under 4 hours, averaging about 125 lots per hour.

I picked up a lot of pointers from watching Tracy and his staff. One of the most interesting things to me as an auctioneer was to listen to the bidding increments. In plain terms, the bidding increment determines what the auctioneer will be asking for on the next bid. For instance, if the bid is currently at $200, will the auctioneer be asking for $250, or $225, or $210, or $205. It is very important for the bidders to know what the next bid will be, or they will be nervous about bidding. Tracy has solved this problem neatly by predetermining what the next asking bid will be. In his system, the bidding increment will be determined by the current bid. In other words, if the current bid is less than $10, the bidding increment will be $1. When the bid reaches $10, the increment will be $2.50. When the bidding reaches $25, the increment is raised to $25. This excellent system is efficient and predictable and helps the auction to move along quickly. Tracy’s next auction is December 29.