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Action at La Petite Auction House runs at a feverish pitch

Plenty of interesting items go up for bids at Chemainus location every second Sunday
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Auction action rolls along at an accelerated pace at La Petite Auction House at 9684 Chemainus Rd.

The bid to make the winning bid on the wide variety of items available can be intense every second Sunday.

Dawn Geddie and husband Morgan Bristol started the business three years ago and have been doing auctions on that regular schedule ever since.

“That’s been a good thing for us,” said Geddie. “We could do them every Sunday, but it would just be crazy. We like the pace we’re at now.”

The business is still booming, but they aren’t about to complain.

“It’s way above our expectations, for sure,” noted Geddie. “We’ve been treated royally by the people in Chemainus and everyone else.”

There’s never a shortage of items coming in the door to put up for bids.

With a bit of a softer market for certain antiques, “you just have to choose carefully what you take in,” Geddie indicated.

The doors are open Wednesdays through Saturdays so people can get a good look at what’s coming up in the Sunday auction to follow.

“They can do absentee bids, but they can’t buy direct,” Geddie about about selling protocol.

The couple is fortunate that the former Longshoreman’s office building next door became available for additional storage space. They snapped it up without giving it a thought.

“We were eyeing it up for a while,” Geddie pointed out.

“We filled up the other building we bought,” she added.

The building is emptied into the main store in preparation for the next auction. Items brought in after that go over to the adjacent building and the cycle continues.

“As a general rule, they’ll (the public) bring it to us or send us pictures,” noted Geddie. “It’s incredible the stuff get in. Every Wednesday is like Christmas.

“We like to display things for a couple of weeks prior to the auction.”

Geddie was born in Ontario, but lived in Edmonton for many years. She and Bristol spent 35 years on Haida Gwaii. “We went for a holiday for a week, fell in love with the place and never left,” quipped Geddie.

They operated a furniture store and auction house there.

“It’s definitely better down here,” Geddie conceded. “This is definitely the land of ‘get.’”

The lifestyle eventually prompted them to get out of Haida Gwaii. “Morgan wanted a bit more road to drive on,” Geddie chuckled.

Since coming to Chemainus, they’ve seen steady turnouts of about 60 people every time. They set up about 50 chairs and leave room for standing at the back.

It’s a small place and that prompted the name, with the French version making it sound a little more chic.

“We like modern as well, we’re not just going with antiques,” said Geddie.

“People always assume with an auction it’s always antique. The younger people are looking for modern.”



Don Bodger

About the Author: Don Bodger

I've been a part of the newspaper industry since 1980 when I began on a part-time basis covering sports for the Ladysmith-Chemainus Chronicle.
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