For nearly 30 years Columbia Auction Company has been the go-to auction house in Marion County, and it has plans to continue improving its business.
Owner Jennings Gilmore used to own an antique store and decided on a remodel. After remodeling he decided he wanted to auction off the items and restock the store. He wasn’t able to find an auctioneer he felt comfortable with so he decided to do it himself. He was able to sell his inventory for 20% more than he expected, and it made him realize he would rather open his own auction business rather continue running an antique store.
Gilmore originally opened Columbia Auction Company near Marion Theater before moving to a bigger location near Hill Hardware. Then he relocated to the old parachute company building, where he opened a vendor’s mall with an area dedicated to his auction business. When the city decided to sell the building, Gilmore built the building he now operates out of at 425 Eagle Day Ave. and has had his auction business there ever since.
The company’s main businesses comes from estate liquidations, which often comes from selling items from an estate following a death or people looking to downsize, according to Gilmore. In most cases people set up their estate sales in advance, and Gilmore said it’s encouraged to do so because it gives potential customers the option to view items in advance on the business’ website, www.colauc.com, where Gilmore shares pictures of what’s available in a particular auction.
He added that the business is also equipped to handle other types of auctions such as home improvement items. Columbia Auction brings in 18-wheeler loads of furniture, appliances and household items, which Gilmore said has been very successful in the past few months.
Columbia Auction has the capabilities to do estate sales either on site or transporting the items to its location for an in-house auction. In either type of auction, absentee bidding is available as well as proxy bidding
During a typical month, the business has two auctions but sometimes has up to three or four. Columbia Auction holds the auctions on Saturdays, though if necessary auctions can be on other days, with the bidding on items beginning at 1 p.m. However, the doors open at 10 a.m. to give customers the ability to check out the items beforehand to get a better sense of which items they could be interested in.
The building’s auction room seats around 150 people and has a big screen TV that shows customers the items that are currently being bid on.
In the near future, Columbia Auction will begin live streaming to give absentee bidders more control over their bids.
“We do a lot of absentee bidding now where people will come in a tell us what they want and how much they’re willing to pay for it and we proxy bid for them, but we’ll have it set up in the near future where you can call in and place your bid with the live stream,” Gilmore explained. “You won’t be able to bid as the bidding goes here because it’s moving too fast, but what you’ll do is get on the phone with someone and tell them how much you’re willing to go up on something while you’re watching on the live stream.”
Gilmore added it will give absentee bidders a better deal because the proxy on the phone wouldn’t start with the highest bid but would instead place the bids in increments, giving the buyer better control on the ultimate outcome. He said in the past they’ve attempted to have online bidders during auctions, but it slowed down the process and frustrated customers who were bidding in house. He said if they decide to bring back online bidding, it would have to be through online-only auctions.
People interested in becoming customers for auctions can join Columbia Auction’s mailing or email list, which shares the dates of upcoming auctions. The company also advertises auction dates in The Columbian-Progress.
