From humble beginnings to million-dollar listings: Rock Island Auction Company

our strength is our team and you can interchange the word team and family because it's it's we're a family business nobody's satisfied with status quo nobody's satisfied with with doing okay take the presentation of the room itself take our shipping department take our customer service department they take pride in every phone call they make and every package they ship and every catalog page we build every photograph we shoot every description we write there's there's a tremendous sense of pride in what people do here so that that's what makes us that's what makes us I think probably the most demanding aspect for holding the auction that probably not too many people realize is all the work that we do ahead of time obviously it takes weeks for us to set the the preview floor but also it's the work that goes up to all the publications that were in promoting the guns it's all the phone calls that the call center makes once the catalog goes on it starts we get emails and phone calls well they want maybe additional photographs of an idol and they want to have a question about what's the bore condition of a gun we do thousands and thousands of questions and additional photographs each time that goes that's something I think that we do excel at over I've been to other auction houses and I kind of see how they do this preview haul that you look around it's massive it's it's approximately 12,000 square feet and we put a lot of attention to detail as you can see we believe in presentation as the owner likes to put it this is it preview day is my favorite day we have every gun in the auction set up ready to be held touch inspected it's open to the public you can see we got you know people walking around inspecting every gun there's a gun you want to see that's in the cabinet whether it's a three-quarter million dollar Winchester or whether it's a two thousand dollar Colt Python doesn't matter you have to be able to inspect these items and make sure they're exactly what you want them to be before you add them to your collection to actually handle a gun that you could possibly sell for a million dollars is you know it's a strange feeling because you also not only the fact that you're thinking the value of it but you're also kind of thinking about you know who else in history has held this in their hands you know who else like where has this gun been you know how did it get here this is the real shopping market for dealers and collectors alike this is the place in reality and I've bought too many firearms down here but stuff you know don't think you'll ever see you'll see three of them here it's just fabulous but this is the first time that I come to see an auction life and I'm highly impressed by the position in this enterprise because everything is absolutely handled with love and care and much much respect for somebody else's properties for the most part we get a lot of enquiries when we attend gun shows when a lot of our advertisements that go out but then also I'm one of the auctioneers here so early in the morning we're up on the podium and and selling the gun and every alright 900 no 1000 I'm gonna no 959 1000 when I think of 1500 out 16 16 now 1717 Joel 1740 think of 17 17 their first now 1818 now 1900 anything a 1900 right came in 1922 19 1918 mm I like auctioneering because I get to see things sell that I brought in the building it's kind of like full circle things come in I can work with a consignor all the way through the process and then I actually get to be up there and actually sell that for them the most exciting thing I important this auction would be that this is the first time we've had military vehicles I have no idea what they're gonna do you know if they do really well I can see us doing that in the future I mean we bought the building across the street to house them so those just because I have different they are are pretty exciting so we thought the military vehicles would be a great niche especially with you know 1 million m1 grand the singer they all they all kind of relate and it's good crossover you know guys who guys who collect guns might be looking at military vehicles vice versa military vehicles might look at guns I know the military vehicle market is is on a big upswing because this the stuff school it's now it's being available and guys never considered it as a potential to collect and so you know you look at what cars do you know million dollars two million three million military vehicles you know stuff with American history is relatively inexpensive compared to that stuff so if we think it's a good niche we brought in a specialist a known specialist who deals with military vehicles I spend two weekends with him as we went through each one to write up a description for for every item well besides writing descriptions we put the catalog together we are the ones who oversee the verification of it as well as proofreading the catalog putting the corrections in lot numbering it within a given day we probably write up about 30 to 44 premier auction if we're doing a regional we're getting close to a hundred for a person yeah I do have my masters in history as you said we have three others as well that really gives us a great background cuz you can use those research skills and anything that you do with historical wise I think it does put us on a different level as for historians we are putting that scholarly research into it so we are presenting some more academic looking type of historical research for the clients the hardest thing that we do is our catalog in my opinion because it's it's it's a thousand pages we do it three times a year if you've seen our for talking translates to about two hundred thousand photos a year and so the forty thousand items was forty thousand descriptions but if you see the quality of our catalog and we do that three times a year it's a tremendous amount of work to do it properly because we have a huge responsibility you know when someone's been collecting for 30 years 40 years 50 years and here's their shot to put this stuff up and a lot of times it's it's their net worth I mean people have their net worth tied up in this stuff and to do it justice to do their legacy justice and it all comes down to the catalog and it's it's a lot of work it's a lot of fun if you like the creative aspect of it too it's and it's a real team effort so that's the most challenging the sale price is in art that's that sky high for years now we've kind of said that guns are kind of undervalued but there are certain guns that are coming up this weekend that we saw all the time that that they're pieces of art they're metal objects that have been created and and we photograph artwork basically as how we look at it so I think a lot of people yes it's if it's a firearm and has a value as a firearm but it's also be engraving the inlays the woodwork everything that along inside that that makes it a collectible piece of art as well I mean I've watched over years some of the guns that we used to see ten years ago you know might be two three thousand dollar guns now going for eight or ten thousand dollars it's just continued to grow there's very few of the genres that have dropped off just I think people recognize the historical value and you know just the interest in gun collecting in general just it continues to rise not only with the people that have been doing it but we do see younger people coming into the one thing that I'd really like people to know about rock'n auction company is the experience that we provide here during an auction and again we did I people have this perception we only sell expensive stuff and we don't and if you've sitting if you sit through one of our auction if you stream it live and you hear that we're selling guns for $800 $900 $1,000 it's not it's not it's not for the ultra elite it's for its for gun lovers everywhere and the other thing I want people to know is that innocent experience I think this place is a potential to be for your every day gun enthusiast your everyday American history enthusiasts to mark it down their calendars and want to come here to see this stuff they don't have to bid on everything but as an event I think it's it's very very underrated and I think more people need to know about it

Channel: Gunscom

Views: 9,909

Rating: 4.9475985 out of 5

Keywords: Rock island auctions, rock island, quad cities, moline, tourist attraction, collectible guns, high price guns, expensive guns, gun culture, freedom, historic guns, history, history buff, world's premiere auction house, firearms, old, cool, antique, handeled with care

Id: p1nqT0s8zf4

Length: 8min 12sec (492 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 28 2018