Auctions serve many purposes. It’s one of the few events you can use for anything from furnishing a house to starting your new business. While many traditional auctions focus on functional items, the reality is you can find many rare or unusual collectible items auctioned off each year.
As we wrap up 2019, we sought out the more interesting items sold in the past year. Here’s what we found.
If you’ve ever stepped foot in an auction house or spent time around auction sales, chances are you’ve heard a spattering of words and figures that sound like gibberish — or some form of it.
There’s a purpose to these expressions. Auctioneers aren’t just fast-talking, hammer-wielding salespeople. In fact, they spend countless hours perfecting the art of chanting, number-counting, learning auction laws, and understanding etiquette as part of the entire auction process.
Bill Rackley likes to think of the auction business as a way to connect with others. He can rest easy knowing auctioneers, like himself, at Dakil Auctioneers, Inc. play a role in uniting buyers and sellers.
In a way, auctions keep the spokes on the wheel moving. As one venture closes, a new one arises.
Louis Dakil can proudly say he was a part of the first real estate auction for the Resolution Trust Corporation, a now defunct U.S. government-owned asset management company established in 1989. This was among his most memorable real estate auctions since 1983, the same year he earned his real estate license and started Dakil Real Estate, Inc. as an offspring of Dakil Auctioneers, Inc.
Longtime Dakil employee Bill Rackley logs auction items at his computer.
Louis Dakil likes to introduce his friend and co-worker Bill Rackley as Brother Bill. The longtime Dakil Auctioneers, Inc. employee comes equipped with a five-tool repertoire. Rackley, who doubles as a pastor, can do it all. Louis will affectionately explain how Bill can marry you, bury you, auction you off, sell you, and pray for you.
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Between sun-baked, triple-digit scorchers and the sky teeming with sleet and 7-degree temperatures, it’s hard for Bill Rackley to forget the days when auctions were the literal definition of rain, sleet, or snow.
This particular story dates many, many years when Dakil Auctioneers, Inc. held an auction in Norman. Equipped with masks and hoods, Rackley, a longtime auctioneer, appraiser, and consultant with Dakil, juggled his duties as auctioneer and personal sleet remover, stopping every 20 minutes to break the ice off his jacket and coveralls.
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Whether it’s auction myths or popular misconceptions about the industry, Dakil Auctioneers, Inc. has provided etiquette for first-timers, along with a how-to auction guide for those dipping their toes into the auction waters. But now that you’re interested in purchasing or selling items at an auction and you have the basics down, what do you need to know about the certain specifications and processes required to host, sell, and buy at auctions?
This is a guide to better understand how the four main types of auctions work: gun, auto, real estate, and heavy equipment.
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A 2-foot long gavel sits in the corner of Louis Dakil’s office in north Oklahoma City, collecting dust until its next use. The Thor-sized mallet is only for special occasions, usually a large or notable auction Dakil Auctioneers, Inc. handles. More frequent use would break Dakil’s lectern, a physical and figurative space he’s spent the past 37 years building into one of Oklahoma’s largest auction services.
In a way, the gavel is symbolic of Dakil’s journey, one that started from nothing and navigated through economic hardship in the 1980s to sprout a budding career that has, by his conservative estimates, led to him conducting 5,000 to 7,000 auctions and the opening of a 28,000-square-foot facility on 22 acres.
Looking back over his years with Dakil Auctioneers, Inc., Bill Rackley can remember countless remarkable items and properties making their way over the auction block.
“Sooner or later everything comes to auction,” said Rackley, a longtime auctioneer, appraiser, and consultant with Dakil. “We’ve auctioned cabinet companies, all kinds of restaurants, tool stores, tons of machine shops, oil field equipment — everything in the world. We sell anything and everything.”
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