The real skill is to be able to clearly identify in monatary value just what something is worth to you. Nothing will assist you more in this task than a trip to the auction rooms........

In the middle of Fakenham,every Thursday, there is a thriving market and at the heart of that market there is a single storey building and standing on a small two step ladder within this building, centre stage, there is a guy encircled by an attentive crowd. I say centre stage advisedly as this place provides a live show every week with suspense, comedy, missed opportunities, tensions and surprises, in short this is James Beck auctions and myself and Claire both greatly enjoy turning up on auction day.

Each week people from around the area bring things that they no longer want and put them up for sale, not on EBay but straight forward, old fashioned, eye ball to eye ball bidding. The 'stuff' that appears in this auction is as varied as can be from a medieval Yoke to a brand new bathroom suite. We have seen Gongs, bikes, chicken houses, Daimler headlights, caravan toilets, French 17th Century chairs, computers, beautiful bureaus, photo albums, bibles, Chubba sweet dispensers and mansion gates. The prices have been from £700 plus for a Walnut marquetry in-laid chest of draws down to £1 for a vacuum cleaner that was still FULL of the previous owners dust!

I'd say that you never know what you are going to see at this showroom but I would be lying as each Tuesday they put up photos, on to the Internet, of everything that they have for sale that week.

Site address:       http://jamesbeckauctions.co.uk/index.html

This week they had the least stock that we had ever seen, but generally speaking the rooms are crammed full with stuff. It is a real Aladdin's cave (this is true as I have seen a lantern there before which looked like it could be magic) and we love browsing such an eclectic range of things.

As you may appreciate in setting up this house, which is well over two hundred and fifty years old (and being an ex-Bakery) we are looking out for items contemporary to the age of the building and so this auction is a great hunting field for such items.
Furthermore Claire is very into the current Craft movement resurgence and empowered by the Make Do And Mend mentality, finding genuinely old or well built items that have fallen on hard times and giving them a make over.
So she too has agendas when at the auction.


We have put our proverbial toes in the water and bid on items and, on occasions, have come away with what we believe was a real bargain. Our first dabble was a reasonably chunky one in that Claire has wanted a Dining table and chairs that she could attack with one of her craft ideas. She wanted something reasonable in size that she could paint and cover in really old black & white postcards of all the places that she had visited in the world that she had really enjoyed or meant something to her, a really great idea. So she saw this pine table and 4 oak seats and volunteered me to do her bidding. She set her top price at £40 and the bidding commenced. At this point I feel I should issue a Mikes health warning..... You really need to decide what that item is worth to you, what is the most that you feel is a price worth paying and set that strictly as your limit. It is really hard to make that decision on the hoof, as it were, and you can get sucked into paying what your heart tells you not what your head says.

So I waved at the auctioneer, he indicated back and the bids drifted between three or so people, then as they dropped out at £25 or £30 there was just two of us, £38 to the other bidder, the auctioneer glanced at me asking £40? I nodded in agreement he then flicked back to the other bidder, there was a silence of hesitation and then looking around the room to check that there were no other bidders he tapped the back of his old scruffy hardboard clipboard with his Biro as a signal that the deal was done, finally he asked for my name to record the sale.
Claire could not see who had won the sale as it was all done with nods and eye contact, so she only really knew I had got it when he asked for my name.

Claire has subsequently done her 'craft' magic on this item and I think it is a brilliant idea...

The table part-painted and Claire organising the postcards

The finished job

We christened the table by having an old fashioned afternoon tea, on the lawn, in celebration on the day of the Royal Wedding, (and in honour of  Pippa Middleton, of whom all the gentlemen of the party considered her to be the champion fillie of the day).

And so as the weeks passed on and Spring became Summer we carried on attending the auction, going on afterwards to the market out-side where we buy all our vegetables each week (far cheaper tan Morrisons) and then we buy other good food at the market before going on to Morrisons to buy anything that we can't get from other local traders.

For sometime Alison and I have been debating what chairs we should have in the guest bedroom. Both of us had a specific type of chair in mind, me a pair of small armchairs and Alison Ikea style tub seats but one thing consistently caused concern, the width of the corridor leading to the bedroom. No chair, other than flat pack, would ever get into the room unless they went through a window (first floor). However one day at the auction I saw my perfect armchairs, smaller than the full size ones but still easily larger enough for me to sit in quite comfortably AND they would fit in through the windows! Bidding started a £20, no takers, then dropped to £10, still no one bid and so I thought I had better start of the process and just as I was about to bid he dropped the initial bid to £5. I signalled to him, he then tried to find another bidder but no one else wanted them and so the pen slammed against the clipboard and the chairs were mine at jut £2.50 each! They need recovering but Alison reckon she could do it herself with simple cover fairly cheaply, what a bargain!

We have subsequently bought the following:-

£20 for Claire

The posh sink in the middle is really nice and cost me £26, easily worth £80 ~ £100.  The Two sinks on the floor I managed to obtain for just £5 the pair! They are in pristine condition and the equivalent in B&Q are £130 each compared to my £2.50 each. And Yes, I do have a place for each of these to be fitted.  MY BUY OF THE YEAR!

Old Brass Scale as used in years past to weigh bags of flour etc, bought for just £12 and the same item seen in a local Antiques shop for £30 (without the hooks). 

£52 for the Office. Whilst this seems expensive these are really good quality and Brand New.

And so you see that we are hooked by the bug and inevitably we play the guess how much this or that will go for game. Generally speaking I am not far of the mark, but Claire is pretty spot on. Last week there was a very large dining table stained heavily red and 6 leather seated chairs. I said to Claire that I thought it was worth £600 and that it would go for £300~£400. She poo pooed this saying that it was hideous and that it would only fetch £50 at best. Well it was at least 6' long and 3' wide and the chairs were excellent. Then the bidding started and low & behold £40 (I think), I would have lost £400 on the deal if I had bought it! (Which I wouldn't have done, 'cause in all fairness it really was hideous). The next week the table re-appeared minus the 6 really nice chairs, clearly a shrewd dealer bought it for the chairs. This time the thing sold for just £20.

This week we also put some items in the sale and I will tell you more of this experience in a few days time..........