Seemed like pretty often, a sleigh turned up at auction around Christmas time. Since most of the auction houses have temporarily closed and moved online, I haven’t seen any this year.
But several have appeared in the past, and I’ve written about them:
“When rural mail was delivered by sleigh in snowy places”
“A real ‘Jingle Bells’ one-horse open sleigh”
“A Christmas sleigh ready for a loving touch”
Recently, I was going through some photos from around this time last year and I found another sleigh, described by the auction house as a “one-horse open sleigh.” I recalled it vividly because it was dressed in the holiday colors of red and green, and appeared ready to embark – after a little sprucing up. The auction-house staff had parked it on a short flat-bed trailer in a corner of a room along with tables full of other stuff.
I figured no one would want the wood-and-metal sleigh, since it would be a bear to move. But when it came up for auction, two people bid on it: one man present at the auction and another on the phone.
The bidding started at $30, and the two went tit-for-tat until the on-site bidder won the sleigh for $100 (plus the buyer’s premium of 20 percent).
“I will put it in my yard with lights,” he told me after the sale. “My wife told me not to spend $300 for it but I wanted it bad.” He said that he also had bought some Hess trucks to donate to children for Christmas. “I really wanted that sleigh,” he said again.
He seemed a bit surprised that someone else desired it just as much as he. He had figured that “no one with concrete would want it.” He also had his eye on an oversized Santa Claus up for sale.
The five-foot-tall Santa was set up in another room. It was a hand-painted department-store Santa reading a book under a lamp post that was missing the lamp and its light. I’m not sure if he got it; it, too, had caught the eye of another bidder. The Santa sold for $100 plus the buyer’s premium.
Maybe he was lucky again.
