Courtesy photo
During an auction earlier this year, Joe Bower (right, on ladder) bid calls while family members clerk and ring. Bower Auctions has been operating since 2006.
By R. R. Branstrom
rbranstrom@dailypress.net
EDITOR NOTE: The Daily Press will be featuring a series of articles on local businesses, highlighting their history and what makes them unique. The series will run on a regular basis in the Daily Press.
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EUSTIS — In a village west of Schaffer that once had a station on the Soo Line railroad, shelves on a certain Centennial Farm — recognized in Michigan for having been continuously worked by the same family for over a century — also support another business.
Bower Auctions began operating 18 years ago, providing a service to families clearing out estates and holding similar styles of sales for businesses, organizations, schools, banks and other parties with goods to sell.
The partners who run the LLC are Joe and Mary Bower, but on days when live auctions are actually conducted, many more hands contribute. The couple’s four children — Josie, Jackson, Mason, and Christina — plus a son-in-law and Joe’s four brothers all chip in.
Though it’s a lot of work, Joe says he enjoys working with his family. He was the youngest of six boys who all grew up working side-by-side on the farm, which has been in the family since 1891.
In his childhood in the ’70s and ’80s, farm auctions and others were a common sight, Joe explained. He found they piqued his interest.
“We grew up on the farm, grew up going to auction sales with dad,” Joe said. “I always just kind of wanted to do it. We talked about it here and there, and I think I was my mid 30s or so (when) I said … ‘Let’s go to auction school.’”
So off went Joe and one of his brothers, Bob, to Continental Auctioneers School in Mankato, Minnesota. In Michigan, no certification is required to be an auctioneer, but the Bowers found the course useful.
Bower Auctions also belongs to the Michigan Auctioneer Association, which supplies further information. The Bowers attend its meetings and conferences and appreciate the guidance the association provides, Joe said.
The Bowers began by doing live auctions in 2006, and the business was officially registered as an LLC in 2010.
When a client interested in holding a live auction calls them up, Bower Auctions assesses the scale and value of the goods to be sold, establishes a commission fee — usually a certain percentage — and draws up a contract.
It takes a lot of time to sort through all of the items, divide them into lots, and make sure no personal affects that should be kept by a family get lumped in with the objects to be sold.
“There’s a lot to it. It has to be handled … we give it the care and understanding. Because we walk into a home, and we realize this was your home, and we’re going to treat it with respect,” Joe said. “It’s not just looked at as items.”
Once things have been organized and lots established, there has to be enough time to gain interest for a scheduled auction date, often through advertisements highlighting the bigger items.
The aim is usually for an attendance of 100 to 200 people, which is typical. But it fluctuates.
“There are so many factors,” Mary explained.“Weather, other things going on in the community, items being sold.”
Bigger auctions — like the recent one for Kobas Electric that had 3,000 lots — attract greater numbers and intensity. The Bowers travel to hold auctions for people around the entire U.P.
Having a whole team, Joe explained, means they’re able to share the workload and alternate jobs, so no one person has to exhaust their voice acting as auctioneer (bid caller) for six straight hours. Auctions often last longer.
“It is fun. We enjoy working together. There might be 12 of us working for a live sale,” said Joe. “They help (with) the setup, and then they’re there for all throughout the day as well … As one of us has been calling, you know, Mason will be ringing, and he’ll go, ‘Okay, we got the bowl,’ and I’ll sell the bowl. And then someone else hoists up something else, and — ‘We’re selling this.’ They’re called ring men. And you move down the line. It moves through faster that way.”
One thing that helped Bower Auctions develop a name for itself in the early days was benefit auctions. Those sort of events happen when a group seeking to raise money for something collects donations that are then auctioned off as a fundraiser.
Towards the end of 2019, the Bowers were looking into incorporating online sales as well in order to better serve people with lower-valued items that were unlikely to draw a big physical crowd but could find interest on the internet.
Online sales enable customers to liquidate their items still through the hands of professionals, rather than bother with other platforms themselves that can be frustrating or fruitless. If a single party doesn’t have enough stuff to constitute a whole auction, Bower suggests they bring their items to the farm when it’s time for a consignment sale. Such sales are held in the winter months and made up of lots from a variety of sellers.
The very first online sale Bower Auctions held was in spring of 2020, right before COVID hit. They ended up extending the timeframe of that one because of the chaos and uncertainty around the pandemic, but the Bowers’ online auctions have since become so popular — now more frequent than live auctions — that they stick to a routine people count on.
Generally, photographs of the items are posted online about a week in advance before bidding begins. Auctions open on a Monday and close nine days later.
“Now, we can adjust that to fit,” Joe said, “but we want to stay in a pattern, because our regular customers look for that pattern. And we’ve got a lot of regular customers that watch the site and are always interested in what’s coming next.”
He said that it was interesting to see how many people moved over to online shopping. Older people who used to attend live auctions now enjoy placing bids from the comfort of their armchairs.
Sellers benefit because their items reach markets they never would have before, and items are shipped all over the country.
Bower Auctions also has a partnership with a platform called Auction Time, which helps connect people with large items to sell, like vehicles, and the professionals.
Bower Auctions’ own online sales are conducted through HiBid. Both HiBid and Auction Time are owned by Sandhills Global.
Information on past and future sales by Bower Auctions can be found on their website at bowerauctions.com. Its next auction is to help clear out the former Gun Barn in Iron River; bidding will be open from Dec. 2 to 11, and the online catalog is visible now.