Member Article

Auctioneer Michael bids to click with worldwide buyers

Newly appointed sale room manager at PFK Auctions in Cumbria, Michael Roberts, says that the company’s auctions could soon be taking place on a worldwide stage via online video streaming.

For Michael, who many may recognise from TV’s popular Bargain Hunt, is determined to expand PFK Auctions’ reach and reputation across national and international audiences.

Michael, aged 33, has taken up his new senior role at PFK following ten years spent as chief valuer and auctioneer at a major sale room in Canterbury, Kent.

During his time there, he acquired a detailed knowledge of valuing fine arts and antiques, and became a recognised specialist in antique carpets and rugs, and antiquarian books.

Whilst with the company, he also completed an honours degree in Fine Arts Valuation from Southampton Solent University.

An early career highlight for Michael was his six-hour auction of a vast 19th Century private fossil and natural history collection.

The successful marathon earned him a pair of auctioneer’s white gloves, a tradition at Sotheby’s where gloves are presented to auctioneers who manage to find a buyer for every single lot in a sale.

Michael also became familiar to viewers of BBC’s Bargain Hunt as the auctioneer wielding the gavel at sales which took place at the Canterbury auction house.

For seven years, he regularly appeared as the resident auctioneer as two teams of amateur collectors tried to make a profit on antiques they had bought for under £300.

Now Michael says he wants to grow PFK’s reputation for auctioneering excellence, and plans include the live video streaming of its quarterly antiques and collectors sales.

This will allow the auction to be both seen and heard by potential buyers anywhere in the UK and overseas who will also be able to bid via their computers.

At present, he states, almost one third of PFK’s auction sales are made via the internet – and that video streaming will add an exciting new dimension to the process.

As well as its quarterly antique auctions, the company’s 1500-square-metre sale room next to the M6 in Penrith also hosts increasingly popular fortnightly Victoriana and later sales.

In fact, Queen Victoria was still on the throne when PFK first came into being in 1876, and Michael believes there are many attics in Cumbria with personal treasures dating to her reign:

“I’m especially looking forward to visiting the homes of local people with items they no longer need, and providing estimates on what they might fetch at auction,” he says.

“We don’t charge for valuations and there’s no obligation to sell through us – but it can be an eye-opening experience to discover just what sort of sums someone might literally be sitting on!”

Michael will shortly launch a series of Saturday morning valuation sessions at PFK’s Estate Offices throughout the county to provide on-the-spot estimations of what items might fetch at auction:

“We’re not concerned only with antique furniture and pictures, and PFK would be just as interested in anything from Art Deco jewellery to a record collection from the swinging sixties.

“I know very well from experience that there’s almost always someone out there for whom your unwanted item is the end of their rainbow – and it’s our job to find them,” added Michael.

His first valuation session will be held at PFK’s estate office in Devonshire Street, Penrith on the morning of Saturday 14 November.

Now a resident of Waitby, near Kirkby Stephen, Michael and his wife Lucy are dog lovers and keen walkers, and are looking forward to tackling some of Cumbria’s toughest upland routes.

In his new role at PFK, Michael will bring his gavel down for the first time on Wednesday 25 November at the company’s antique and Christmas jewellery sale.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Jon Boston .