Ag edition: Highest Bidder
DNA or not, Kidd Family Auctions is a family business.
When Dennis Kidd started the venture a decade ago with business partner Lyn Grose, his parents and two teenage children were involved and he was still working part-time on the Kidd family farm in Melanchthon.
Two years in, they started doing hybrid auctions with people logging in to place bids online. Since then Kidd Family Auctions has proven to be one of the most productive on the platform, selling more than 130,000 items in eight years, not counting the live auction sales.
When the pandemic started, Kidd said the team was well positioned to continue with the online auctions, while some other auction houses had to scramble to get set up with the new technology. Kidd Family Auctions is now exclusively online.
Auctions have long been a staple activity in the farming community. Kidd said he wanted to be an auctioneer since he was a child, having attended auctions with his father and grandfather.
With encouragement from his father, he went to college and started to build a career. He still does about three live auctions each year but Kidd says he learned early on in his 30-year career that the job wasn’t about the calling, it was about relationships.
“I began to understand that my place on the stage was less important that I thought,” said Kidd. “It’s really about customer service.”
As an auctioneer, Kidd is making contact with people who are struggling. In the case of estate auctions, the family may be grieving or facing financial challenges.
He said trust is paramount.
“We go into their house at a difficult time in their life, load up a truck and drive away,” said Kidd. “That’s why our motto is ‘come and let us treat you like family.’ You’re not just a number to us. We walk the talk when it comes to customer service.”
They also do farm equipment sales, antiques and collectables, art, firearms, coins and money, and vintage vehicles. Kidd has seen the market shift away from chunky antique furniture and china dishes. There is now a market for Petroliana, vintage advertising, and signs.
Kidd draws on his team’s expertise to identify and value items, calling in consultants for specialty items. If confident its worth it, they will go as far as Vancouver for pick-ups.
In a spacious auction house located on the Melancthan farm, a crew works to inspect, photograph and catalogue a number of items for future sales. A painting, wine glasses, and model airplanes are sorted on one side as tools for an upcoming auction are laid out for inspection on the other side. A backroom is full of inventoried material waiting to be sold.
“Every category has its treasures,” said Kidd.
As a hobby, for some treasure hunters the appeal is the hunt itself, for others its the hope of a good investment, but Kidd has observed that nostalgia is a key ingredient when it comes to making a purchase.
Kidd says although he is still excited by a new haul, he doesn’t really feel tempted to collect anything for himself – although he has acquired some auction-related memorabilia that is displayed at the auction house.
