Sold!

Every Saturday and Sunday at 11 a.m., auctioneer Col. Larry Folkerts sits onstage behind a large table in Building G at the sprawling Denio’s Farmers Market & Swap Meet (1551 Vineyard Road in Roseville) and takes bids on a variety of major name-brand tools, housewares, store fixtures, new furniture and miscellany at a clip of about 120 lots per hour for four hours. Folkerts, aided by two assistants, holds court for potential buyers, using his voice to command attention and a laptop to parade product images across a screen. Folkerts caught his breath long enough to talk with SN&R about obsessive bid calling, fans and the art of auctioneering. Ladies and gentlemen, start the bidding, please.

You work under the name TGW Auctions. What does the “TGW” stand for?

Tiffany Glass Works. Years ago, we owned a major glass company in Las Vegas. We did a lot of high-end casinos and higher-end homes.

How did you venture from Vegas to Roseville?

We were involved with auctions in Vegas. We were buying about 100 storage units a month. I had five auction houses that I supplied product to, [and] a building came up for auction in North Dakota at such a price that we bought it and moved up there for about five years and had an auction company there. The weather just was horrible, so [we said] “We’re done.” We took a year off up in Northern California and gold mined, and then picked a spot to start our auction again, and this is where we ended up.

This is a family business. How many other family members are employed by your company?

My mom and dad, my brother and his daughter.

What drew you to becoming the auctioneer?

Years ago, I was taking our products to different auction houses, and when we had our auction company in North Dakota, I was hiring auctioneers to come in and do it. It got to the point that their schedule wasn’t fitting with our schedule. I’ve always been around auctioneering but never grabbed a mic and did it myself, so I flat just had to grab a mic and start doing it. But I’ve been involved with auctions since I was about 13.

Did you try bid calling when you were a kid?

(Laughs.) Yeah, I did. But I really had a speech impediment, so it’s something I probably shouldn’t have done. But I got over that speech impediment, and it’s funny how things work out.

Did you go to auctioneering school?

I did, in Minnesota. It’s a two-week course. They give you the basics, and then you’ve got to do the fill-in yourself and get something that’s comfortable for you [to chant] so people can understand what you are saying. What they do is the basic “10, 10, 20, 20, 30, 30” [technique]. They give you that flow and that speed and tempo, and then you fill in and do your auction how you want it. It [takes] some time to come up with something that you can do without fumbling over your words.

Do you ever practice bid calling in the shower?

Oh, God. I dream about it. I try to go to sleep at night, and in my head I’m [auctioneering and then thinking], Oh quit! Quit! If I don’t practice during the week for Saturday, I feel like I’m not ready, so I do it all the time. I’ll go in the car [to practice]. If I’m by myself, I’ll have an auction.

Has the auction business changed since you started?

What’s really impacted the auction business in our favor [is] the stuff that they’re having on TV, the TV auction wars and this kind of stuff. People see those and [say], “You know what? I want to go see an auction.” We get a lot of people who have never been to an auction come to our auction because of TV.

What about “Colonel” in front of your name? Where did that come from?

Richard Haas [president of Continental Auctioneers School in Mankato, Minn.]. He made me an honorary colonel in the auction industry. The way that came about is [from] the Civil War days [and] the spoils of war. The colonel was appointed to sell all the stuff they had gotten in war, so if they ransacked someone’s house … the colonel was the one that always did the auction.

People ever corner you and try to get you to do your spiel?

Every place I go (laughs). A Denny’s waitress … [or someone at] Home Depot. Any place that [I] say, “I’m the auctioneer at TGW,” it [turns into], “Oh, can you do something?” All the time. If you ever want to be an auctioneer, just be ready to do an auction wherever you go.