Local Auctioneer A Man For All Seasons

     Sometimes learning a new skill is as easy as opening a book.
     Philip Stanton of McCallum Drive, Falmouth, can attest to that. In 1965, the former college professor purchased a farm in Upton and soon became interested in everything agriculture, from livestock to farming equipment.
     “I started going to auctions to collect these things,” he said. “Being a teacher and not afraid to get up in front of the public, I started listening to the auctioneers.”
     It was then that he read a “how to” book on auctioneering, which essentially turned this interest into more than just a passing fancy. On the way to and from auctions, he said, he would practice the rapid delivery of speech and mannerisms necessary to be a successful auctioneer.
     “I caught the bug,” he said, eventually receiving the proper license. He was running auctions by the late 1960s. “At the time it was like a real estate license,” he said. “You applied for it, and they gave it to you. Now you have to go to school and pass an exam.”
     When requirements became more stringent, Dr. Stanton had the luxury of having a grandfathered license, number 255, that reflects just how few auctioneers there were when he started. Now, he said, there are thousands of auctioneers in the state.
     Initially, Dr. Stanton said, the experience was somewhat daunting. “In the beginning, I would get a little tongue-tied,” he said. “Anybody is nervous when they are doing something they have never done before, but after a while it didn’t bother me.”
     Over the years, he has run auctions for everything from construction equipment to livestock to antiques to automobiles. Items have included matches, gold, silver, Paul Revere copper, stamps, coins, nautical items, and fine art. “I don’t think there is anything that has been manufactured that someone doesn’t collect,” he said.
     When those items have someone famous associated with them, he said it can increase the price it will fetch at an auction. As an example, he said, he once auctioned off a carriage that actor James Cagney drove. “Because he drove it, the price was $500 to $1,000 more than if you or I drove it,” he said.
     Regardless of what item he is selling, he said, “the goal is to create excitement and interest in the object I am selling. I am trying to stimulate the audience into feeling either: a. this is a good deal, or b. they can’t go home without it.”
     As an auctioneer, Dr. Stanton said, he has gained an interesting perspective of this world. Many times, he said, he is surprised when a “sleeper item” sells at a higher price than one predicted to do well. That is what he termed “the unknown factor” that makes auctions exciting.
     For many people, he said, attending auctions is a social event, which requires him to be both witty and personable. “You have to make it fun,” he said.
     On occasion, he has witnessed a husband and wife, or boyfriend and girlfriend, be separated at an auction and an item comes up for bid they want to purchase. That will lead to them unknowingly bidding against one another, he said, which can sometimes bring the price up.
     In the late 1980s, Dr. Stanton sold a Concord coach, or horse and buggy, for a then-record $68,000. That mark has since been shattered, he said, with a similar Concord coach going for $175,000.
     While he primarily works throughout the Northeast, he has sold livestock in the western part of the country through a special permit and once worked at an auction in South Africa, while on vacation, where he sold exotic animals, including zebra and ostriches.
     For sellers, he said, one of the benefits of auctioning off an item is that it usually brings in the best price.
     And as a buyer, he said, purchasing quality auction items can represent a smart investment, particularly during tough economic times. “During a recession, investors will invest in art, antiques, and other items because they don’t make them anymore,” he said. While the investment will not necessarily pay off in the short term, he said, purchasing these items at auction can have a long-term benefit that is less risky than stocks.
     Because of this, he said, auctions tend to attract both celebrities and highly successful businessmen. “One, they have money, and two, this is a secure investment,” he explained.
     For Dr. Stanton being responsible for the public sale of goods is “a great part-time job” that supplemented his career as a professor of wildlife biology at Framingham State College perfectly.
     A native of Watertown, Dr. Stanton received his undergraduate degree from Bridgewater State College, his master’s degree from Boston University, and his doctorate from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His specialty is ornithology, with an interest in oil spills and their impact on bird populations.
     That concentration is what led him to Falmouth in the early 1970s when there was discussion of establishing an oil refinery off the coast of Portland, Maine. That area, he said, was a large nesting habitat for eider ducks. As a precautionary measure to protect eiders from a potential large-scale oil spill, Dr. Stanton was charged with finding alternative breeding grounds.
     That location was Penikese Island, which is owned by the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, where there is now a healthy eider duck population that has spread to Buzzards Bay and Mattapoisett. 
     Since then, Dr. Stanton said he has become particularly fond of Falmouth, listing it as one of his favorite places in the world. Having traveled to such places as Vietnam, Mongolia, Australia, and Africa, he said, “Next to New Zealand, I can’t think of any other place to live than this area.”
     Following his retirement from teaching in 2001, Dr. Stanton eventually moved to Falmouth full time to give him greater access to the outdoors, suiting his varied interests that include gardening, hunting, and fishing runs the Woods Hole Calcutta Fishing Derby—and lobstering.
     He has a strong attachment to Woods Hole, serving as a director of the Woods Hole Community Association. He has also donated his time to lecturing, both on his travels and on ornithology, at the village’s historical museum. In the past, he has volunteered to run auctions at the Woods Hole Library and will do so again Saturday for the Woods Hole Historical Museum.
     Roughly 150 items, many of which are nautical, will be auctioned off, including a catboat, dinghies, antiques, maritime prints, brass lanterns, a wicker table, a musical box and a ship’s compass. While some items will fetch higher prices, Dr. Stanton said there will be other items that will be inexpensive. “There will be something for everybody,” he promised.
     The sale proceeds from these donated items will go toward renovating the 200-year-old museum.
     As to his devotion to the village, he said, “I believe strongly in Woods Hole and what it represents, in terms of my interest in wildlife, biology, antiques, and history. I guess this [Woods Hole] is one of my causes is the right way to put it.”