Castle's auctions are eclectic form of entertainment

Auctioneer works to keep things light

Paul Bieschke Jr/ViewAuctioneer Robert "Bo" Hawks holds out his hand, looking for the next bidder during an auction Jan. 20 at McManus Auctions at Sunset Castle, 650 W. Sunset Road. The auctions are held every Sunday at noon. Advertisement

It's midday on a Sunday behind a faux castle, and a man in an impeccably tailored black suit topped with a black Stetson cowboy hat is talking a mile a minute through a handheld P.A. system.

"Seventeen and a half and now twenty, seventeen and a half and now twenty ... what?" A customer next to him asks a question that most of the crowd can't hear. The man in the Stetson responds: "Can we let him think about it? Helllllllll nooooooooo! We've got a lot of stuff to sell today and no thinking, only buying. Seventeen and a half and now twenty, seventeen and a half and now twenty. Sold, your way for seventeen and a half dollars. That's you sir, the man with the yellow shoes." The pace of McManus Auctions at the Sunset Castle at 650 W. Sunset Road is fast and friendly. Auctioneer Robert "Bo" Hawks keeps things moving and keeps the crowd amused with an assortment of jokes, folksy charm, salesmanship and, of course, the classic auctioneer's chant.

He concedes that the job is a combination of acting and commerce. "It's a conversation with the audience," he said.

Both Hawks and the auction house are relatively new on the scene. In November, proprietor Patrick McManus bought out the stock of an antique store that had previously occupied the castle and started the first auctions that month. Hawks only found his calling as an auctioneer last spring. He attended an auctioneers school in North Carolina, and after acquiring his auctioneering license, McManus Auctions was one of his first professional auctioneering gigs.

"Basically, I'm in the embryonic stages of my career as an auctioneer," Hawks said. "I'm going to be 38 this year, and I finally found what I want to do with my life. I sold art for a long time and had a lot of fun, made a lot of good money and a lot of good friends, but now it's like you finally wake up one day and it's like a Christmas present you get to open up. I have a lot of fun when we do it, and I always have a great time whether we make tons of money or not."

It's hard to tell that Hawks is new at this job. He keeps the action fast and the excitement high, even when the item being auctioned doesn't hold much interest for the crowd.

"All right, I've sold Picassos, I've sold Rembrandts, but I've never had the glory that I have today with selling this beautiful couch set, All right, what do you say, how about a thousand dollars?" Hawks said. Then he paused for a beat before deadpanning, "OK, how about a dollar?" It doesn't sell.

Hawks doesn't stop for a minute. Even when he is in one conversation, he'll stop midsentence to greet people walking into the auction preview and then carry on with the original conversation.

"Hey, how are you? I like your little puppy."

"Nice to see you, sir. Thanks for coming back."

"Hola, buen bonito, senior. How are you? Nice to see you. What number are you? I hope that's a lucky number for you. Maybe you win a lot of things.

"I only speak a bit of Spanish," he confesses, counting out 20, 30, 40 in Spanish.

"People want to have fun, they want to enjoy their day, they want to learn something, they want to win something," Hawks said. "My job is to facilitate that, to orchestrate the energy in the room and bring out all that competitive spirit and fun."

The auction attracts an odd mix of snowbirds, bargain hunters, people seeking unusual or hard-to-find items and folks who just seem to like a good, free show.

"I'm usually looking for old stuff," said Skylar Arn of Las Vegas. "I'm trying to go back to no electricity."

Justin Humble said he frequently comes to the auction with friends and his girlfriend, Macara Moran, to buy box lots and odds and ends. "The first time we were here, we got a box lot with $950 worth in savings bonds in it. We got it for five bucks, so that was a score."

Hawks said that there are plenty of bargains to be found. "Here, we have things that are 90 percent beneath the retail value. I've seen prints that have sold for three, four, five, six thousand dollars in the mall, at Centaur (Gallery), sell for hundreds of dollars here."

Hawks said he worked for 13 years in The Centaur Gallery, a fine arts gallery inside the Forum Shops at Caesars, before deciding to make the leap to this new position. "I finally decided to fire my boss and follow my dreams and become an auctioneer, and lo and behold, here I am," he said.

According to McManus, the building has served many purposes since it was built in 1992, including a bar, batting cages and an elephant museum. "I sought it out to have a unique location, a castle," McManus said. "We capitalized on it by having our own sword room. Also we have antiques, and it kind of fits what we do."

Hawks said he doesn't think that eBay will ever completely replace live auctions because it doesn't have the personal contact that makes an auction an event, a show and a market. That being said, it isn't all about the money for Hawks.

"I've gone through a benefit fundraising auctioneer course, and that's what I want to do more than anything else," he said.

The auctions are held at noon on Sundays. The preview begins at 11 a.m. For information, visit mcmanusauctions.com.