(folksy music) - [Announcer] "Illinois Stories" is brought to you by The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and by the support of viewers like you, thank you.

(auctioneer chanting) (auctioneer chanting) - Hello, welcome to "Illinois Stories," I'm Mark McDonald in Pittsfield, you've been listening to Pittsfield auctioneer Brian Curless, who was the 2017 World Livestock Auction champion.

Now, to people in the auction business, that is an immense deal because there are hundreds, maybe thousands of auctioneers around the country and in Canada and around the rest of the world that do this for a living, and it's very competitive.

And Brian himself has been involved in this competition for several years and had some success.

But then finally in 2017, you broke through with the world championship, that's a hoot.

I don't think people around this area kinda are aware of that.

- Well, you know, it's been, as you can imagine, it was a challenge, and when I started, I had aspirations that all I needed to do was just jump in and I'd probably just win the thing, you know, it just seemed like it oughta be pretty easy.

- Young and cocky, right?

(chuckles) - Oh my goodness, yeah, so, you know, when I went in and found that the competition was incredible, and there are a lot of great auctioneers in the country, and it was something that I had watched and aspired to for about 20 years before I actually got involved with the contest itself.

So I kinda waited 'til I got some kids raised and got some things under my belt and decided that, you know, the timing was right to try it.

And so it was, but it was a great challenge, and very rewarding and very humbling process to go through that, not only through an interview portion of a contest but also the selling portion, and just the intensity of the contest was an educational process in itself.

- This was, like I said, the 2017 championship, this took place in Billings, Montana.

As evidence of your victory at that, we have this, now you have a lot of belt buckles 'cause you've won a lot of competitions, but this is the big one, the LMA, which is Livestock Marketing Association.

- Yes.

- 2017 world champion.

And that is a gorgeous thing, it's much more impressive than your other belt buckles.

- Well, hopefully, right.

(Mark chuckles) - And then of course there was a $5,000 cash prize that went with it, and some other things, I mean, you got the use of a beautiful pickup truck for a year didn't you?

- Sure did.

- [Mark] What was that like drivin' that thing around?

- Well, to be honest with you, it was a little out of character for me because I was, I don't want to say that I was embarrassed by it because I knew it was comin', but all these prizes are not what this has ever been about for me.

To be honest, I don't want to say that I don't care about the prizes, but they came with it, that's just not what it was always about.

You know, I was the 54th world champion.

So, you know, in those years previous, I've been watching those champions, and never ever in my life thought that I could be even considered in the same conversation with those guys that I put-- - Until you came in second.

You came in second a few years before you won, right.

- I did, yeah, I came in second a couple of years before, in 2015.

- Mm-hmm.

- And you know, so when that starts happening, you know, like I say, when you start, you think well you just win it.

(Mark chuckles) But then there's this big discrepancy about what happens after that.

- Yeah.

- You know.

So it's just a matter of payin' attention to the details and see what the guys that have won it ahead of you, what are they doin' that I'm not doin', you know, and just pay attention to the details and adjust.

And so it's been a great, really great process.

- We heard a little bit about that, they call what auctioneers do chanting.

We heard a little bit about your chanting at the beginning of the program.

I wanna go back now and hear some more of that from the competition itself in 2017, and then we'll come back and talk about it, okay?

- Sure.

(Brian chanting) - Brian, for those of us who don't attend auctions, I have no idea what you were sayin'.

(chuckles) I mean, do you ever look out there and people are goin', or do they all know, are they all hip to it?

- You know, we run into both of those categories, right?

So in some auctions, when we're in a livestock auction like that, those buyers are sittin' on those seats maybe five, six days a week, they are thinkin' way ahead of what's goin' on in that chant.

It's second nature to 'em.

- Mm-hmm.

- When we go back to, we'll see the farm toy auction, some of those folks are professional buyers.

Some of 'em might go to an auction once a year or maybe they've, maybe this is the first one.

So we construct our chant a little bit differently so that whoever our audience is, we want 'em to understand what's going on.

The most important thing, I feel, in a chant is, beyond the knowledge of the product that we're selling, is clarity so that our customers can understand what's goin' on through that process.

- Now, the chant, did it develop into this real fast cadence because it was a way to sell more product and get more animals through there faster?

Is that how it got all stepped up like that?

- You know, having a sense of urgency to the process is extremely important.

- Mm-hmm, okay, so it's not only a matter of economy of time, it's also to get people sort of driven into a rhythm and they wanna get, they wanna get their, they wanna get their bid in there, huh?

- There is no better place to sell something than to sell it at auction where we have competitive bidding because that competition builds emotion.

And that's what drives the value.

It can help us find that true value of something.

- Now in this competition, for instance, in Boise when you won the world championship, it's more than just chanting, and it's more than showing that you can run an auction.

The Livestock Management Association actually has a panel of judges that wanna hear what your thoughts are on agriculture and selling and the livestock management business.

So you're asked a panel, like Miss America, you're asked a bunch of questions, right?

- Kinda like that, yeah, you know, in that process, it's an interview portion of the contest where each contestant is asked the same three questions to each contestant and given an opportunity in front of their peers and the cameras and the lights and live online, and a lot of pressure, and to articulate their answers to industry-related questions in front of industry-related judges.

So, yeah, it adds another dimension to the contest that hasn't always been there, it's a relatively new part to that contest.

Well, certainly, the mission of the Livestock Marketing Association is to support and protect local livestock auction markets.

They understand that auctions are a viable part of the livestock industry today.

So the mission of the Livestock Marketing Association is to, they're such a unique organization in that they are on the front lines, helping local livestock auction markets deal with issues that confront them every day.

And at the same time, they're hovering at 50,000 feet, keeping a trained, focused eye on the major issues that affect the umbrella that is the livestock industry.

- [Mark] Brian, you became kind of a celebrity after you won that 2017 world championship.

Tell us about Hollywood.

(laughing) - Well, you know, that started by driving down Washington Street in downtown Pittsfield, Illinois one day, and the phone rang and, you know, as they say, sometimes Hollywood calls, well, on the other end of the line, - No, not for me.

(laughs) - on the other end of the line was a lady tellin' me that she was from Hollywood, you know, and I, my initial reaction was to hang up the phone, but the longer she talked, the more it kinda started makin' sense, so Disney asked me to come do a voiceover for a movie they have coming up by the name called "Wreck-It Ralph 2."

So went and did that, and it was, a lot of fun.

It was a real kick to go through that process.

- So you're doin' voiceover work, and they also created a character that looks a little like you, I guess, huh, is that what they did?

- Well I guess, yeah, I didn't think so, my daughter thinks so.

- Your daughter is gonna be in line to see that movie.

- Right, yeah, yeah.

- I guess all of Pittsfield will be.

- We've got a lot of people that are anticipating that comin' out sometime around Thanksgiving.

- Okay, well, we'll look forward to it too.

And I mean, this table of hardware, they're big on belt buckles in the auction business.

I can tell that.

- They are.

- [Mark] But I mean, look at this ring over here.

Now this is from your world championship, right?

- [Brian] It is, that's the world champion ring.

And, you know, like I say, all these things, as you can see, they're all in the boxes.

I don't use 'em much.

- Mm-hmm.

- It's not really what it's all about for me.

So, but gosh, they sure are nice, aren't they?

- Oh, they're just beautiful, and, you know, I mean, you actually did wear your world championship because during that year, you sort of represent the Livestock Management Association.

It's nice if you can wear that and kinda give them a boot at the same time, right?

- Well, you know, and that's somethin' that is really important, you know, the Livestock Marketing Association is who puts on this contest, and they do it in an effort to promote and support local livestock auction markets, and that's really important to our local communities.

Even our, you know, here in Pittsfield, we closed our market in 2000, but as I had the opportunity to travel around the country and see those small communities from East to West all over the country where they have a local livestock auction market that is a hotbed of economic activity at least one day a week, a lot of those markets have an auction there maybe two, three, four days a week, but it's really important to keeping our local communities solid and havin' that economic engine goin' in a lot of those small communities.

- I wanna brag on one more thing on you here.

This is so heavy I can barely lift it, but I wanna put this here out where we can see it.

And this is your Best of the Best Illinois Champion of Champions, what does best of best mean?

- Well, in 2013, I was fortunate enough to win the Illinois State Auctioneer contest that they have at the State Fair each year, the following year in 2014, they put together a conference, and in conjunction with that, they had what they called the best of the best.

And being the most recent winner, I just entered it just because it was, seemed like the thing to do.

And again, just got fortunate and you know, all these contests, what that was, was they invited past Illinois state champions, and there was, that competition is always - Some heady competition, isn't it, yeah.

- really tough as well, I'll tell you what, sure is.

Those guys are all really great.

And I just was fortunate enough, and I, with each one of these competitions it's important to remember that most any contestant can win one of those competitions on any given day.

These guys are all really good.

The stars kind of align when a guy wins one, you gotta kinda have a good day, and everything's gotta be just about right to come up at the top of that.

- You're active in auctioning other things besides livestock too, and in fact, right here in Pittsfield we're setting up a toy, a toy auction a farm toy auction, and I'd like to visit that and get kind of an idea what the organizational aspects of that is.

So can we go down there now?

- You bet.

- Brian, here at Pikeland Community School in Pittsfield, this room, in a few days, is gonna be full of people.

This will all be chairs where you and I are standin' here, right?

And all the farm toys will be spread out, right where you're starting to organize 'em here.

And the auctioneer, yourself, will be standin' at the front of the room, and then you've got these, you've got these video boards, these monitors here, and everybody will be able to see from their program, what's comin' up next, and the order of the bidding, so there's a lot of organization that takes place for this, isn't it?

- Boy, there is, you know, when we start off and we have 635 lots of these farm toys, and to present those to folks that we have presented online ahead of time, they've been able to see what's coming up.

They've got pictures, they've got the description online, but when we get our hands on 'em here in the auction facility, that takes a lot of organization, and I couldn't do it without a great crew to help me set all this up, they've been a great asset.

- I'll bet, and speaking of, you mentioned online, before you had online capabilities, that's made it a lot easier, hasn't it, bein' able to show people beforehand what you've got online?

- It really has, it's been a great help just as you say, organizationally, it lets people do some research ahead of time.

That's a big asset to let people come in here knowing what they want to bid on before they actually get here.

- Can we take a walk through some of this merchandise here?

- You bet.

- Okay.

You have several folks who are selling here, but the main fella is a guy from Loami, Illinois, and he's been collecting these farm toys for 30, 40 years, I guess, huh?

- Sure.

- [Mark] And what a collection, my goodness, his basement was full, right?

- Absolutely full.

And I don't know how he did it, so many times we see a collection like this, that might be sittin' on somebody's shelves, and they might be all covered with dust, but I'm tellin' ya, I don't know how he did it but these things have all just been as clean as a pin.

It's been incredible to see how he took care of 'em.

- [Mark] He's not only a collector, but he's also one that obviously paid attention to them, and spent time with 'em, kept 'em dusted, kept 'em, you know, and kept, many of them have their original boxes?

Which is good.

- And as you can see on the floor, we have some empty boxes that we haven't got married up to the toys yet.

- [Mark] And why is that important?

- Well obviously, if we can keep the box with the toy, that's gonna increase the value to someone because so many boxes were discarded over the years that when you find one that still has the box or maybe it's never been out of the box, that's even better, then it adds value.

- And we can see, here's some in boxes.

And then on the floor there, you've got, those are the ones you're still tryin' to marry up with the toys themselves.

And sometimes the box is worth more than the toy, I guess.

- [Brian] It can very well be, that's correct.

- [Mark] Okay, now, okay, we're lookin' at Allis-Chalmers right now, let's go over here to some of these larger ones, and I asked you if you would show me some of the ones that might be more appealing to more people and might bring a bigger amount of money.

- Sure, so we, now we get into a pedal car and pedal tractor area, we don't have a lot of them on this auction, but when we look at something unusual, like the Caterpillar diesel dozer is really an interesting piece.

- Is that a pedal?

Is that a pedal, so that's for a kid to pedal, huh?

- [Brian] Yeah, it's a pedal dozer, so really interesting piece.

And we kind of think it might be one of the higher selling items on the auction.

- [Mark] Because they were rare or because it's just in such good condition or... - Both.

You know, that's something that, you know, as we say, something that's been mass produced many times ends up with a lower value because the supply is so great.

You know, that's the thing that's fantastic about an auction is it's all about supply and demand.

So when something has been mass produced, we expect that value to be less down the road.

When we have a piece like this that were, there just weren't very many of 'em, when one's in this good a condition, we can expect the value of that to be pretty high.

- And you might have people come to this sale just for that item.

I mean, they may not be collectors of farm toys at all, but they may see this, and that might be what they show up for.

- And if I'm lucky, they come to buy this and I get to sell 'em two or three of those over there too.

- (laughing) That's right, get 'em hooked, huh.

You know, it's interesting, an auctioneer, probably you find yourself learning all the time about different things because the people that are in that audience, they know, they're here because they're collectors and they know that stuff and you're expected to know that stuff too, aren't you.

- Exactly right, you know, and my learning curve for various things gets ramped up pretty quick when we tie into a project because there's nothing that we can't handle, but sometimes we need to reach out to somebody that we know is also interested or maybe is an official in something that maybe we don't see all the time, you know.

We see a lot of things pretty regularly around here, but at the same time, every once in a while, we'll run into something that someone brought in from an area a long ways away that we don't see a lot of.

So sometimes we need to ask for a little help.

- Yeah, you need to do a little brushin' up don'tcha.

- Sure.

- And you never, probably never, have you ever been asked to sell items that you didn't even know existed, and you say, okay, well let me do a little bonin' up on this and we'll get around to it.

- Absolutely, you know, we run into little pieces, let's say for instance, cast iron farm tools, quite often.

And you know, maybe finally by auction day, we'll run into some old boy that's been collectin' those things for a long time and he'll say, oh yeah, I know what that is, but up until then maybe nobody knows what that piece actually is.

(Mark laughs) So yeah, that happens a lot.

- Well, it's gotta be interesting.

And of course, like you say, you can't do it yourself.

You've got staff members who help you.

I know we saw them here today tryin' to fit boxes to toys.

And of course all this stuff has to be set out in a way that is presentable 'cause people show up early they want to walk through here and see what it is they're interested in, don't they.

- Absolutely right, and you know, to the point about the folks that help me and that work with me on this auction, I've got people like Jason Duke, who we met here this morning.

You know, I would not do these kind of things without people like him helping me, that they love doin' it, organizing these things like this is not my forte, but it is his, and he does a great job at it, so it's a great partnership when people like Jason and his crew come in and help me do a lot of this.

- Just to expand a little bit more on the kinds of things that you get involved in, and not just yourself but other auctioneers as well, what sort of things are you selling later in the year?

What sort of sales do you have coming up?

- Sure, so we've got a gun auction comin' up.

We'll have a couple of gun auctions a year, and we'll sell from 200 to 400 guns on these gun auctions.

We've got one comin' up the end of August, which is always a big deal, you know, we gather in a lot of people to these gun auctions and over the years we've been having those for about 15 years now, over the years, the quality of our gun auction has increased a lot.

- Mm-hmm.

- So we'll do that.

We'll have a farm machinery auction the first weekend in December, the farm machinery consignment auction.

So some things like that, you know, we're continually selling farmland, continually selling houses.

I've got a nice house to sell up in Quincy here in a couple of weeks, I've got another little house and some pieces here in town to sell.

So, you know, those things are continually coming, but the livestock auction business is awful good here too.

So we do a lot of that selling cattle at livestock markets around the region.

- As we saw earlier in the program, you were recognized as actually the world livestock auctioneer of the year.

And so you have to go beyond that though, because probably nobody can make a living doing just livestock or am I wrong?

- Well, definitely when you get in other areas of the country where they have a lot more livestock, those guys make a very good living in that business.

- And that's what they do, huh, they don't branch out the way you do.

- Exactly, but it's by necessity, it's what they have.

You know, they can't hardly keep up with everything they have to do in the livestock industry.

Here, we don't have as many livestock as we used to have, certainly not as many as they do, so we diversify.

And, you know, as we say, our goal is to fill the need within the community.

- Bonnie Sandidge, we have been looking at amazement at your husband Bill's collection of farm toys.

He's holding, I think he describes this as his favorite.

- [Bonnie] Yeah, it is.

- [Mark] Tell me a little bit, he hadn't had it that long.

Tell me a little bit about that.

It's beaut, it's a Massey-Harris, isn't it, a Massey-Harris?

- Right.

- Combine?

- [Bonnie] And I think it needed a lot of work when he got it, and he did put some new reels on it and repainted it, is that right, honey?

- Yeah.

- Repainted it.

And so he spent a lot of time replacing parts on a lot of these implements, and it was quite a hobby.

- It's like what Brian said, I mean, not only were these like, taken good care of, but they were very clean, so he obviously spent time with them.

- He did, yeah.

- They weren't just stuck in the basement - No.

- and collecting dust.

He spent a lot of time, and of course it's your basement, so your basement was full of these toys all these years right?.

- Yes, yes.

So like I said, the man cave is now, it's the mom cave now, with all those-- - It's empty now, what does that feel like?

- Well, it's not empty, I can find things to put down there.

Anything that doesn't fit upstairs goes down, everybody does that.

- And you have shelving, plenty of shelving, right.

- Yes, lots of shelving.

- All of these, 600 toys here had their own shelf and their own place, and I imagine Bill had an order for everything, didn't he, everything was where it belonged.

- Yeah, oh yeah, and it's amazing to me that he still, he can tell you everything probably what almost what he paid for every item here.

And I can't do that, but-- - Well he said that he paid in excess of $300 for this little combine here.

- Yeah, yeah.

- And I asked him would you expect to get more than that for it, he goes, no, I don't think so, but somebody's gonna get a real find because he fixed that up nice.

- Yeah, I think if I had to say a favorite is the Spirit of 76 tractors, he got two of them.

We were in Iowa and he bought one up there.

And then he bought one, I forgot where the next sale was, but it was something we did together.

And it was special because it was the Spirit of 76 and one was a lighter blue and one was a dark blue.

So I guess if I had a favorite, that would be that because we were together.

- Is it hard to give all this up?

- Not for me, it's harder for him.

- Yeah.

- It's harder for him, but we knew it was something that had to happen.

It was gettin' to the point that I wanted to do it while he was still able to enjoy and watch it sell.

And you know, it just, he was the one that put it all together.

Get it.

- Yep, it's his, it's his project, isn't it.

- Yes it is.

- Well, listen, thank you both.

And you'll be here, present for the sale.

- Oh yes, we'll be here.

- And you'll be keeping your fingers crossed.

- Yes.

- And hoping that it all comes out okay.

- Well, it's in God's hands, so whatever it is, it will be.

- You've made the decision, right?

- That's right.

- All right.

- Yeah.

- Well, you will not be able to see, this program will air before you get a chance to either attend this auction or hear anything about it.

But I thought you might find it interesting to know what goes into putting an auction together.

And also getting to know one of the premier auctioneers in the world.

With another Illinois story in Pittsfield, I'm Mark MacDonald, thanks for watching.

(folksy music) - [Announcer] "Illinois Stories" is brought to you by The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and by the support of viewers like you, thank you.