Old ratty Phonograph at the Saturday Night auction barn

Everybody wants a ratty old record player. For ancient records.

Oh wait...everybody does not. That was just me.

Good god, I have wanted a ratty phonograph for at least a decade. Now I have one. If you just want to see the phonograph then scroll to the pictures at the bottom of the page. It is big stupid fun and I am very proud of it but the rest of the words on here are the story of of how I got it at the Stolfe Auction of Gardiner NY and not everybody wants to hear it. So if you just want to look at the pictures, that's OK too.

Everybody goes to auctions but nobody should talk about it because that is deathly boring. I just wrote this story about the Stolfe auction because the night I got this phonograph was the last Stolfe auction at the Gardiner Barn location and because it was the one time in my life I got a great phonograph and I waited a long time so I was excited.

THE STORY OF THE RATTY PHONOGRAPH AT THE SATURDAY NIGHT AUCTION

Here in the mountains, in a barn in Gardiner NY, there is an auction 2 times a month on Saturday night. The auction is the Marc Stolfe auction (link the Stolfe Auction Website below if you like auctions, they are a very dignified family).

The Marc Stolfe auction is not ordinary. They serve home made food, they book keep your bidding information on paper cards in cardboard boxes. The Stolfe auction is old school and they are local. In the winter season, a lot of people come out on a Saturday night to go there, even if they don't have any money. To gather, to eat the food and just to see who is coming out. The food at the Stolfe Auction is the cheapest, best home made dinner in Ulster County and after the hunting season, the chili has venison but nobody says so because then you can't sell it. So it is venison and everybody knows it but the chalk board menu just says "chili".

You are buying your stuff from 4 generations of Stolfe in that barn. You Register with the great grandparents, hear auction chat and buy food from the grandchildren, and watch items carried around for display by the great grandchildren. If you want to stomp around examining the items, people do that the whole time the auction is going on but you have to move out of the way of the Stolfe great-granddaughter...she is busy cruising the floor in 1 of those baby walkers with giant round tray table and the bumpers on it.

At the snack bar with the Stolfe grandchildren...the food is home made chili or a hot dog. It costs 2 bucks. If you get the chili you can have some oyster crackers on it from the 1 plastic bag but don't hog them. If you take too many oyster crackers, someone will remark on it.

So December 8th was the last Marc Stolfe auction in their location in the middle of Gardiner. Rich people are buying up Gardiner and the auction barn rent is too expensive now. The Stolfe generations will scout a new locale and live to fight another day. I came out on December 8th 2007 and i was after that phonograph...Saturday night and it's cold but not bitterly. The ground was a mess (it snowed 2 nights this week). Pitch dark at 5 pm and the crowd at the auction barn is local and light except for 4 big antique dealers and you can always pick them out you just look how many high cube trucks are there in the parking lot.

There was a lot of interest in this phonograph. The turntable works and the tone arm is not broken. 12 needles come with it.

It is a "Pathe Freres XVII" which means it is a French ratty phonograph but also means it is the the kind of phonograh that plays all 3 sorts of antique records so while it is not the most antique phonograph you can have, for those of us who want to USE a record player to listen to music on it, it is the most valuable.

The "value" of a thing like the ratty phonograph at an auction like this is viewed 2 different ways and by 2 different camps.

In Upstate NY, We bring a more "tool mentality" to these objects than the city guys in the box trucks. "tool mentality" is what the antique dealers call it when someone wants a 70 year old cast iron frying pan because they plan to actually make food in it.

So in the eyes of an antique dealer who was only looking to earn, the Pathe Freres ratty phonograph may not have been valuable at all. I will never know and i do not care. It plays great and it's mine now.

So I walk in the door and i am looking for the phonograph

and...3 guys are already handling it. That made me really dejected. I chalked it up to the 5th or 6th good phonograph I would lose to some guy from New York City...willing to spend my week's take home to get one. At least I could eat the chili. The guys in the box trucks will pay hallucinogenic prices for the things we treasure. Most of us can't afford their gas so we can't say anything about it. So I walk in the middle of them (the 3 guys with big stupid money who can't turn on a phonograph) and slide the brake off and push the turntable a little and it starts. One dealer in a LL Bean bogus barn coat without a mark on it says says "oh! it works!". And I say "yes and it is mine. have a little mercy on the locals boys, and don't come against. There is plenty of other stuff here for you to steal." and one other guy smirks at me and says "is that your trash talk?" And i say "no...it is the opposite. I will hold up my number until I have no money left. Cut me a break and don't come against. I am local...I came in my own truck and i want this." So they all laugh and wander off to torture some mahogany bedroom set that has 3 dressers.

So auction starts and vibe is wild. A carven oak desk chair won't bring 50 bucks but a set of paper mache animal heads goes off for 45 bucks apiece. Everybody wants to bid and only the dealers want to drag heavy objects and load the trucks.

I wait on the phonograph and the mahogany bedroom set with 3 dressers goes at 180. The phonograph is coming and so I walk to the front of the room. Walking to the front of the room is what you do if you are going to bullet bid.

If you want to bullet-bid at Stolfe auction, you got to stand where everyone can see you. It is only just. So the Phonograph comes and Marc Stolfe says "who will start this thing at 400 ?" I don't hold up my number. For one thing because i don't have 400 and Marc Stolfe knows it. He has never seen me bid more than 80 bucks in my whole life...and for another thing, the mahogany bedroom set just went out the door at 180 bucks on a night where people are spending 45 bucks apiece for paper mache animal heads. Marc Stolfe knows he has got a bizarre night on his hands. He gives me the eye roll and backs the bidding off to start at 75 bucks and I hold my arm straight up. In the air, not coming down again and ready to look HARD at anybody who lifts their card. 1 lady from town jumps in at 75 and we back and forth to 90 and she is staring me down. The antique dealers are not making a move and as their reward; they get to watch 2 local women with a "tool mentality" go at it over an old phonograph. Maybe their christmas spirit got the better of them.

At 100 I look at the lady. and open my eyes wide and whisper "please" because 100 is what I had to spend. No help. She wants it too and she is smiling at me but she just shakes her head no to me and holds her bidder number up again like "forget about it, I have 100 bucks too and I can prove it.". The antique dealers are having a ball...they don't bid but they are whispering. I look at the lady again at 130 and she just shakes her head again no and i leave my arm up because I am thinking "screw this...I am as good as anybody I have another 70 bucks". So Mark Stolfe is laughing at the antique dealers and stoking them "come on, boys they are stealing it" but the box truck guys do the right thing...they are liking it. They are having too much fun watching the locals go at it and Mark Stolfe being exasperated. So I back and forth with the lady to 150 and she is looking right at me...not mean just calm and she wants it and i do too. So it is 160 and then at 170 the hand of god touches my common sense. I am not eating ramen noodles 3 weeks for some phonograph. So i let it go at 170 and put down my card. I figure I will not to 180...let her have it and I go to skulk off to the back of the room by the kitchen because when you back down on a bullet bid that is as close as you get to total humiliation in Stolfe barn. So i shove my number in my pocket and turn away and Marc Stolfe goes "What are you pouting...? you got it !". I was so pist to lose I did not see the lady laughing at me because she waved him off at 180. So suddenly...I am jumping up and down and clapping for myself and everyone is laughing at me and clapping too. Nobody claps at the Marc Stolfe auction, clapping is Sothebys stuff. I totally don't care that the people are laughing at me at least they are clapping... I just run over to the phonograph and I am touching it like a little miser and everyone laughing at me and clapping and I look at everybody and yell "thank you...look at me go, clapping for myself like an asshole" and then everyone is laughing harder in the barn in Gardiner at the last Stolfe auction and that is how I got this amazing phonograph.

I also got this really cool scale for 7 bucks

Old scales are cool but i am not sure why

I put some drying sage on it. The weight works