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One review for Year Round Auction Ltd.
1 review in English
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Review from Christopher C.
4/3/2010
Formerly known as Darla's Auctions, as far as I know this business was acquired by one of her past employees and his family, a great man by the name of Ted!
Here's the basics -- sales are every Thursday starting at 6:00 PM. He has viewings on Thursday from 10:00 AM till 6:00 PM. Hit the website for a map and directions and all that if you need to :-) What kinda stuff is it? Well it's all kind of random stuff, big and small items, antiques, modern stuff, storage locker/lots, furniture, tools, vehicles even sometimes, you name it.
Ted (the new owner) is a pleasure to work with. He seems to be a good hearted, hard-working guy who knows his stuff and his family (wife and son) are often found helping out with things -- she runs the food counter at the auction (more on food shortly!)
Back in the day, Darla used to sell stale chocolate candy bars. It was kinda gross. Well , now we have FOOD! yes burgers, smokies, hot dogs, chips, soda, coffee, waters, candy, sandwiches, just everything you need to power through a few hours of auction madness is here. Great job and thanks for the foodstuffs, folks!!
Signage -- the signs look new and they are easy to read. Great for finding our way there from the road as well inside the building the rules are clear as day.
Seating - There is plenty of seating in orderly rows, and the Auctioneers... that is half the fun of going to an auction is a good auctioneer rattling off the bids, woo fun, puts 80% of professional rap singers to shame LOL! I have been to lots of auctions around Canada and this one by far feels the most authentic.
On their organization.. Everything is tagged with the consigner's number, and when you buy it, they scribble your auction buyer number on it so there is no mistake who bought what. Good there -- not 5 stars though because the description, even though you get a nicely computer printed inventory list, well it will just say something like "Chair" or "Table" , fine for the casual shopper, but say you bought $1500 worth of stuff and have 5 mysterious chairs you don't know if you paid $200 or $10 for that old Lay-Z-Boy or was it that ladder back chair? Hmm.. And those stickers are hard to remove sometimes but other than that, very good on the whole merchandising and moving stuff around, in fact the guys there usually help you a bit with finding your stuff afterwards and loading it up, which is nice. But hey, back to the auction overall, its good. Nice stuff can sell high and crap will sell for $2 if need be, though we've gone a few times and have usually gotten what we want at a very reasonable price-- that is to say, it is predictable and the atmosphere is fun.
There are two good places for Auction that I know of in the Calgary area, and this is one of them, each has their strengths or weaknesses.
The only downside I can think of here is the location, a bit out of downtown in an industrial area (I think I can come back in the day time and shoot pictures or really bad b-movie scenes with all the cargo containers, train tracks, and trucks about) and the road, well dont go speeding down it because it's bumpy as well, but other than that, there is adequate parking in their lot as well down the streets regardless if you have a semi, box truck, or car.
When you pick up your stuff, you will be glad to know Year Round Auctions has a great loading dock and a forklift even for the bigger items.
Internet folks, rejoice- they keep an updated website which shows pictures of the stuff coming up for auction, lists house rules and all that stuff you need to know for buying or selling your stuff at auction!
If you do plan to buy some housewares, furniture, jewelry, appliances, etc --- do consider going to one of these auctions first. It will surely pay for itself in the hundreds of dollars you will save buying slightly used stuff at auction than running down to IKEA or The Brick to get some junk that won't last more than a year or so.. just a thought ;)
I will definitely be back to Year Round Auctions, I have a complete blast every time I go, and always end up buying something unique or unusual, even if I don't particularly need it, it is tons of fun to go.
If you are out of the Calgary area, go find yourself a local auction house like this one and check it out some time. Makes for an interesting thing to do some night, bring some friends and outbid each other on weird treasures you won't find anywhere else :)
