Webb family auction going strong after more than 30 years

MEADOW LAKES — “I got three-and-a-half, three-and-a-half, who’ll give me three-seventy-five? Sold!”

Brad Webb’s distinctive voice booms through the chilly morning air Saturday for Webb Auction and Appraisal’s annual fall auction. A crowd of more than 250 bidders has already gathered in the industrial yard just south of the intersection of the Parks Highway and Pittman Road. There cars, trucks, furniture, appliances construction equipment and even a bright red outhouse with a moon cut in the door surrounded them.

“Here’s a whole coffee can of silverware!” Webb bellows. “This is a lady deal here.”

While many attend auctions to find bargains, they’re big business for the Webb family, which has been operating in the Valley since 1977, said Jillyan Hendrickson, Webb’s daughter and executive director for the Greater Palmer Chamber of Commerce. Along with a small cut of the sale price, the house also gets a flat 10 percent of the sale price.

And it’s not by accident Saturday’s event came the same week as Permanent Fund Dividend disbursements went out. For the Webb family, though, the auction is another testament to a true family effort. Jillyan was raised in the business and her mother, Jan, and father still work closely together to run the auction and appraisal service even though they’ve been divorced for 15 years.

The key, though, is her father, Brad, a third-generation auctioneer who knows how to work a crowd.

“He is essential,” she said while her father tried to get another $5 on a box of miscellaneous stuff from a bidder.

“There’s three boxes altogether here!” he prompts. “There’s lights in there and all that stuff. Who’ll give me a $15 bill?”

It may be entertaining, but the key to the auction business is to get as much as you can for every item, Jillyan said. That means the family makes more money, the customers make more, and they’re more likely to throw more business the Webbs’ way.

“The more money our consigners make, the more we do,” she said. “Auctions are great, because you never know what things are going to go for.”

A good example came with the first item Saturday morning, where several women get into a bidding war over a KitchenAid stand mixer.

“This is a pretty big one,” she said of the auction. “It’s PFD time, but really, auctions are a social gathering as much as anything. It’s just fun to watch people come to socialize, to people-watch.”

Waiting for their turn on the auction block Saturday are numerous pieces of heavy equipment, a box of MREs (military meals ready to eat), a propane tank, four-wheelers and tools of all kinds.

One interested observer was Wasilla resident Ralph Lanhart, who was selling his old Ford utility truck. It was the first time he tried to sell something at auction.

“It’s just been sitting in the yard for three years,” he said. “Now it’s one less thing in my yard.”

While the show is part of the draw for an auction, the times and technology have allowed the Webb family to expand and reach customers all over the state, Jillyan said. By 10:30 a.m., she had already taken phone bids on items from Nome, Kenai and Delta Junction. They also are getting more into auctioning off real estate.

While the first rule of business for most is location, location, location, for the auction industry it’s advertise, advertise, advertise, she said. There are certain items that draw bidders, and because auctions happen at various locations, getting the word out is essential.

“A lot of this heavy equipment goes for a lot,” Jillyan said, adding the economy can affect her family’s business in a big way. “When there’s a downturn in the economy, there’s an upturn in the auction business.”

There’s no limit to the deals one can find at an auction, and Jillyan Webb is living proof. Her birth was paid for with physician services purchased at a charity auction.

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.