Auctioneer hawks vintage cars - with modern assist
As his father mowed the grounds, Rodger Paisley, barely a teenager, would sit on a porch of the Chester County estate owned by an Army colonel, mesmerized by his war stories and an impressive mustache that curled upward at both ends.
As his father mowed the grounds, Rodger Paisley, barely a teenager, would sit on a porch of the Chester County estate owned by an Army colonel, mesmerized by his war stories and an impressive mustache that curled upward at both ends.
When Paisley made a career move two decades later, he had Col. Horace Shelmire in mind.
"When I found out I could call myself a colonel if I became an auctioneer, that sealed the deal," said Paisley, 66, who started PaisleyAuctions in 1987.
On Saturday, Paisley, the man they call "the Colonel" - a traditional title for auctioneers dating to the Civil War - plans to auction off 14 classic vehicles, including a 1969 Plymouth Road Runner, a 1930 Packard Phaeton, and a 1945 Diamond T that Paisley calls "the Cadillac of trucks." He hopes that by the time the auction is over, they will have fetched hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Paisley holds one of about 1,960 Pennsylvania auctioneering licenses, with almost 200 of them in the Philadelphia region.
He runs a one-man shop, but like auctioneers around the country, Paisley has an ally: the Internet. It especially has benefitted small operations like Paisley's, said Curtis Kitchen, director of publications for the National Auctioneers Association.
"It's really opened up the doorway for a bigger potential pool of buyers and sellers," he said.
Paisley said the Internet has helped him "play with the big guys," such as Mecum Auctions, based in Wisconsin, and Barrett-Jackson, in Arizona, businesses that might sell hundreds or thousands of collector vehicles at a single event.
The Colonel - actually, the Vietnam War veteran was a sergeant when he left the Army - has sold real estate, cars, cows, hay, and the paper used to line cabinet shelves. He has auctioned property for Downingtown Borough.
The son of antiquers, he got hooked on auctions as a young man. In 1987, Paisley drove to a 10-week auctioneer class at Harrisburg Area Community College.
"And I practiced selling every car on the turnpike there and back," he said.
He has supported himself with various jobs through the years as he pursued auctioneering, working as a welder and playing in a guitar duo, eventually becoming a full-time auctioneer by 2000. His wife, Theresa, has supported him through it all, he said, including his bout with head and neck cancer.
Paisley said the surgeries have altered his voice, but he is cancer-free and can still talk a mile a minute auctioneer-style.
His wife and several grandchildren will help him on Saturday, when he is expecting at least 100 people - "enough to make it interesting" - from across the country to show up for the 10 a.m. auction start. Tom Oates Automotive, a used-sports-car dealership in Chester Springs, is hosting; Paisley can't afford an auction house, so he is renting space.
His job as an auctioneer is to get a fair price for the owners and encourage bidding, he said. He pointed to a 1947 Mercury "Woody" station wagon.
"I can sell this car here for $40,000," he said. "But if I have three guys here who want it, it will go for $70,000."
One man plans to come from Ohio to bid on a 1953 Chevrolet Corvette replica.
"He's probably a guy my age, probably had one of these cars when he was growing up," Paisley said.
He can relate. He grew up with his family's old Chevrolets and has a soft spot for them. He remembers driving them along rural Chester County roads before he was old enough to drive legally. His father's 1932 Chevrolet Confederate often won the "unrestored original" category at car shows, duck tape and all.
On top of his day job, Paisley is also chairman of the Downingtown Veterans Memorial Fund and is working to bring a Civil War naval cannon to the memorial site. Stephen Sullins, Downingtown's borough manager, said the memorial would not have gone up without him.
Paisley is proud of it. And as he prepares for Saturday's auction, he can't help but think of his proudest moment as an auctioneer eight years ago. He auctioned off a non-running 1968 Plymouth GTX for $175,000.
He continues to chase that sale. And he is already thinking about the next auction.
610-313-8207 @MichaelleBond