It took a day to wrap up and truck out hundreds of musical instruments now stored in a Surrey warehouse ahead of an online auction.

At the seller鈥檚 house, an Able Auctions crew sorted and transported some unique and rare instruments including guitars, amps, microphones, horns, harps, banjos, drums, dulcimers, mixers, cases, xylophones 鈥� you name it, it鈥檒l be auctioned on Nov. 19.

The 鈥渓ifetime collection鈥� is , and it takes some time to scroll through the 448 items.

鈥淚t came from one gentleman out of his house on one of the Gulf Islands,鈥� reported Jeremy Dodd, president of Able Auctions.

鈥淗e was buying from around the world and shipping it to this little island,鈥� he added. 鈥淚t鈥檚 quite a collection, and I imagine his shipping costs over the past 40 years were pretty high. That鈥檚 my guess, probably 40 years (of collecting the instruments).鈥�

STORY CONTINUES BELOW

Someone in the Gulf Islands is selling off a "lifetime collection" of musical instruments with Surrey's .
It takes some time to scroll through the 448 items, as seen below.
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鈥� Tom Zillich (@TomZillich)

The auction company won鈥檛 name the seller, due to privacy concerns. 鈥淚 imagine he wouldn鈥檛 be too hard to track down because he鈥檚 promoting it (the auction) quite a bit on his social media channels,鈥� Dodd said.

A 鈥減review鈥� of all those instruments is planned Friday, Nov. 18, a day before the online auction.

The pandemic forced Able to hold all auctions online, where they鈥檒l be forever more.

鈥淎ll our auctions these days are 100 per cent online, but we have a preview day so people can view the items. It鈥檚 a COVID thing that won鈥檛 go back,鈥� Dodd explained. 鈥淲hen those first public gathering restrictions were announced in March (of 2020), we basically switched the next day to 100 per cent online.鈥�

Online is a much more efficient way of auctioning, he added.

鈥淚t鈥檚 become an online business with 100 per cent of our sales online, and it鈥檚 just so much easier to control the payment of product, the pickup of product,鈥� Dodd said. 鈥淲e now put a lot more effort into photographing and videoing products so people don鈥檛 have to attend the preview 鈥� some still do. Before the pandemic we were around 40 per cent online sales, and now we鈥檙e 100 per cent.鈥�

tom.zillich@surreynowleader.com
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