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This year, with the July 1st Canada Day holiday landing mid-week, I thought I’d take advantage of the free day and do something that, although so entertaining, I rarely make the time to do . . . I went to a rural antiques auction.

I consulted a few of my favourite auction listings to see if any sales were being held on our nation’s birthday. Auctionsfind.com handily tabulates auctions in Southern Ontario in a format that’s easy to scan by area and shows whether the sale includes a photo preview. The Auction Advertiser features a calendar view that lets users find auctions on a particular date, and Ontario’s Auction & Antique Paper is another good source for auction listings in and around the Greater Toronto Area.

Using the resources above, I was able to find a Canada Day sale at Byron Martin & Sons Auction at the Charlong (Valley) Community Centre in Dundas, just outside of Hamilton . . .

I wasn’t organized or awake enough to get to there in time for the preview, which began at 8:30 am (they call it a holiday for a reason – no alarms!), and I wandered in shortly after the auction started at 10:30 am. The room was full of eager bidders and the selection of merchandise was varied in period, patina, and provenance. I took a quick scan of the lots and determined that nothing particularly interested me but I stayed for awhile for the entertainment value and to see what kind of deals bidders were getting.

A vintage, four-shelf solid wood/oak veneer bookshelf, said to have come from a local Bell Telephone office, went for $50. A Duncan-Phyfe drop-leaf pedestal dining table in great condition went for $190. A retro, light-up globe on a streamlined, acrylic stand — very collectible — went for just $5. And on a patriotic note, a rather large carved wooden Canada goose (top pic), signed by the artist, went for $70.

Byron Martin & Sons offers particularly good value because there’s no buyer’s premium added to the winning bids (an extra 10 - 20 per cent is typically tacked on). I didn’t stick around long enough to see what the few contemporary teak pieces went for, but given the pricing trends earlier in the sale, I’m sure there were deals to be had. They don’t call it bargain hunting for nothing.