Hartford Business Journal

www.HartfordBusiness.com November 9, 2015 • Hartford Business Journal 3 Auctioneers see opportunity in CT's lightly regulated industry By Keith Griffin kgrffin@HartfordBusiness.com C onnecticut has a reputation for being a tough place to do business. But the co-owners of CT Auction House in Vernon wish things were just a little tougher in their line of work. Business partners David Bonadies, Scott Liscomb and Patrick Soucy recently opened their auction house on Route 30. Its first auc- tion, which attracted 150 people, was held Oct. 21. All three are industry veterans with Soucy the owner of the popular Golden Gavel in East Windsor. It's Soucy who suggested during an inter- view amidst public previews for the site's first auction that more regulation might be good for his industry. "Every other state has it but Con- necticut," Soucy said. Regulations exist little beyond a requirement that furniture upholstery be sprayed and sanitized before it goes to bid. The state does have strict regulations on automotive auctions. The sale of precious metals is regulated at auctions and munici- palities can require auctioneer registration. Auction houses under most circumstances must also charge sales tax, according to state laws. But the last time laws concerning auc- tions were revised appears to be 1997. Soucy said neither auctions nor auction- eers need licenses in Connecticut. "I'd like to see it because we get 'flashes in the pan' who come over the border from New York and Massachusetts," he said describ- ing auction firms that will hold pop-up sales to avoid regulations in their own states. Pennsylvania, Soucy added, requires a col- lege course to become an auctioneer. Assessing the market CT Auction House is a more slimmed down version of Golden Gavel but in a high- traffic area. Liscomb said an estimated 20,000 vehicles a day pass by their Rt. 30 location. Soucy didn't want to open Golden Gavel II as a sequel. He wanted to give this operation a different flavor. He's the sole owner of the East Windsor location, while this is a joint venture. He had been looking to expand into southern Connecticut. He said there's no fear of diluting the market. "There's a Burger King on one cor- ner and a McDonald's on the other," he said. The partners picked Vernon because Bona- dies lives there and Liscomb grew up in Man- chester. They said Vernon, Manchester and South Windsor are aging communities with good sources of material for their auctions. "We're eying other locations if this works out," Liscomb said. "The demand is there." Liscomb and Bonadies own Great Picks, an off-site estate sales service. They remove con- tents of a home and sell it online or through remote auctions. They had outgrown local auc- tion houses. "We were finding a void of auction houses that would take an entire estate," Liscomb said, adding 80 percent of their volume is between junk and high-end goods. Soucy said the average auction house wants to take the best six or 12 items. "We take care of every step of the pro- cess," Soucy said. It does appraisals. Family keeps what they want and then CT Auction takes the rest to auction or donate to charity. Items that are trash are hauled to a dumpster and the property is swept broom clean. This isn't a business that relies just on the surrounding communities. The partners have seen work from as distant as Newton, Mass., to Milford. "If they have good stuff, it doesn't matter where we will go," said Soucy. Business model Bonadies said there is a mix of sellers, retail people, dealers and the public who come to auctions. The 6,000-square-foot facility, formerly the arcade at CT Golf Land off I-84, employs five people overall. By 2016, the partners plan to have four full-time and 10 part-time employees. What's not readily apparent to the casual observer is that the auction is just the icing on the cake. A lot goes on behind the scenes and varies from auction house to auction house. CT Continued (From left to right) Scott Liscomb, David Bonadies and Patrick Soucy say the state's aging population creates more opportunities for auction houses to find good selling materials. ▶ ▶ ' A lot of Baby Boomers are trying to buy back the toys of their youth. We just had a sale of G.I. Joes. Things were going crazy.' Patrick Soucy, co-owner, CT Auction House H B J P H O T O | K E I T H G R I F F I N www.kelsercorp.com 111 Roberts St, Suite D East Hartford, CT 06108 860 610 2200 10,000 - global corporations collectively experienced 40+ million security incidents in 2014. How secure is your network? www.kelsercorp.com/cybercrime

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