Meet The Owners: RR Auction

has dedicated itself to upholding a reputation, and making sure each piece of signed history it auctions is authentic.

This small auction house was established by Bob Eaton in 1976 after he decided to sell a collection of sports memorabilia he has acquired.

The 19-year-old continued selling sports memorabilia, cards and autographs until 1980, when he decided to mail out a list of available items. Since then, RR Auction has mailed out a catalog, with an accompanying website, that offers over 1,000 fully guaranteed signed historical items, including photos, documents, letters, and books from a variety of categories.

His business moved from Newton Centre, MA, to New Hampshire during the 90s before settling into its home on Route 101A here in Amherst. It now includes 20 employees and reaches interested buyers nationwide.

We talked to Bob about his unique auction business and the many historical pieces it has sold.

Patch: What is rewarding about running your business?
Bob: It is the same as it was back when I started. I get to meet the people that own these collectibles and they really love their things; they have treasured them and had them for years. We convey the same passion and enjoyment in seeing their collections as them. Even over 30 years later, I am still excited to see something new I had never seen.  When we have your Robert E. Lee, George Washington or Babe Ruth item, we have to represent that to a potential bidder. We then get to see how excited they are when they win an item because the hunt that is the most enjoyable part of the business.

Patch: What is the most unique item you’ve sold?
Bob: I’ve found lots of remarkable pieces, but recently a truly great find was this hand-written letter by Alan Shepard from 1959. It was a letter to his parents where he told them he was going to Washington D.C. and would possibly be picked for the space program. It sold for $106,228.

Patch: How has the Internet affected your business?
Bob: It has made a huge difference and the Internet has changed the business as a whole. We have had a fully-functional website where people can go on to bid online. It has given us the ability to have more customers and we can be found by collectors worldwide. We still mail a 300-page printed, color catalog every month. However, we get a lot of people that don’t receive the catalog any longer and bid completely online. We used to send out 5,000 catalogs every month, now we send 1,000. My phone bill used to be $20,000 a month, now it is $1,000 a month. Yet, our sales have increased from from $3 million to $12 million a year. Being in business for a long time adds to it and we keep adding credibility. We have had longevity, sustainability and consistency.

Patch: What do you need to know in your line of work?
Bob: My expertise is to be able to tell you two things: what it is worth and if it is real. I need to know if that is a real Marilyn Monroe and what it is worth at auction. I have gotten experience through over thirty years of doing just that every day. There is no formal training to it, you just learn as you do it and get better at it. You just get better at being able to appraise and authenticate over time.

Patch: What does the “RR” in RR Auction stand for?
Bob: It stands for “Remarkable Results Auction,” and that is what we expect of everyone that woks here. We ask new hires what makes them remarkable, and if they can’t tell us, we don’t choose them. Employees here are dealing with people’s treasures that may have come from their parents or grandparents. Some of them have been building their collection for 30 years and they are entrusting us with it. We cannot guarantee the sold prices, but we can guarantee that we will do the best job possible within our control.

Patch: What are the challenges of running an auction house?
Bob: It is definitely spotting the fakes. For example, we had an exciting opportunity recently where we came across an item from famous Civil War photographer Matthew Brady. His studio took all of the famous photographs of Abraham Lincoln, generals and many regular people. You can count the authentic examples of items with Brady’s signature on one hand and a client claimed to have a legal document with it. We looked at it and it didn’t look exactly as it should. I looked at it, one of my experts looked at it and it was deemed a mystery of who signed it, but it was definitely not Matthew Brady. We guarantee everything we sell for life and if we had believed it was one hundred percent real, it would be worth $20-30,000.

Patch: What is the culture of your business?
Bob: Our reputation is built on knowing what we are selling is authentic and guaranteeing that authenticity with our expert’s seal of approval. Reputation in our business is the most important thing. Everybody that works here likes what they do and we cover everything from presidents to entertainment. They really become specialists. We have about 1,500-2000 items each month and they need to get catalogued, photographed and inventoried. However, the customer service aspect of it is very important and we urge everybody that works here to take a long term view of our clients. The answer is always yes and even though we are selling or auctioning, it is a very service-oriented business.