Auctioneer, Salesman, Magician

Duane Hill, auctioneer with the Alaska Auction Company in Anchorage. Kayla Desroches/KMXT
Duane Hill, auctioneer with the Alaska Auction Company in Anchorage. Kayla Desroches/KMXT

Kayla Desroches/KMXT

The auctioneer wore a black suit and top hat and his voice boomed out over the main ball room at the Harbor Convention Center. Duane Hill is from the Alaska Auction Company. Saturday was the 6th time he’s flown in from Anchorage to host the Kodiak Arts Council’s 25th Annual Arts and Adventure Auction. Hill says that being an auctioneer is more than being the showman that people see behind the pedestal trying to wring every last dollar of value out of the auction items.

“You need to be good at accounting,” says Hill. “You need to be good with numbers. If you’re an auctioneer, you know, you gotta get all the stuff organized, you gotta get all the stuff in. You have to be able to move a lot of stuff. You have to be able to lift hundreds of pounds without it bothering you too much.

And he’s something of a magician too.

“When I get on an airplane, little kids all the time, you know, they’ll say to me, ‘Is that a magic hat mister?’ And I go ‘Yeah, it turns merchandise into money.’”

He says that that transformation is one of the most intriguing aspects of the auction business. He’s a salesman. And once you hear him on the stage, you also realize he’s an entertainer. Here he is speaking at the auction between bids.

“Back there young lady… and I know you have a serious coffee addiction. You better get this…You know, it’s one of the few legal addictions you can have in this country”

Among the objects Hill sold in the outcry auction was a fire engine ride for five, a seat on a 4-hour bear viewing tour, and several original pieces by local artists. One of those artists, Mark Witteveen, is known for his metallic marine sculptures. This year, he contributed a coho salmon.

Mark Witteveen stands beside his sculpture.

Mark Witteveen stands beside his sculpture at the auction. Kayla Desroches/KMXT
Mark Witteveen stands beside his sculpture at the auction. Kayla Desroches/KMXT

“I use big hammers and wheels to stretch and shrink metal to make three dimensional sculpture,” says Witteveen. “It’s colored just with heat. I use a mixture of oxygen and propane and it just oxides the metal and then I use a little tiny torch to make spots.”

Someone else donated a humpback whale of Witteveen’s from their collection.

The Arts Council raised more than 30,000 dollars by the end of the night.

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