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Ogden auctioneer calls it a career after six-plus decades

By Ryan Aston - | Dec 18, 2024

Ryan Aston, Standard-Examiner

Ogden auctioneer Doug Taylor is retiring after six-plus decades of making sales.

OGDEN — After 65 years and nearly 5,000 auctions conducted in the Weber County area alone, Doug Taylor is hanging up the microphone.

More than 200 friends, family members and regular customers packed into Doug’s Auction at 506 Washington Blvd. on Tuesday night as the 85-year-old conducted and oversaw the business’ final sales. By Wednesday afternoon, Taylor’s shop was all but cleared as he officially began his retirement, though a mountain of memories remained — memories made possible against all odds.

The story of Taylor’s life is a literal rags to riches tale, and one with a distinctly Ogden flair.

“I ran away from an orphanage when I was 4 years old and raised myself the rest of my life,” Taylor told the Standard-Examiner.

That’s not to say he didn’t have help along the way. Growing up on 25th Street in the rough-and-tumble days — long before the historic thoroughfare became a haven for boutique cafes, vintage clothing stores and craft breweries — he says he was taken in by a number of colorful characters there, including some of the women who worked at the Rose Rooms brothel.

“I remember on a Christmas morning, I was six years old and I had no place to go. It was cold and snowing and I went down to Union Station, and the director of Union Station would let me come and sleep on the benches,” Taylor recalled. “He took his last nickel and bought a hot dog to stand and split with me on my Christmas dinner.”

Eventually, Taylor found a temporary home with the U.S. Air Force, serving in places like Iwo Jima.

“I was 16 years old and had a whole lot of moving violations — driving,” Taylor said. “They told me I had my choice at that time: either go in the military or go to jail. So, I joined the Air Force the next day. They only gave me 10 days to do it.”

Upon his return to the Ogden area in 1959, however, he found himself without a home once again and looking for work. It’s at this point that Taylor began his career as an auctioneer, following his uncle into the business despite not having been interested in it previously.

“I went to school. Then, you had to be an apprentice; I was a year and a half apprentice with (an auctioneering school),” Taylor said. “I had three different auctioneer trainers who were Hall of Fame auctioneers in that area. I traveled with them, I set the sale up, I moved and unloaded the trucks, cleaned everything up. I had to do all the grunt work and, at the same time, I’m learning the auction business.”

After setting up shop back home, he and his late wife and business partner, Joyce, balanced the auction business and other ventures with raising 13 kids, according to Taylor, most of whom lived and learned the business as well. Through it all, though, Taylor never forgot the people who helped him, and he has done his best to pay it forward over the years.

Taylor regularly donates his talents on the microphone for charitable functions and community events through organizations like United Way, Jerry’s Kids, Ronald McDonald House, St. Joseph Catholic High School, Weber and Davis school districts and many others — something he plans to continue in retirement.

He also had a penchant for giving away items from his shop to friends, family, customers and those in need.

“I don’t think you ever charged me for a piece in the store,” Scott Nielson, owner of Ogden’s Green Brick Jewelry, told Taylor as he was being interviewed for this story. “I would see a pair of candlesticks and I’m like, ‘Oh, these are cool. Hey Doug, how much for these?’ And he says, ‘Just take them.’ I don’t think you ever charged me for a single item.”

Taylor concedes that he was able to make some money along the way, but he tried to do a little bit of good, too. And he devoted himself to the auctioneering craft, which involves a whole lot more than fast-talking.

“What you have to do if you’re selling 200 items — and it can be 200 different items — you have to know the background of it, you have to know what it’s worth, you have to know if it’s available, you have to know all that information about all 200 items you’re selling that night,” Taylor said.

“I have one book that’s 350 pages just on marbles and there’s marbles that are worth $100,000 … You heat them and they crack and break and they make jewelry out of them and they’re actually crystal. Then there’s furniture, baseball paraphernalia, everything in the world that has to have appraised values.”

Now, at the end of his career, he maintains that it’s not just microphone skills or a willingness to do the homework that makes a good auctioneer.

“Well, I would say probably compassion. You’ve got to have a lot of compassion,” Taylor said.

And he’s as proud of the children he has raised, the life he had with his wife and the friends he has made as anything else.

“I’ve tried to be a friend with everybody. I used to have a sign over there that said ‘We’d like your business, but we need your friendship.’ That’s what it’s always been.”

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