The city of Camden’s ongoing effort to bring out-of-county citizens a taste of what Camden has to offer has attracted Wooten and Wooten -- a fine art, antiques and estate auctioneering company.
Wooten and Wooten will hold its first auction Saturday at 10 a.m. at TenEleven Galleria. The company will hold a preview from 12 to 8 p.m. today, Thursday and Friday. Thursday, there will also be music and drinks from 6 to 8 p.m.
Saturday, Camden will get its first dose of what Wooten and Wooten’s has to offer. The company will showcase hand-selected and quality pieces through on-site bidding, online bidding, phone bidding and absentee bidding. The auction will focus on East Coast estates, with pieces from Boston to Miami. Online bidders can watch the bid on LiveAuctioneers.com.
Wooten and Wooten is run by husband and wife Jeremy and Rebecca Phillips Wooten. Jeremy Wooten, a Lugoff native, has worked as an auctioneer for the last seven years, focusing on Southern and Americana an-tiques. He has placed some of the country’s “most significant pieces” and placed them into private collections and institutions around the U.S. He is currently chair of the University of South Carolina’s McKissick Museum’s collections committee. Rebecca Phillips Wooten has a master’s degree from the Winterthur Museum in Delaware in early American culture. She has several year’s experience working at museums, in addition to experience as a cataloguer and appraiser. She is a member of the Certified Appraisers Guild of America. The duo stepped out on their own to utilize their own ideas on selection and sales, Jeremy said.
Combined, the Wootens have 50 years of experience working with fine estates at auctions.
“We are excited to be in Camden; it’s an historic city and I’m glad to be home. We’ve had a positive response and we are glad to be able to offer our services,” Jeremy Wooten said. “Camden is the perfect city to have a cat-alog auction and we hope to become a part of the of the town.”
The Wootens take the very best from estates: “items that deserve to be catalogued and put online.” Often-times, people don’t know what to do with the pieces that they’ve inherited and are unaware of their value, the couple said. Jeremy Wooten said two of the pieces that will be up for auction were going to be sold at a yard sale for significantly less than their value.
“We rescue objects and help them to live on,” he said.
Wooten and Wooten will host an auction in Camden quarterly and have already started selecting pieces for its August auction. Jeremy Wooten said he and his wife expect bidders from 30 countries on Saturday because of their Internet presence. The Internet allows the company to reach people that they might not typically be able to reach, he said. Auctions are open to the public, but everyone must register before they can bid. Registration documents can be filled out at the auction on Saturday or can be downloaded at Wootenandwooten.com and faxed.
Complete catalogs will be available at the preview and the auction for $15.
(The online version of this story has been updated to correct typographical errors in the print copy and to add the correct website for Wooten and Wooten's online auction feature.)
