New Hampshire’s public auction house — “Spreading Joy through Material Culture.”
Everything you need to know about how our auctions work, visiting our hall, and buying with us. Have a question we didn’t answer? Email hello@graniteunionauction.com or call (603) 451-6960.
Auction Formats
We run several auction formats. The chart below compares the three you’ll encounter most; details follow underneath.
Online-Only (Antique & Discovery)
In-Person Antique
In-Person Discovery
Where
Online — livestreamed video auction on our website
Franklin — Upper Hall (Main Level)
Franklin — Lower Hall (Lower Level)
Live bidding
Livestream chat
In person, by paddle
In person, by paddle
Absentee bidding
Self-serve online; open until the lot sells
Self-serve online (closes 1 hour before the live sale); call-in or in-person written bids up to 10 minutes before
None — attend in person
Buyer’s premium
10% (8% with Zelle, cash, or check)
15% (13% with Zelle, cash, or check)
15% (13% with Zelle, cash, or check)
Shipping
In-house shipping on all items
Select items only (clearly marked); third-party shipping by arrangement, buyer pays. Many items are pickup-only.
None — pickup only
Preview
Generally none; by appointment in Jaffrey on request
Yes — in Franklin at posted times (no appointment needed)
Yes — in Franklin at posted times (no appointment needed)
Pickup
Franklin or Jaffrey, all items (or ship)
Franklin or Jaffrey; some lots limited to one location or off-site (clearly marked)
Franklin, day of the sale
Swipe the table sideways to see all formats →
In-person auctions are in-person events first. Online absentee bidding is offered as a courtesy for our in-person antique auctions, but we highly encourage you to preview, bid, and pick up in person. Most items in our in-person auctions are not available for shipping — every lot is clearly marked during absentee bidding as ship-eligible, pickup-only, or third-party-shipping-only.
You’re responsible for what you win. Please check the shipping and pickup options on each lot before you bid. If you win an item you can’t (or decide not to) pick up or arrange shipping for, you’re still responsible for paying your invoice.
How Our In-Person Auctions Work
In-Person Antique Auctions
A traditional auction. The auctioneer announces an opening bid and the price climbs from there, lot by lot, as bidders raise their paddles — until the hammer falls and the lot sells to the high bidder.
In-Person Discovery Auctions
Merchandise is organized into grouping and single item lots and sold “on choice.” A table or section of the room is opened for bidding — generally starting at a $5 bid — and the high bidder wins the right to choose any lot they want at their winning per-lot price. Nothing is selected until bidding on the round closes, so please don’t reveal your picks while bidding is live. Exciting, fast-paced, and fun!
How choice works, by example: a table of 20 lots is offered on choice. Bidding runs, and the high bidder at $25 chooses lots 001, 003, and 005 — paying $25 for each. Bidding then reopens at $5 for choice of what’s left, and repeats. When no one offers the $5 opening bid, whatever remains in that section is sold together as a single lot.
Pop-Up Claim Sales
From time to time we also run Online Pop-Up Claim Sales — items offered at fixed Buy-It-Now prices via live video, first to claim wins. Claim sales carry no buyer’s premium, and no Zelle, cash, or check discounts apply.
In-Person Auctions & Pickup: cash, check, and card.
Discounts
Pay by Zelle, cash, or check and take 2% off the buyer’s premium — that’s 8% online (instead of 10%) or 13% in person (instead of 15%).
Check is accepted from known in-person customers in good standing.
Cash on an online order qualifies only if you pick up and pay in full within 7 days of the invoice.
When Payment Is Due
Online-Only Auctions: pay in full online before pickup, and always before we ship.
In-Person Auctions with Online Absentee Bidding: pay in full online (Zelle welcome), or pay by cash or card at pickup — as long as it’s within the pickup window in our Bidder Terms.
Pickup Locations
Online-only lots may be picked up at either location. In-person antique lots are picked up in Franklin unless a lot is marked for Jaffrey or off-site pickup. Discovery auction items are picked up in Franklin on the day of the sale.
Franklin — Auction Hall
58 South Main Street, Franklin, NH 03235
Pickup is available on posted days (see our schedule). Come any time during the listed hours — a quick courtesy text to (603) 451-6960 helps us have your order ready and keeps your wait short.
Jaffrey — Warehouse
385 Squantum Road, Jaffrey, NH 03452
Pickup is by appointment only, self-serve from our pickup shelf. Text (603) 451-6960 to arrange a time. Please don’t come without an appointment.
Shipping
Online-Only Auctions: we ship all items in-house, nationwide within the U.S. (International by prior arrangement.)
In-Person Antique Auctions: only select lots are available for in-house shipping and are clearly marked; other lots are pickup-only or third-party-shipping-only (you arrange and pay).
In-Person Discovery Auctions: no shipping — pickup only.
Shipping and handling is billed separately from your winning bid (there is no buyer’s premium on shipping). Standard in-house rates run about $6–$8 for packages under 1 lb, $12–$20 over 1 lb, and $20 and up for large or heavy items. We consolidate orders where we can and ship via USPS or UPS; expedited service is available for an added charge. We aim to ship by the Monday or Tuesday after the sale, and always within 10 business days of payment, with tracking emailed automatically. Use Open Box at checkout to hold multiple online wins and ship them together to save on shipping.
Shipping insurance. You may add shipping insurance at checkout. If you decline it, we cannot issue refunds for items damaged in transit or for lost or stolen packages, and we are not responsible for a shipment once the carrier has accepted it.
The Facility
58 South Main Street, Franklin, NH 03235
Our auction house is a 1917 brick building in Franklin, New Hampshire — originally the Christian Church of Franklin, later home to Meridian Lodge No. 60 of the Free and Accepted Masons. All of our public auctions are held here, in two event halls — one on each floor.
Two Halls
Upper Hall (Main Level) — our antique auctions, in a former lodge room with soaring ceilings and comfortable seating. Merchandise is out for preview, runners carry each lot around the room during the sale, and item images with brief descriptions appear on monitors at the front of the room.
Lower Hall (Lower Level) — our discovery auctions, a high-energy standing-room format with minimal seating available for those who’d like it.
Registration, checkout, concessions, and the cinema box office are all on the main level. Always enter through the main entrance and register on the main level. (Customers who need step-free access may enter directly on the lower level — see Accessibility.)
Restrooms are available on both floors — the upper (main) level and the lower level.
Concessions
Concessions are on the main floor in the reception room, alongside registration and checkout. We offer assorted snacks, soft drinks, and freshly popped popcorn — all $2.00 each, self-serve from the snack cabinet and drink cooler, paid at the registration desk. Registered bidders can charge snacks to their bidder number by showing their bid card; those charges go on your auction bill and are itemized on a separate receipt at checkout. No buyer’s premium applies to concessions. Hot coffee and filtered water are always complimentary.
House Rules
No smoking inside the facility. Please smoke at the rear of the building — not on the front lawn — and use the ashtrays provided.
We recycle. Paper, cardboard, and plastic go in the blue recycle bins; please don’t put trash in them. The City of Franklin does not accept glass recyclables, so glass goes in the trash.
Our Jaffrey warehouse. Separately, our warehouse at 385 Squantum Road, Jaffrey, NH 03452 serves as our business mailing address and a pickup point for online-only lots and select items (by appointment). Send any mailed consignments here. Public auctions are not held in Jaffrey.
Parking
Street parking is your best option — there’s ample parking on both sides of South Main Street. Lot parking at the building is extremely limited.
If you’re approaching from the south, park well before the building: there’s a busy intersection just past us, and if you overshoot you’ll need to park on the far side and come back.
Side lot (to the left of the building, just before the bridge) — a small lot we share with the State of New Hampshire. Very limited; handicap spaces here are reserved for customers attending events in the Upper Hall.
Rear lot (behind the building) — reserved for handicap access to the lower level and for loading only. Parking behind the building is not permitted during auction hours except for these purposes.
Accessibility
The building has a handicap ramp to the main entrance on the main level, and ground-level entrances on the lower level.
There is no step-free way to move between floors inside the building — the only route between levels is outside (up the driveway). Because of this:
Park based on where your event is being held. Handicap parking is reserved in the side lot for Upper Hall events, and the rear lot provides handicap access to the lower level.
If you’re attending an event in the Lower Hall (or buying cinema tickets or concessions for a lower-level event) and need step-free access, please ask a staff member to register you, or to handle your ticket and concession purchases, so you don’t have to change floors.
You’re always welcome to enter on the main level and take the driveway down to the lower level, whichever works best for you.
Have something to sell? We accept quality antiques, estates, collections, and the interesting odds and ends in between. We’ll handle cataloguing, marketing, and the sale, and settle with you after the auction — commission and terms are agreed up front.
Bidding is a binding contract. Our full Bidder Terms cover registration, bidding and absentee rules, buyer’s premium, invoicing and payment, pickup and shipping, condition and returns, and conduct — everything that governs a sale.
A cinema in our basement — a proper little movie house taking shape on the lower level. Tickets and concessions will be handled at the box office on the main floor.
Like the classic joke starts, a film nerd and a math buff walk into an auction hall…
Ryan studied film and philosophy. Liza studied mathematics. Between the two of us, we had pretty much zero plans to become antique dealers and auctioneers.
Ryan spent a decade in Boston and Somerville, where in 2016 he opened Memory Hole Vintage inside the historic Somerville Journal Building — a proper storefront, a room full of things that had somewhere else to be before they found their way to him. When he wandered in one day, then-mayor Joe Curtatone described it as a “very Somerville” kind of store — and Somerville agreed, awarding it Best Neighborhood Shop – Union Square in Best of Boston 2019. Ryan ran the shop until 2020, when a planned move to New Hampshire — just before the world stopped — proved fortuitous.
When Ryan and Liza met a couple years down the road (on a dating app for vegans and vegetarians — thanks Veggly!), big things started to happen. With Liza’s book smarts and business savvy (and, if Ryan’s being honest, a sudden drive to impress her) the business grew faster in their first year together than it had in all the years before. And one rainy night on a beach in Cape Cod — our first beach trip as a married couple, improbably under a rainbow — we sketched out what it could become.
That conversation became Granite Union Auction Company.
Before we had an auction hall, we had a barn. Our property in Jaffrey, New Hampshire hosted a run of barn sales — real, seasonal, show-up-and-dig affairs — that gave early shape to what we were building. In late 2021, Ryan started running auctions on Instagram Live: scrappy, real-time, building an audience lot by lot. Frustrated by the platform’s limitations, we set out to build one of our own — custom auction infrastructure purpose-built for how we actually work: live events, online catalogs, discovery formats, and everything in between.
One of us grew up obsessed with movies and what things looked like. The other grew up finding patterns in numbers. Somehow both paths led to the same place: two people in New Hampshire, married, trying to find the right home for things that deserve one. We built this on the conviction that a $30 lot can be just as interesting as a $3,000 one.
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