An Interesting Neighbor

Auctioneer Richard Branch tells people he retired when he was just 43.

But really it depends on how you define retire.

For Richard, it means getting to do what he wants to do. And as it turns out, what he wants to do is auctioneer.

“I meet people and become close with them,” he said. “I’ve picked up hundreds of friends and help people solve their problems.”

There are a lot of repeat customers

Branch’s auction company has about 14 contract employees.

“They are all friends so I get to work with friends,” he said.

And it’s also a family business.

Wife, Stephanie, is the cashier. Her “civilian” job is manager of Growing Oaks Federal Credit Union in Goldsby. A daughter, Haley, a sophomore marketing major at Oklahoma State University, is the clerk. And son, Josie, is a fellow auctioneer when his schedule as a game warden in Payne County allows.

The only family member not active in the business is daughter Kassi, who manages a social work company under contract with the Department of Human Services.

Forty-three years. That’s also when Richard downsized his Angus cow-calf operation to a hobby-size herd of 26, gave up any lingering hope of teaching vocational agriculture for Purcell schools and started auctioneering full time.

“You don’t really get rich being an auctioneer,” he said, “but it’s a fulfilling, good lifestyle.”

A lifestyle that lets him indulge his fascination with the Old West and “everything about it.”

“The American West is its own little ecosystem,” he said.

And in the 19th century, owning a firearm wasn’t an afterthought.

“If you had a gun in the West, you got to live another day. You could eat and feed your family. You could protect yourself and your family,” he said. “I wish they (firearms of the time) could talk.”

Richard grew up at Lindsay and graduated from Lindsay High School.

All through high school and college, Richard worked for Tommy Owen, a local rancher. After high school, he attended Murray State College at Tishomingo for two years.

Then he transferred to OSU, earning a degree in agriculture education.

His first job after college was vo-ag teacher at Yale. He stayed there seven years before coming home.

“I always knew I wanted to move to the Goldsby/Washington/Purcell area,” he said, adding he thought surely the vo-ag job at Purcell High School would come open.

In 1993, he went to an 11-day auctioneering school in Kansas City, Mo., where he was taught how to “chant.”

That’s what auctioneers call their distinctive spiel.

As a new auctioneer, he sold “everything from an oil rig to a box of rocks.”

“I cut my teeth on estate auctions,” he said.

He is a broker and sells real estate through his auction company.

In 2000, he and Stephanie moved to his auction lot at the intersection of State Highways 74 and 74B. A few years ago, they settled in a new home southeast of there.

“It’s home to me,” Richard said of the area.

Really, he will auction anything that a client wants on the block and that includes everything from classic cars to glassware to gold and silver coins.

Once he auctioned more than 2,000 smoking pipes. Another time, he was called to liquidate inventory of a golf store that closed.

In 2011, he noticed that no one in Oklahoma was auctioning guns.

“I went that way,” he explained, adding he holds a Class 1 federal firearms license.

The rest, as they say, is history.

“Mainly now I auction real estate and guns,” he said.

An auction, he said, is the “best way to determine fair market value.”

Richard conducts online auctions every other month and averages a half-dozen live auctions per month.

He is presently booked well into December.

Back in the day, he would run 200 guns a month through his auctions.

The number now far exceeds that. In addition, he sells thousands of rounds of ammunition.

Richard said the most unusual firearm he auctioned was a 19th century Egyptian musket. It was, in his opinion, an exceedingly ugly, cumbersome firearm.

The most expensive was a Vietnam-era fully automatic Colt M-16 A2 that fetched $21,500.

Asked his favorite rifle, Richard said, “Any Winchester.”

And his favorite pistol? The Colt Dragoon, which Samuel Colt manufactured for the Texas Rangers. The hefty pistol was in production for about three years in the mid-1800s.

His auction schedule takes him across all of Oklahoma except for the northeast.

Richard also helps local organizations, donating his services.

He’s often been the voice of the pie auction at the McClain County Free Fair and has stepped up to the microphone to assist the Purcell Hope Center south of Goldsby. He also has helped school organizations and the Heart of Oklahoma Chamber of Commerce.

When he’s not auctioneering, Richard is active in Goldsby Baptist Church, where he’s taught adult Sunday School for 18 years.

He returned recently from a 10-day mission trip to the Philippines.

Richard’s home office reflects his love of the Old West and his skill as a bow hunter.

Dominating the room is the massive mounted head of a bull bison.

No, he didn’t get it with his bow. It was strictly his skill as a negotiator that put it on that wall.

Richard was arranging to sell several items for a customer when he spotted the bison head.

He offered to discount his commission in exchange for the piece.

“I don’t think I can do that,” the man replied.

He relented when Richard quoted him a commission price nearly double the going rate.