Famed auctioneer is back in Seattle to lead return of world-class event

BY EVAN McMULLEN
Special to the P-I

When Dean Kruse strides to the mike, you’re in for old-fashioned, high octane, deal-a-minute pandemonium.

That’s been the veteran auctioneer’s hallmark for nearly 50 hammering years. It’s pure, slick, tongue-twisting bedlam, and next weekend’s long-awaited Kruse International 2004 Vintage Auction and Car Show promises nothing less.

The arrival of Kruse International, the largest vintage-car auctioneer in the world, provides perhaps the strongest indication yet that Seattle’s “car cluster” – a worldclass community of automotive collections, collectors, judges and restoration specialists – has emerged from its dot-com doldrums.

The auction March 26 and 27 offers evidence in abundance: important Duesenberg and Bugatti exhibitions, an eclectic array of vintage classics and a conspicuous emphasis on charitable gifts and event tieins that signal that Kruse is getting into position for the long game.

Return of the King

With Friday night’s opening auction at the Stadium Exhibition Center – his first Seattle event in more than a decade – Kruse cements a triumphant return to the helm of the family-founded company that he built from a local Indiana concern into the world’s largest.

For the third time in his career, the veteran auctioneer is behind the wheel of the multimillion-dollar company he has sold twice – and twice reacquired from corporate behemoths I.T.T. and eBay Motors.

With more than 6,000 auctions and 250 world sales records under his belt, Kruse is a walking, fast-talking flesh-and-blood institution. His exploits are famous, from the $41 million liquidation of the thousand-car Harrah Collection to the sale of Pope John Paul II’s 1975 Ford Escort (no reserve, selling price $105,000).

Kruse, a self-made millionaire, has auctioned a legendary array of items worth more than $1 billion – zoos, racetracks, Rembrandt paintings, cars, islands, towns, airplanes and at least one mine shaft.

Born Sept. 21, 1941, in Auburn, Ind., Kruse found his calling at the age of 12, auctioning jars of currant jelly for the family real estate and auction company during a grocery-store liquidation.

By high school, Kruse was already working part time and obtained his auctioneer’s degree from Reppert Auction School in 1957. After a two-year study of law, Kruse became a full-time “caller,” or auctioneer. By 1964, the 23-year-old Kruse had become the youngest state senator in Indiana history.

Other Kruse auction highlights include Greta Garbo’s 1933 Duesenberg J Victoria for $1.4 million, Rembrandt’s “The Good Samaritan” for $6.5 million and the singleauction sale of a $700 million real estate package that included the Chicago Twin Towers for $22.7 million. He’s presided over 6,000 auctions in 48 states and 11 countries.

Today, Kruse personally calls a number of prestigious auctions throughout the United States each year. He and his father, Russell, remain active supporters of the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Festival, which draws 200,000 people annually. Kruse events have donated about $3 million to the festival. Dean, the father of two grown sons, and his wife, Kristin, recently adopted two Russian children and have six grandchildren.

Hard times in the car business Recent years have been excruciating for the industry, particularly in the Northwest. A bursting economic bubble and 9/11 drove Seattle’s buyers to their bunkers, prices into the mud and previously unstoppable auctioneers fleeing for the region’s hinterlands. Pricey Seattle venue costs and a shortage of buyers have rendered major metro auctions fiscally DOA.

In spring 2001, Silver Auctions made a well-organized foray into the city limits and took an immediate drubbing, despite strong cars and loyal clientele. Within months, Kruse International – then under the management of eBay Motors – made a quiet but urgent U-turn, canceling its own
Seattle event weeks before it was scheduled.

Even though the Northwest remained home to many of the world’s most important collectors and collector cars, it has remained difficult and risky to lure them out with a high-budget event such as next weekend’s.

At the same time, all the signs were there for a resurgence. Patronage of the Historics Races, multiplying rallies and the emergence of several popular Concours hinted that the Northwest remained a potential mother lode for vintage and collector cars.

Next weekend’s auction and show promises a distinct twist. The jabbering and grinding at center stage will be complemented by participation from many of the region’s highest-profile dealerships and automotive charities. Phil Smart, the LeMay Museum and Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center head a large roster of exhibitors and non-profits that will represent a variety of events.

The LeMay Museum, the world’s largest collection, will be strongly represented with a striking exhibition of two Duesenbergs. The Saturday auction features a special automotive donation to benefit Children's Hospital and a tie-in to the Society of Vintage Racing Enthusiasts’ Historics Auto Races on Fourth of July weekend. The fastgrowing Kirkland Concours d’Elegance and Italian Concours also will be well-represented.

The College Planning Network’s upand-coming Steve and Ann Norman Rally rounds out the list of Northwest charitable car events that are once again drawing record numbers. Seattle’s collectors would be well-advised to take their checkbooks next weekend. The proof of the recovery will be in the number of outstanding cars that will be up for grabs – and that number promises to be bigger than at any event in recent memory.