ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, September 15, 1996 TAG: 9609160055
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
MEMO: ***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on September 18, 1996.
A story in Sunday's paper incorrectly said that part of a claim
Crestar Bank filed against Leed's Music Center Inc. in U.S. Bankruptcy
Court resulted from a loan to build a new store. The building on
Brambleton Avenue was only leased by Leed's and is not involved in the
company's bankruptcy filing.
John Adkins walked up and down rows of saxophones, the brassy horns shimmering in the sun in their velvet-lined cases. It took him nearly 20 minutes to pick one out: a shiny J-shaped alto sax tagged No.61.
It looked like all the others, but to John, it was somehow special.
The 11-year-old sixth-grader is just learning to play at Cave Spring Junior High School. He's been renting a sax for $30 a month, but his dad, Wil Adkins, hopes to buy him one cheap.
But if John gets his horn, it will be indirectly at the expense of a lot of other people, including those who used to rent and sell saxophones at Leed's Music Center.
Wil Adkins was among more than 600 people who registered to bid during the absolute auction and final liquidation of the assets of recently bankrupted Leed's. Set up under a tent, behind Kenny Roger's Roasters restaurant at Towers Mall, the auction started at 10 a.m. Saturday and will continue on Thursday.
Leed's filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy June 6, leaving Crestar Bank holding the bag for nearly $1 million in loans, most of which financed a $700,000 store Leed's built on Brambleton Avenue last year. The nearly 50-year-old company also had stores in Lynchburg and Martinsville.
But the grim financial situation behind the auction was hardly apparent Saturday.
Auctioneer Jim Woltz ran the show like a wisecracking Monty Hall, slipping jokes into the drone of rising bids.
Connie and Cathy Lee played twin Carol Merrells to complete the ``Let's Make a Deal" atmosphere. "They confuse their boyfriends," Woltz said of the twins. "But what woman wouldn't confuse a boyfriend."
Wil and John Adkins settled back in their chairs under a large tent to wait for the saxophones to come up. In the meantime, the fresh-faced sisters pointed to file cabinets, computers and French horns as each item came up for bid.
Everything has to be sold, whatever the price. Most items were gone in about 20 seconds Saturday. Trumpets worth $400 or $500 sold for $200. Except for a 10 percent premium added to the purchase price, every dime will probably go to the bank.
But Crestar is far from being Leed's only creditor. The clerks in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court say the 4-inch thick file on Leed's is the largest they have right now.
Dave Fueglein was hoping the auction would help make up for what Leed's closing cost him, not by paying him back, but by providing work for his business. Fueglein is co-owner of Ace Piano Moving.
Leed's owes him about $2,000, which he figures he can make up easily by moving pianos bought at the auction. But that $2,000 is nothing compared with what the store closing did to his business overall. About 40 percent of the work Fueglein's company did was for Leed's.
But most of the people under the tent Saturday were there to buy.
Bob Chernault, a former Leed's salesman who has filed a claim for $11,000 in back pay and unused vacation, was buying up trombone mouthpieces left and right. Since Leed's closed, he has opened his own instrument rental business on Electric Road, and accessories such as mouthpieces take a long time to get from a distributor.
"Besides," he said, "I know what's in those boxes better than anyone else."
Tony Smith fawned over a white set of drums. "My baby," he said, patting the bass drum. The shiny kit had once been his, sort of. Drummer for a band called Mantazh, Smith put the drums on layaway at Leed's and had paid $350 on them when the company filed bankruptcy. He was told that if he couldn't pay the remaining $500 in a day or two, he would have to take the $350 in store credit or lose it. He took the credit; now he hopes to get the drums for what he owed, or less.
"I'm just looking for anybody to loan me $500 so I can bid," he said. "Maybe the extension on my credit card limit will come through."
Smith has until Thursday to raise the money. That's when the drums go on the auction block.
Meanwhile, the saxophones were next in line.
Emily Caldwell already has a tenor saxophone, but she was looking for an alto.
"The prices are such that you can't afford to pass them up," said her mother, Dianne Caldwell.
Just in time, Emily picked the one she wanted. No.61.
When "lot No.61'' was called, Will Adkins fired out a bid, followed immediately by Dianne Caldwell. The bids rose rapidly in $10 increments, so rapidly that Wil Adkins seemed to lose track. Realizing the bidding was passing him by, he just started raising his hand. So did Dianne Caldwell.
When the gavel sounded and the dust settled, John Adkins' father had bought him No.61 for $295. No.62 went home with another student at Cave Spring Junior High: Emily Caldwell.
By 1 p.m., 217 items had been sold, with nearly another 1,000 to go by Thursday evening.
Fueglein was still waiting, arms folded and truck ready, to make up some of the piano-moving business he lost.
LENGTH: Long : 101 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY/Staff John Adkins admires a shiny alto sax.by CNB