Auctioneer Harold Keller holds some of his collection of early auction sales bills in this 1998 photo.
A longtime local auctioneer has been inducted into the Pennsylvania Auctioneers Hall of Fame.
Harold K. Keller, a founder of Keller Auctioneers in Lancaster, was welcomed into the hall earlier this month in a ceremony with family members at the Harrisburg Hilton.
According to a Keller family history provided by his son, Tim Keller, Harold Keller was 9 when he accompanied his grandfather, an auction clerk, to a sale. He decided then, in 1941, on his future career, although it was about two decades before Keller would drive with his wife and three daughters to attend the Reisch Auction School in Mason City, Iowa.
He previously had held jobs at Keller Brothers Motor Co. in Buffalo Springs and Eberly's Furniture in Elizabethtown. In 1960, however, he bought a building in Mount Joy and launched Keller's Auction Gallery, where weekly consignment sales and dances were frequent community draws.
Now 79 and a resident of Brethren Village, Keller was an active auctioneer for 43 years before selling the business to his son. He also worked with Manheim Auto Auction and Classic Edge Auction Co.
The younger Keller said his father remains active as a consultant and continues to run an annual 4-H strawberry auction.
"Last summer," Tim Keller said, "he sold a quart of strawberries for $600. That was a nice little fundraiser for 4-H."
Induction into the Hall of Fame requires at least 25 years' membership in the Pennsylvania Auctioneers Association.
New inductees are selected by current members of the organization.
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