Goose
Well-known Member
I went to a large farm auction yesterday. It was done by one of the most prominent local auction companies and, frankly, gave new meaning to the old clich? "Chinese Fire Drill".
There was easily enough stuff on the auction to have two rings, but they ran only one the entire day. They ran three hours just on rack items. They had one auctioneer calling the bids and four ringmen. Several times two ringmen would each hold up an item and the bidders wouldn't know which item then were bidding on. They'd have to stop and sort that out. Then after one man had bought quite a number of items, it came to light that the clerk had been writing down the wrong bidder number and they had to straighten that out.
After the rack items, and contrary to usual auction practice, they went immediately to the big high dollar tractors and machinery instead of leaving those items till last to hold the crowd. They also picked some items out of a line to sell and then came back down the same line to sell the rest.
This is the same auction crew that I've seen work well as a team before. Yesterday just didn't seem right for some reason.
Something was out of kilter.
There was easily enough stuff on the auction to have two rings, but they ran only one the entire day. They ran three hours just on rack items. They had one auctioneer calling the bids and four ringmen. Several times two ringmen would each hold up an item and the bidders wouldn't know which item then were bidding on. They'd have to stop and sort that out. Then after one man had bought quite a number of items, it came to light that the clerk had been writing down the wrong bidder number and they had to straighten that out.
After the rack items, and contrary to usual auction practice, they went immediately to the big high dollar tractors and machinery instead of leaving those items till last to hold the crowd. They also picked some items out of a line to sell and then came back down the same line to sell the rest.
This is the same auction crew that I've seen work well as a team before. Yesterday just didn't seem right for some reason.
Something was out of kilter.