Auction Result......

Coupla weeks ago, I mentioned a D17 propane burner that was coming up on an auction and wondered if it would sell for more or less than a gasoline burner.

The auction was yesterday. The D17 was clean, always shedded, and ready to go to work. Engine recently rebuilt, and balanced and blueprinted in the process. (Truth be told, the fellow who owned it drove a stock car for me for a number of years, so he was tuned in to balanced engines.)

Also a WD with a trip loader, also clean, good paint, always shedded.

The WD brought $2800 and the D17 $2700.

The auction itself was the proverbial Chinese fire drill. There were 9 racks loaded with stuff, the whole yard full of other stuff besides the machinery, and the auctioneers started like gangbusters with two rings running.

Then, for some reason, the auctioneers shut down one ring and ran only one ring for an hour. Then one auctioneer started up again, ran maybe 20 minutes, and quit again. By then over half the crowd had left. Then the boss auctioneer got upset and in no uncertain terms ordered the other auctioneer to start up again. Only his clerk had disappeared and he couldn't find a clerk. And so it went.

On a clean pickup box trailer, I thought I had the high bid with the ring man for $275 and the auctioneer calling the bids sold it to someone else for $250.

Then there were two wagons side by side. One a barge box and the other a galvenized flair box, Neither had hoists. Nobody uses them for grain anymore, but I figured if I could get one cheap enough it would do to pitch firewood into. The auctioneer started by offering choice of the two. When the bid went over $200, I dropped out and thought I'd see what the other brought. The guy bidding took the barge.

Then the auctioneer looked at someone in the crowd and asked him if he wanted the flair for $75. The guy nodded, and it was sold. I thought, "WTF, he didn't even take any bids!"

It looked like the auctioneers were looking out for their buddies, at least on those items, so I said to heck with it and went home. It was some auction company from outside the area. I'd never heard of them before.

Funniest part was, when they were selling stuff off of a rack, the ring man held up a box of tools, and I swore I saw a ratchet of mine in the box. I hadn't seen it in years and often wondered what had become of it. Must have gotten intermixed while we were still racing. No way I could have proved it was mine, so I just laughed it off.

Anyway, kind of a wasted day, but the temp was about 100 degrees, so I might not have done much of anything else anyway.

I love going to the auctions -- but don't bid because of things you described. Fun to watch though, when they know what they're doing.

We have a local auctioneer, he'll try to get 5 bucks for somthing, no takers, so who'll give a dollar for it, five or six hands will come up, he'll count, 1 2 3 4 5 6, look at the guy and say sold, 6 dollars. He's been called on it a few times, but still does it.

Some jockey auctioneers knock stuff off to themselves like someone is bidding in the back of the crowd.Polk does this all the time,then
refuses to tell you who bought it.At one auction he had,he even refused to show the people he was selling for the tally sheet at the end of the auction.

I'm lucky to have some good guys around my area. I don't think I would attend another one run by your group up there!

A few years ago an auctioneer bunch sold trailers full of stuff taking forever and then after most of the crowd had left sold forklifts quicker than they had sold a filter that may have fit onto one! Maybe they were getting late for supper too......

Like in any business, you have to know the good ones and the bad ones.

Members of our family have had four or five auctions over the years, and we've always had the same auctioneer 'cause we know he plays it straight.

I got into it with a different auctioneer several years ago. I bought a pickup, and after I got home I checked the bill of sale against the VIN on the cowl and they didn't match. The VIN on the driver's door was different and matched the bill of sale. Apparently the door had been changed and whoever did the paperwork took the VIN off the door instead of the cowl. Apparently it was the auctioneer's wife who made the mistake.

Anyway, I called him and brought it to his attention, and instead of admitting the error and correcting it, he accused me of insulting his wife. We go into a yelling match over the telephone about it, and I could hear his wife coaching him from the background while he was yelling at me.

Coupla days later, I got both the title and a corrected bill of sale in the mail.

I was jumping between two rings at a sale one time. I couldnt figure out why I kept missing items in the other ring. Then I realized why. The auctioneer realized that everytime a service manual was up I was bidding on it. The auctioneer would wait until I went to the other ring, then move the manuals ahead in the order, so that he could buy them without me bidding against him...

I go to an auction to buy something I need.
My frustration is all the folks clustered up around the stuff that is selling but with no intention of buying anything. This is an auction...not a BS session! Please get the Help out of the way and let us buy stuff. If you want to BS all day fine ....but do it off to the side, out of the way of the auction.

And please...quit spitting tobacco juice on my shoes.

I heard that at the last local consignment auction the company flagged several trucks that had messed up and mixed up titles, just like yours. They either got it fixed or were sold "no title."

I bought a pickup 3 years ago privatly and checked the title, wrong VIN, and the dealer switched titles on two trucks 3 years before that! Took 5 weeks to get it fixed by the seller and the dealer who did it.

I know one guy that go to a fair amount of auctions cuz he he alot of free time. Every time he comes with a story of some back door crookedness. So it aint always the auctioneers fault.