Just Got Home From The Heavy Equipment Auction
I enjoy a large auction. Two times a year, a large Spokane auctioneer holds heavy equipment auctions in Post Falls. I try to go every time. Sometimes I buy, sometimes I sell, but most times I just watch, meet up with friends and enjoy the German sausage.
Some of the auctioneers are quite interesting to listen to. A few have developed their own language; if you were new to the auction, you might not understand them but those of us who hear them often, know what they are saying.
My son, Andy, called me a couple days ago. He was at the auction yard and spotted a flatbed pickup that he thought he would bid on. After looking around on the internet and comparing sales on eBay and such, he made up his mind that twenty-five hundred would be the highest price he would pay. It looked to be a five thousand dollar truck if everything was in top shape. The paint wasn't, it was already peeling.
I was late getting to the auction. I had to pickup papers from my attorney and send out a notice of elections to my small water association. When I arrived, most my friends and auction regulars were already there. Ron's pretty well retired, but he doesn't miss a one and every time he talks like he is going to buy something.
Saw Brad. He sold his gravel pit last year. When I was driving dump truck, I was a regular -- he had good rock. I asked him if he made real good on it and he said he had to get out. No cash? No, but he did end up with a truck out of the deal. Oh well, the truck's paid for.
Bob wasn't a regular to these auctions and I was rather surprised to see him. He was looking for a trailer to move his family across the States. He didn't know what he was looking for so I helped him. I showed him how to check the tires and the brakes. We looked at undercarriages and boxes. There wasn't one trailer with good rubber -- and those tires are two hundred fifty bucks apiece. The only forty footer was a refer (refrigerated); there was one thirty-two footer, the rest were twenty-eight. The refer's undercarriage was rusted almost to the point of being dust and besides rubber issues, the rest of the boxes needed extensive work. If they were in good shape, you could buy them in Seattle for fifteen hundred bucks apiece. But these were not in good shape and they all brought fourteen hundred and up. Go figure.
That's the thing about an auction. There are bargains -- but these auctioneers know how to work the crowd and I see most items go for more than retail -- or more than you would pay a private party if you found an ad in the paper.
Asked my son how his auction went. "Oh dad," he said, "the truck went for eight thousand dollars."
"Well, you at least had a chance to bid on it, didn't you?" I responded.
"No, the bids started at three thousand!"
On my way out of the auction, I stopped by Andy's truck. It looked like a dog; paint was peeling and it needed some TLC. "But," I thought, "with a little bit of work and elbow grease, that could easily be an eight thousand dollar truck!"