personal property auctions

Saudi Tag

2009-06-25T16:40:00.000-07:00

Saudi Tag

When we lived in Denver we were at a playground one evening playing tag with our children (Rob, and Ali) they were a lot younger then. We looked up and saw an Arab family watching us and I figured they had no idea what we were doing.

I went over and asked if they wanted to learn, and we wound up teaching them how to play freeze tag, with electricity. If you never played yourself, here is what we did, the swing and playground equipment was base, if you were touching it you were safe, if you got caught by the one who is it, you got frozen where you stood unless a group got together and someone was touching base you could link up and rescue the frozen one by having "electricity" pass from base through the people holding hands or touching somehow, bringing base to the frozen person and un-freezing them. We played with them for a while and then left.

The cool part of the story is a day or two later we were on another walk and saw the same family playing freeze tag at the same park. I like to think we introduced freeze tag to Saudi Arabia.

Bigfoot in my front yard!

2009-06-24T12:37:00.000-07:00

We were packing our van to go set up a tent for an upcoming auction when I looked up and saw a big tractor trailer backing down my street. Now that is something that doesn't happen every day all by itself, but while I watched I noticed that it had Bigfoot on the back of the truck. The big tractor trailer parked across the street from my house and Bigfoot hit the road. There was a Dare event at the park and the tractor trailer could not make the turn, so they just drove here. Watch the car that goes by right as bigfoot is at the stop sign, imagine what went through their minds! We are gonna die!!!!!

Memorial Day Musings

2009-05-25T19:01:00.000-07:00

A few years ago my wife Tina and I were able to go to Boston with our daughter Ali. One of the great things we did there was to eat in the Green Dragon Pub.

This was the pub where the Sons of Liberty met, we sat where they sat (they went there a lot, we were bound to set where they sat). This is where the patriots learned about the British plans to capture and destroy military supplies at Concord (at least by some accounts). It makes you think.

I wonder if we sat where some of them had their last meal? Now today it is Memorial day, and I want to remember. I want to remember those who lost their lives in service of our country. I want to remember the first to die. According to Wikipidia
" The eight colonists killed, the first to die in the Revolutionary War, were John Brown, Samuel Hadley, Caleb Harrington, Jonathon Harrington, Robert Munroe, Isaac Muzzey, Asahel Porter, and Jonas Parker. Jonathon Harrington, fatally wounded by a British musket ball, managed to crawl back to his home, and died on his own doorstep. One wounded man, Prince Estabrook, was a black slave who was serving in the militia."

I want to remember those who just died, icasualties.com reports that yesterday Sgt. 1st Class Brian Naseman, 36 of New Breman, Ohio, Sgt. Paul F. Brooks, 34, of Joplin, MO., First Lieutenant Leevi K. Barnard, 28, of Mount Airy, N.C. , and Major Jason E. George, 38, of Tehachapi, Calif. all died this week in Iraq.

And I want to remember all those who died in between. My father lived through WWII and Korea, he was one of a handful of soldiers in his unit of 2,000 in Korea that lived.

I have very little to say, I hate war. I don't think many of the people who have been in service feel otherwise. I spent 5 1/2 years in the US Army and am proud of my service but, my service pails in significance compared to these people. I hate war but I love my life and I am grateful for those who would put theirs on the line to protect mine.

I wish I had met each and every one of these people throughout the the years who laid down thier lives. I wish I could thank them myself. I don't want to forget.

Common Crap Road Show

2009-04-30T05:27:00.000-07:00

We did an auction this week in a villa. The weather was bad and it rained with out stopping almost all day (not the best situation for an auction with furniture). We were selling furniture and a few tools and some books with almost no smalls. We had a great crowd and got what any Auctioneer in this area would have considered good prices.

The furniture was nice, but not antique, we had some particle board stuff mixed in with some normal furniture (some was newer, some like the couch and love seat were older had some stains and wear and were covered with a slip covers). In the basement there was a treadmill, the big particle board desk and a sofa. The treadmill was heavy, and a fairly nice one, the couch was OK, a run of the mill type you see all the time and the desk was one of those L shaped types, a big lumbering brute.

The treadmill sold for $370 and I was shocked. I have sold many a treadmill and Nordic Track machine, and weight bench etc. they normally don't do much around here, they are very common and most people do not want to

move them
put them in their already overfull homes
try to sell them at their store, mall booth, antique store etc.

The seller made a comment like "you gave away my treadmill" to which I replied, no I sold it for way more than it was worth. I had an absentee bid from one of my best friends on it for $75 because they have bought used treadmills before and both they and I know what they normally sell for. I was desperately hoping I could get an $80 bid so I would not have to carry the treadmill out of there (my freind is on a long-term out of town job). The whole thing got me thinking, I could start a TV show, the Common Crap Road Show. People could lug in their treadmills, their particle board desks, Readers Digests, National Geographic, Avon bottle collections, boxes of Beanie Babies, collector plates etc. and stand in long lines. At the end of the lines we would have experts in the various fields of stuff and a camera crew to capture the magic, it might go something like this:

Expert: Well Sally what find did you bring us today?

Sally: Bill I have a fantastic treadmill from my basement!

Expert: Indeed you do, what can you tell us about this beauty?

Sally: Well Bill, this is the Cardio 2000 from Sears, I saw it last January and just had to have it, I only used it once. It is like brand new!

Expert: And so it is! We see these a lot and what a fantastic machine it is.... They were designed by Steve Franklin in 1995 and have been in production since then. They made millions of these all just like yours, they are very common, in fact almost every basement has one. What did you pay for this fine piece of exercise equipment?

Sally: We shelled out $1,400.00 for it and I have the receipt right here! (She hands over the receipt to the Expert).

Expert: Well Sally I've looked at the receipt and I need to point out a few things:

first is that you paid only $1,040 for the treadmill (see here on the bottom line)
second I noticed that it says you got free delivery and set-up, you didn't really fall for that did you? Sally free delivery and set-up are built into the price, they factor in an average of $225 in the treadmill industry for these services to pay for the truck, the crew, insurance and such. I'm sure you understand this
I also note that the date is Jan. 12, 2008 (that's several months before the sub-prime mortgage meltdown right?)
My experience in the industry is that the second hand stores charge somewhere between $200 to $225 to pick these models up

Sally: Bill, that all sounds correct and now that you mention it I do remember it cost less if we would pick it up ourselves, but we didn't want to have to load that machine into our car, it would not fit and it costs so much to rent a truck these days. Besides my husband has a bad back and we didn't think we could trick any of our friends into moving a 250 Lb treadmill.

Expert: Right you are Sally. Do you have any idea what this treadmill is worth in today's market?

Sally: I was thinking it should bring at least $1,500.00 since it is in like new shape.

Expert: Well Sally, if I had to place a value on this treadmill, in the shape it is in right now, out here in our convention center setting with 5 loading docks and a truck dock leveler I'd say it is worth (dramatic pause) $100 to $125, now if you take it home and put it in you garage with clear access and put it on a sturdy table where it can be rolled on to a truck I'd say it could expect to get $50 to $75. If you take it back down to the basement I'd value this treadmill at $5 to $25, does that surprise you?

Sally: But, but we paid $1600 for that treadmill, I don't want to give it away!

Expert: Sally, thank you for bringing this gem to the Common Crap Road Show!

Host: Good job Bill, now Gary has a homeowner with a set of Norman Rockwell Plates...

Rob and Rob lite at CAI

2009-03-21T20:28:00.000-07:00

This is where we are spending the week, tough gig.

I am at the National Auctioneer's Association's Certified Auctioneer's Institute this week with my son Rob (we call him Rob lite) and we just got here in Bloomington Indiana at the University of Indiana.

The program has been discribed as the Master's Degree for Auctioneers.

The campus and town are beautiful, as we pulled into the area I told Rob lite that I thought I had seen it before in a movie. About 30 years ago I watched a nice move about a bicycle race called Breaking Away and I loved it. It turns out it was filmed here. I'll have to go rent it again.

The buildings are all made form local Limestone and the quarry is right out of town.

This is a little local restaurant, I will have to go see if it is any good!

Our first night we went to Nick's, they have big rooms to fit lots of auctioneers, good food and beer. We had dinner with Rick and Cindy from San Antonio, Texas we got to share some ideas with them about charity auctions and they told us about their work with auction processes and documentation. Very interesting, we auction types are always re-inventing everything. I have a background as a software engineer, we like process control!

Stuck in a rut

2009-02-15T12:14:00.000-08:00

OK, it wasn't a rut, it was a long gravel driveway covered in 6 inches of very slick snow, but I've skipped a bit.

When we went to set up the auction we had already been there, we knew better. The driveway was long and steep and we had no business setting up an auction there on a snowy day.

The appointment was on the schedule, and we Auction types are schedule driven people, so we went. My 21 daughter, Ali said "I don't think I would drive down this driveway". What did she know? Did she have my years of experience? NO! My masterful driving skills? NO. My cat-like reflexes? NO. Did she get us stuck right by a tree that wanted to eat my van? NO, but I did.

We slid right up next to that tree, and then the fun began. We tried to shovel our way out, and we slid closer to the tree. We tried shoveling, putting boards under the tires, pushing, using a ATV to plow, using a 4 wheel drive to pull us out, a wench, and all we did was slide closer to the tree (actually several trees) break ropes, and straps, and get the 4 wheel drive stuck.

Then we got a guy with a tractor to pull us all out. It was a 4 hour ordeal.
And people think all an Auctioneer does is talk fast. When I meet new people they always ask if I can talk fast, the seldom ask if I can get myself extricated from a slick road.
Rob

Sgt. Garcia's Flag

2008-07-03T06:02:00.000-07:00

It's the 3rd of July and Mrs. Garcia is in Spain, she has been there over 3 years now.

A little over 3 years ago Mrs. Garcia hired us to do an auction for her down off of Hampton by the hill. She was retired, her husband had passed away several years ago and she was living with her son. She and her son were in the process of selling their possessions and moving to Spain they were both retired now and had family in Spain and thought it would be nice to go live near their family.

Mrs. Garcia had another son who went to Vietnam but was killed there. One of the things we sold that day was a real to real tape deck he had sent home but never lived to enjoy. We had a good auction and sold everything in the house. Mrs. Garcia ran a tight ship and kept a very clean house, there was very little clutter and the house was in very good shape after the sale (I think you could have picked up the leftovers in 1 Hefty sack.

After the sale Mrs. Garcia came to me with a folded flag (the kind that come from a Veteran's funeral after they take it off of the coffin fold it and hand it to the family saying "On behalf of a grateful nation" I had never seen the flag during our setup as she had it in her personal area with the things that were not to be sold. She asked me if I could get take care of for her, that she could not do it. What she wanted was for me to dispose of the flag for her. I guess that because she was moving to Spain she thought it unwise to fly it there and she didn't know what else to do with it. I told here that I would do one better and that I would give the flag a new home and that on every 4th of July I would take that flag out of it's case and fly it in her son's honor at my home.

On the 4th of July we have a party, we love our country and respect those who have given us our freedom. Don't get me wrong, I love Veteran's day and Memoral day as well but to me the 4th of July means freedom, it means shoeless soldiers at Valley Forge, it means cold wet sailors reefing sale in a gale off of the coast of Cape Horn on the way to some distant land to project force for this country, it means Devil Dog Marines fighting like pit bulls in the Belleau Woods, it means members of the 8th Air Force conducting daylight bombing raids over Western Europe, it means a flag from a man I will never meet who lost his life in a far away jungle, a mom with a real to real player sitting in her basement for 30 years waiting for a son who wasn't coming home.

So, tonight I'll go down to my basement and get out Sgt. Garcia's flag from the box I have that is full of flags from the estates of other veteran's, and tomarrow morning I will spend the morning hanging them in my yard, and Sgt. Garcia's flag will wave once again over the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Rob
www.moundcityauctions.com

Silver is KING again

2008-06-29T20:16:00.000-07:00

It wasn't the Comstock Lode but it was our best silver sale so far.

We had our sale in Florissant the other day and silver rocked. We had a large amount of silver dimes and other silver coins. We were selling silver dimes at over $100 for $10 in face value of dimes. We had a great day.

I sold choice once and the bidder decided to take 6 tubes each with 100 dimes. We sold choice again and the same bidder won, the price? Same as the first time. And so it went... each time the bidder thought that the next time his luck would change and the dimes would get cheep. The prices held for several rounds. He could have picked all of the tubes the first time and saved us all a lot of time.

rob
www.moundcityauctions.com

Baseball Cards and diabolical dealers

2008-06-29T19:59:00.000-07:00

We had an auction this week where we sold a great collection of baseball cards. Most of these cards were from the late 50's and mid 60's, they were from TOPPS and Bowman.

The owner of the cards had taken them to a local dealer and he offered them $1,900 for the cards. They did not take the deal. We put them on our website, held and auction and had buyers show up from 5 states. We got the owners almost 10 times the dealers offer. One of the bidders at the auction has cards from the same collection and has asked us to contact him about selling his part of the collection. Stay tuned....

Rob
www.moundcityauctions.com

2008-03-05T14:49:00.001-08:00

Where do I get that Floridia Auction License?

We had an auction yesterday March 4th and the forcast was for a major winter storm. As I have blogged before, we tend to get good results when the weather is bad. This storm was a little worse than the previous ones and did keep a few people from attending, however we still had a good crowd and sold out our sale. We got great prices on our Lionel trains and the shotguns in the estate, furniture was strong for the most part with good prices on bedroom, and front room pieces, we fell short on a computer hutch but such specialty pieces have a limited appeal.

We did return home to find our auction tent that we had set up for a sale next week completely colapsed. The storm that put 2 or 3 inches at our auction site (we were in a nice heated warehouse), dropped over 12 inches at the site of our next auction (the next one is under the tent). The tent didn't suffer much permanent damage (one tear that we fixed), but it took all day and part of the night to shovel off the tent, find the 24" pegs that were flung by the tent falling, pull the main pole out of the ground where the weight of the teny had driven it down 6" into the ground, re-erect the tent, and shovel under the freshly re-erected tent.

There was a little tunnel in the knocked down tent that I would have loved if I was 12. Truth be known I found it pretty cool at my present age of 49. As I walked through the way cool dark tunnel I hit my 49 year old head on the 2nd main pole which had fallen over to perhaps a 30 degree angle. NOT cool.

We got the tent fixed today and hung our banner in a few days we will take the cargo trailer over and finish the setup.

This will be one I won't soon forget.

Tom Young, Number One

2008-03-02T18:36:00.000-08:00

We lost Tommy Young yesterday and I wanted to let the rest of you know how I feel about it.

Tommy was my favorite bidder, I'm sorry the rest of you it is just how I feel. When we started giving out permanent numbers Tommy was the first one we gave out so he was number one.

Tommy drove a long way to get to our auctions (a lot further than most of us) so he liked to leave early. In fact it was normal for Tommy to beat us to our own auctions. We have our previews at 9:00 am and we like to get to the auctions by 8:00, we would pull up, see Tommy's Snoopy Mobile (white truck with a Snoopy on it) and know it was going to be a good auction.

One time when we pulled up to an auction not only had Tommy beat us to the auction, he had shoveled the driveway of all the snow!

My daughter Ali called Tommy her adopted Grandpa. He once brought a peach cake to our auction, Ali said was the best cake she ever had. I tend to believe her because she told me she had 17 pieces of it. Tommy and our other bidders would help us carry in our stuff, then they would snoop around. I liked to make what I called Tommy bait piles, they were piles with copper wire, copper scrap, brass and and whatever Snoopy item I could find in them. He always found them.

Tommy and Fred loved to dig in dark corners, they always brought flashlights to the auctions and crawled into the deepest darkest corners of the basements and the garages. Tommy loved to help us, he often held stuff up during the auctions so others could see it. Once when he was holding up what he thought was a lighter he gave it a flick to show it worked, the only problem was that the "lighter" was pepper mace and Tommy maced the auction by accident. You never saw 70 people leave an auction so fast. Luckily they almost all stayed and the auction was a great success. Tommy got a new nic-name from me for a few auctions he became Dr. Pepper.

Tommy loved to tease my staff (our clerk Pagette was his favorite tease target) and he could take it as well as he could dish it out. We had an auction where I made a little pile with a Fedora hat, a 2 piece pool cue and a VHS tape of Superfly (it was when Tom's brother Ted was in town from Idaho). When I got to that little pile I said Tommy where are you I'm selling the Superfly collection you've got get yourself in here and bid. He did and he won the stuff, he wore that hat and carried the pool cue the rest of the day. We called him Superfly for months.

Tommy was a giving man and he hauled watermelons and other produce in the summer. When he wasn't hauling he would show up at the auctions with watermelons for the staff. Once we did an auction in Eolia about 2 hours north of St. Louis and about a 4 hour drive from Tom's stomping grounds. He showed up with enough watermelon for everyone at that auction, most of whom were people he had never met before and would never see again.We are going to miss Tommy.

We are retiring his number, there will never be another Tommy and there will never be another number one at our auctions. I know right now some where in heaven St. Peter is saying "I've got this golden street now who will give me $50" and Tommy is saying "$5 let's go"

Think Winter Think Auction

2008-01-29T15:05:00.000-08:00

Winter is auction time in my book. Really, I mean it.
If you think about it antique dealers, mall sellers, even flea market sellers always need stuff to sell, and where do you think they get it? Auctions.
Without new stuff to sell these guys are all ou of luck, and possible out of business. In the winter there are no garage sales, or yard sales and often nothing to do. It's a great time for an auction! But what does the average estate holder do? They sit on their estatte until Spring or Summer when everybody and his brother starts having auctions, estate sales and sports start back up. Meanwhile the dealers are hungry for auctions in the winter, they need stuff, they need your stuff. Why not sell it to them in the winter when they are hungery?

Auction or Estate Sale?

2007-08-11T17:17:00.000-07:00

Several times a week I see this played out. A family member in charge of disposing of Mom or Dad's estate asks me if they should have an auction or an estate sale. There several factors to consider
Did Mom or Dad collect anything of value? This may be a hard question as a lot of parents spent a good deal of money on items they were told would be collectible such as "Collector" plates or Avon bottles, but a good collection of glassware, china, stamps, watches, coins, old fishing lures, guns, old toys etc. would make me recommend an auction and not an estate sale In an estate sale you must set the price however, if you under-price an item you don't get the option of raising the price later. In an auction the buyers set the price and collectibles are in very high demand at auctions so the price can go up a good deal. Lots of good collectibles = auction.
Is there jewelery? Auction buyers love jewelery, costume and estate jewelery. Jewelery = auction.
Does the estate have tools? Power tools? Auctions are good for tools. good tools = auction
How is the furniture in the estate? Particle board and contact paper covered furniture is better for an estae sale, antiques do better at auction.
How is the parking? Auctions take more parking as people will be there all day. If you are on a busy street with no parking you might want to either move the goods to another location or have an estate sale.
Cars, trucks, and equipment do much better at auction than at estate sales.
How many items are in the estate? A good auctioneer can sell about 60 lots per hour. Some lots have more than 1 item in them others are only one item. Most auctioneers sell for no more than 5 hours in a day. An auction can be spread out over several days. Estate sales are normally 2 day events, normally Saturday and Sunday. Fewer items = estate sale, lots of items, think auction.