Patience for Auctions

After forty years I have learned if I want something from a auction then I need to learn a few things. Actually just one thing. Not bid at all if there is something I really want until that item comes up for bd. There may be some things I think I want or think I can't live without but since I don't buy as much for resale on ebay or my yard sales then I focus on just things that are worth the money.

The best example I can give took place two weeks ago. A auction had been set up by a local auctioneer in aberdeen Ohio with the auction taking place in Manchester Ohio on a Saturday. Now as everyone knows with the gas prices so high you have to make sure you are going for items that will make the trip worth the gamble.

This auction the auctioneer had placed pictures on auctionzip with a list of the items to be sold. What he did not list was records which I buy and sell on ebay and a website. What he did have was a picture showing some of the records in a 60s style record cabinet with the sliding glass front.  Since there was nothing else going on I decided to take in the auction or at least go and have a look at the records. If they were no good I had learned to got to my vehicle and leave unless there was something else there I could buy and sell.

The weather was bad with rain and driving beside a swollen Ohio river for fifteen miles did nothing for my stomach either but I made it to the town and found the auction. A small worn out house on a hillside along with other worn out houses. The two car garage at the back of the property at the top of the hill was worth more than the entire house.

I was early as always and got the only parking spot in front of the house and headed for the front door of the house looking for the records.  The living room was full of old furniture and a few old pieces of electronics along with two full record cabinets. I pulled a few of the records out and saw they were near mint country music records from the late 60s to the mid 70s so I just slide them back in and knew I was there for the day determined to get the records.

Of course getting old I made a rookie mistake by letting the auctioneer know I was really interested in the records, but he already knew that by the way I pushed them back into the cabinet, grinned and sat down. Screwed the pooch that time as he and his helpers started getting the records out of the cabinets and putting them in piles on top of pieces of furniture in the living room.

This was unusual for the man to do but seeing that he thought he was not going to make a lot of money on the auction I was going to pay dearly for the records. Instead of selling the records with the cabinets or in one lot he was going to sell them by the piles. Through the years auctioneers have learned quite a  lot about the work they do and how to make the most from an auction.

Of course there was a lot of other stuff at the auction, most particular was five large flat screw televisions the old man had bought to have one in each room of the house. Even with all the bad weather and no parking the thought of those tvs brought out a large crowd and kept me worried all day about the records.

Normally I should have bought all the records for less than thirty dollars but with that crowd and the records being country I knew I was going to spend some money. The thing was I sat down in that living room for over five hours waiting for the auctioneer to finally get to the items in the living room. It's really a lot of fun to just set and talk with other people at auctions and watch what is going on.

I had no intention of buying anything else except the records so I stayed away from the bidding in other areas of the auction until the records came up for bid. he records had been put in five different stacks and I was ready for the bidding to start and of course there were a few bids getting the bids up to seventeen-fifty a stack and I put in a twenty dollar bid per stack. No one came back with a higher bid and I took all five stacks and left there that day with some of the best condition sixties country lps I had ever saw.

Tired and worn out from waiting all day then I had to load over two hundred lps by myself did not help but I left the junk for the other people and got a load of money makers.

So if you are going to try and make money at auctions don't even think about impulse buying you can't win research the items and go to the auction with a plan and stay with the plan.