Went to a my township auction yesterday just to check it out and see what they had to offer and got to bid on a few things,got a nice file cabnet for $5 that the wife needed and then I bid on a few bicycles and I had won,over 250 of them now I have to get them all out by 3:00 today.
I got 50 of them out yesterday and gave about 50 more to charity and will give them more when I am done.I made a lot of my money back before I even paid for them as people were buying them from me after the bidding was done.I paid about a $140 for everything we bought but I got bikes worth five fold of that.

So what good things have you picked up at a auction and did you really need it or was it just to good to pass up.

 

thats alot of bikes....

 

ive been going to auctions by my house upstate NY i have gotten alot of building supply and things that i use on my house.. we also got some old furniture and some knick nacks in sealed boxes that start for like a buck which ive donated to a local second hand shop which proceeds go to charity hence the tax deduction
Im looking to go to a township auction tho to buy a state truck 4X4 which i can use for a plow truck but it seems that most trucks go for too much green.. i want a $300 truck and most go for like $1000

 

last auction I went to was in MO.... 100's of people showed up and stuff went for the price of gold. it was insane

 

Mind a friendly suggestion?

There's a charity in my area that gives bikes to poor kids. Sounds very nice and all, except some people have noticed how poorly these kids treat ther bikes. I mean, they just leave them lying around, as if they don't care.

When I was a kid we were pretty close to poor. I had a bicycle as a child only because my dad had the wherewithall to buy a junker second-hand bike for $10 and fix it. I got my first store-bought bike at age 13 only after I had earned the first half of the price myself sweeping the sidewalk in front of the neighbourhood milk store. And you kow what - those bikes meant the world to me. Not only that, they taught me the value of things and how to work. I believe that that lesson is directly responsible for getting me where I am today.

So - the suggestion - is anyone in your area interested in a bicycle-earning charity? I've sometimes imagined a program where you take cheap bikes like you have now, provide technical assistance and ultra-cheap parts (cannibalize other bikes, or donated by local businesses), and have kids (with their dads if they want) build themselves a bike for a few bucks of parts. THEN they can have it. And you'll have taught a boy to fish.

 

I just purchased 80 real Swiss Army knives from the state of Georgia for $54. Picked them up at the state surplus office. They are from the airport. There must have been a thousand Swiss Army knockoffs worth nothing but 30 minutes digging through them turned up some of the real thing. Office chairs $1, desks $5, leather laptop bags $5, etc...

 

I went to a county auction, and got a Lincoln 200 amp MIG welder for $200 . It came out of the school system, and is in like-new condition. Auctions are fun- you never know what things are going to go for!

 

used to attend livestock auctions twice a week, farm auctions everychance I got, I still have some of the stuff I got at farm auctions like the oxy/actelyne torch setup complete with tanks with titles for $125. bought a couple pickups, tractors, and other farm implements etc. and one day spent $43,000 buying cows.

 

Well after all was said and done I bought 85 bikes home and gave the rest to charity,I should be able to get at least 70 to 75 of them going with ease as they are clean and in pretty good shape some like new.

 

last farm auction I was at they were selling piles of stuff off of tables than selling the tables, most for 5 to 10 bucks. when they sold the table I was standing by no one else noticed it was a 4X8 sheet of 1" steel not a piece of plywood like the rest. good deal for 10 bucks?

 

No idea why, but I loved going to the farm auctions when I was in Florida. The only items I bid on were those being auctioned while it was raining. I'd get a good deal and then leave it sitting till next week when I would just turn it over.

 

My wife loves going to auctions.
There's an auction held not far from here, every Friday night.

Me, can't stand around for very long because of my back and knee problems.

My wife and her friend were bidding on an '03 Springfield for me, not too long ago.
When a couple of the locals noticed these 'two wimmens' bidding on it, they started jacking the price up.

One guy made a ridiculous bid (my wife thinks to see if they'd up it), only to find out that he now owned the rifle.
(Don't mess with these 'wimmens' when it comes to rifles. My wife is pretty well edu-ma-cated when it comes to that. She's watched me bring enough rifles into the house. She's no dummy!)


My wife did come home with a nice Gibson guitar, for our son, for $90.00!


I'd like to find a good deal on a welder and some decent rifles, or a nice little SxS shotgun.

 

funniest thing I ever seen at an auction talking about bidding stuff up, was a farm auction that was north of me, actually just south of DesMoines so had a lot of city people in attendance one of the things that was on the sale was a power washer, nothing special but not a bad unit either and in fact was something Ihad my eye on. Well they start the bidding at $10 so I hit it of coarse and the bidding starts going including this one kid that is frantically waving his hand to bid. so me and another guy both bid until it hits around $75 which I figured was plenty for it IMHO, anyway the auctioneer is pointing going around the crowd looking for new bids and comes upon the kid waving his arms even though he currently has the high bid, auctioneer ignores him and this kids starts getting mad and yelling "yeah I will bid" so auctioneer takes another bid off him, and is calling for a higher bid as they do and comes all the way around the crowd yet again and here is the kid still frantically waving, auctioneer takes another bid and keeps doing this all the way to $275 before he just sells it to the kid, that kid ran himself up by $200 and all us farmers just sat there laughing our buts off.

 

I have seen some interesting things happen at auctions. The best is that some people don't know what they are bidding on, and end up spending more than what it would cost new.

 

I got my 69 F250 at auction with a title for $250. It would have been $100 or less if this other guy wasn't trying to take it out from under me.