First auction of the year

I went to an auction sale today. My first of the year. It is unusual to have an auction on a Sunday as most auctions are on Saturdays.

I noticed the auction ad listed portable metal corral panels. They were new. I don't really need the panels, but if they went cheap enough I would buy them and could find a use for them. They didn't sell cheap. The bidding started at $50 each and the top bid was at $65. This was cheaper than buying the panels at a store, but not so cheap as to make it worthwhile to buy them now with no immediate use for them. The winning bidder bought 4 panels and the other bidder then bought the remaining 9 at the same price.

I arrived at the auction over an hour late. The auction was south of Kalispell and started at 10 am - early for me.

The auction was held inside what appeared to be Bo's garage/storage building. This was good as the weather was cool, cloudy with off-and-on rain. Naturally when the auction moved outside to sell the bigger items the wind picked up and the rain fell lightly.

The parking lot by Bo's buildings was full, and cars lined his driveway. I parked with some other vehicles by parking with my left tires on the road and the right ones in the ditch.

The crowd was mainly male, with ages mainly in the 30s to 50s. The people looked to be cowboys and blue-collar people. A few old men had long white beards like the old mining prospectors had. Other men looked to be mechanics. When it started to rain one cowboy in a duster put a clear plastic wrap over his black cowboy hat. The wrap was made for this purpose. The woman with him also wore a duster. She didn't cover her hat. They looked to have just come off a trail ride. I have expected to see them wearing six-shooters under their dusters.

The crowd also looked to be native Montanans. The exception was a couple who I imagined to be from Denmark or some other Scandinavian country. He wore a knit hat with hanging braids on each side where the hat came down over his ears. Both his, and the woman with him, had faces that looked to be first generation Scandinavian. While people in Montana have a higher that expected rate of Scandinavian ancestry, these two people had a more pronounced European look. That's the best I can find words to explain it.

Some items went for more than I expected. A large old anvil the seller's parents originally brought from North Dakota sold for $250. Must be in demand as an antique.

Many items sold cheaply, and some items not at all. I missed out on buying a half dozen pails of nails. I seen them before I went to the other room to get my bidding number. The nails sold just as I returned to the auction room. $2.50 for all the pails. A good deal.

The only thing I bought were a pair of cross-country skis and poles. I was more interested in the poles as the skis had the old 3-pin binding system, and I have a few pairs of 3-pin skis already. The problem with 3-pin bindings are they are old obsolete style of bindings and I can't find any store that sells boots for them. The skis are nice, but the poles were the deal. They poles are nice and a matching pair. I was the only bidder at $2.50.

After a few hours I was back home again.