The auctioneer, Carpenter, also included stuff from another estate so there was lots of stuff. Too much in fact as the auction ran from 10 am until 6 pm. That is two to three hours longer than usual. Add in a clear warm day with a temperature in the upper 80s and only a light occasional breeze and it is no wonder than people were leaving by mid afternoon.
I arrived after 11 am and stayed until the end at 6 pm as naturally stuff I was interested in was auctioned off near the end. I didn't want this auction to be another one of those where I left for a while then came back too late.
I did buy stuff while waiting for what I really wanted. I got a heavy duty sledgehammer and a heavy duty maul for $5 each. I don't think you can buy a new handle for that price.
Later I bought two metal rake heads. The auctioneer planned on tossing them into a scrap metal pile until I said I was interested and bid $2.50 (the minimum bid price at the auction). I usually end up breaking the metal rake heads but not their wooden handles.
Later I reminded the auctioneer he had forgot to auction a half dozen large round rolls of barb wire when auctioning stuff from a building. I got all the barb wire for $2.50.
I had hopes of getting several gates, several corral panels, and a harrow. With people leaving, lots of stuff only sold for the minimum bid price so I imagined I would get the stuff I was waiting for cheaply. Instead two new guys showed up once we got to the stuff out back and they either bid on what I wanted, else the stuff wasn't being auctioned (several gates and the corral panels).
For a 10 ft metal gate the auctioneer screwed up the bid. He thought the one bidder bid $40 and he was asking for $45 for the next bid. In the end the previous bidder got the gate for $35, which probably was the right price even though I was tempted to bid $40 until the auctioneer and I both thought the second bidder bid that price.
For a long homemade wire gate I dropped out of bidding at $12.50, though in hindsight I should have kept going as the gate sold for $10.
The two harrows were very nice and sold for $100 each as I wouldn't go over $100 by bidding $125. The harrows were worth more than $100 but not too me as they were more harrow than I needed to knock for pocket gopher mounds.
There was other old small equipment that sold for little of nothing. It was just that I didn't need them or was leery at having to fix them.
It seemed as if the auctioneer and the owners were disappointed in the prices bid on stuff.
Also sold were a couple small wooden buildings and a couple metal grain bins. They only fetched $50 to several hundred dollars each. The place had a number of buildings. One son told me his parents raised chickens, pigs, had several cattle for meat, and some dairy cattle in the various buildings.
I also learned the auctioneer got a 20% cut of everything sold. In addition he charged $65 an hour to get stuff out and set up for the auction and that took several days.
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