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The mother of all auctions.
QUESTION:Rick did a much better job of describing the auction.
It looked like the "A" team was in the upperclassmen shop with the better
lathes and that's where my impression of the auction house came from. The
first dozen or so lathes were auctioned off in two lots and they declared
that only the tooling on the lathes was included. They then started on some
hanging cabinets with tooling but announced that the tooling went with the
lathes and the high bidders for the lathes could fight over the contents
(approximately their words). I'd be a bit miffed to have won one of the
remaining lathes and have to argue with someone else over that tooling.
Could be sour grapes on my part, though, as I came away empty.
ANSWER: Sorry I missed meeting you. Yes, I was there. Gary Schoenly (Cabin
Fever Expo promoter) and I Drove 810 miles straight through and
arrived at 5:00 am Friday.
IMHO the most screwed up and mis-managed auction I have ever had the
displeasure of attending.
As Mike pointed out, the auctioneer (Dave Gerlach in this case) did
try to say that the lathe buyers could fight it out over a particular
bunch of tooling. However, he ended up putting that lot up for auction
anyway when the crowd protested I ended up as the buyer and
immediately had someone stretch wrap the pile.
There were very few bargains in machinery, particularly because all
the tooling was seperated out and most machines were sold bare-bones.
Stuff disappeared at an alarming rate and security was a joke.
Example: I bought a table full of tooling and sold a dividing head
tailstock from the lot to someone for $20. He tried walking out the
door with it, but the school security guard at the street exit asked
him for a receipt. He came back to me and asked me for a receipt. I
wrote a note on a business card, included my buyer number and signed
it. Out the door it went while the auction was still going on and long
before my bill was even paid. (Note to would-be thieves: in addition
to a lumber crayon, the aspiring thief should also carry a note from
his mommy granting him permission to remove items from the auction.)
I did some horse trading with a guy who had purchased a room and
contents. He had locked the door to the room, but someone took the
hinges off and helped themselves to a 4 ft. straight edge and a bunch
of other expensive tooling. It was really aggrivating.
If you thought the auction was disorganized, removal was even worse.
The school had provided security at some of the doors (see note above
to determine how effective said security must have been) during the
sale. They were nowhere to be seen after the auction was over. Gerlach
Auction company had only 4 0r 5 people that I could see overseeing the
removal process. Again, this is a 500,000 sf building with numerous
exits and entrances. Of those 4 or 5 people, one person was helping
her husband remove the stuff he purchased at the sale, another was
renting himself out as a forklift (Skid steer) operator, and 2 were
red-tagging lots that had been purchased but not yet paid for. One
person was at the exit they called "the tunnel" seeing if you had a
paid invoice when you removed stuff. (Note to would-be thieves: use
any other exit but "the tunnel")
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