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Crazy Auction Prices

Shop Supply Guru

Hot Rolled
Joined
May 3, 2016
Location
Ohio USA
So one of my large clients was an automotive transmission parts manufacturer and they closed up shop this year. I was excited for the auction to buy stuff (that I sold to them :D try to get a little cash back from losing the client :(). I planned to post on ebay and post certain items on here in the for sale section. I sold this place a lot of what they used carbide and tool holder wise so I know what pricing is. I just attended their bidspotter online auction and it was pure madness. A lot of the tooling was used, metric, random went in big lots for almost new prices. Their were a few items I had my eye on though but they bunched them together in a way that they went for 5k-10k. They bunched lots together of really random stuff (like turning inserts with Custom gear hobs with custom grinding collets) and went for CRAZY MONEY! :eek: Half of that stuff won't even be useable unless they are making the exact parts.

Can't believe it :willy_nilly:

Do many auctions go like this?.... as a guy who sells tooling I think what is the benefit of this. Since you can probably by exactly what you want for maybe a little more.
 
Auctions have a way of bringing out some odd spending.

I've seen items go higher than new at some auctions, and some items go for less than scrap. It really depends on what the item is, how it was marketed, how the auction is being conducted (live vs online vs simulcast) and what the auction's target market is.

Guys think they're getting a good deal until while bidding while forgetting about the buyer's premium and sometimes the rigging.

The best auctions I have ever attended were live local auctions that allowed you to rig your own items. I CLEANED HOUSE when a local shop's owner died and they auctioned everything to settle his estate. Live only, and in the middle of nowhere. Low buyers premium, and we brought our own forktruck. I was buying lots for two bucks because they couldn't get any bids. And it was good stuff!

Compare to some big shops that did the simulcast auction locally. I'll be damned if some of the hand tools and smaller lots went for more than brand new prices. Wore out old Mazak mills and lathes bringing crazy money. And you had to use one of 3 approved riggers.

The rigging can really screw you if you're not paying attention and bid without quoting the rigging first. A friend just bought a CNC lathe from a local manufacturing company that's closing their in house machine shop. Offered the machines to vendors before calling in an auction house. Made the deal on the lathe, and called the plant's go-to rigger. The guy wanted $6500 to load a lathe onto a trailer with a forklift. No self rigging unless insured for it. We're shopping around for a better rigger right now, because that is insane money.
 
Auctions have a way of bringing out some odd spending.

I've seen items go higher than new at some auctions, and some items go for less than scrap. It really depends on what the item is, how it was marketed, how the auction is being conducted (live vs online vs simulcast) and what the auction's target market is.

Guys think they're getting a good deal until while bidding while forgetting about the buyer's premium and sometimes the rigging.

The best auctions I have ever attended were live local auctions that allowed you to rig your own items. I CLEANED HOUSE when a local shop's owner died and they auctioned everything to settle his estate. Live only, and in the middle of nowhere. Low buyers premium, and we brought our own forktruck. I was buying lots for two bucks because they couldn't get any bids. And it was good stuff!

Compare to some big shops that did the simulcast auction locally. I'll be damned if some of the hand tools and smaller lots went for more than brand new prices. Wore out old Mazak mills and lathes bringing crazy money. And you had to use one of 3 approved riggers.

The rigging can really screw you if you're not paying attention and bid without quoting the rigging first. A friend just bought a CNC lathe from a local manufacturing company that's closing their in house machine shop. Offered the machines to vendors before calling in an auction house. Made the deal on the lathe, and called the plant's go-to rigger. The guy wanted $6500 to load a lathe onto a trailer with a forklift. No self rigging unless insured for it. We're shopping around for a better rigger right now, because that is insane money.

Use a tow company/wrecker to haul the lathe and provide the tow companies policy information. Show up in orange vest and hard hat with jacks and skates and pretend you've done this before.

I have done this more times than I can count and never been questioned. I don't use a forklift or crane so nothing really to go wrong. A big Co that hires me to rig regularly knows exactly how I do it and has a hold harmless agreement on file in case I was to hurt myself in one of their facilities.
 
I have seen insane auction prices on Bidspotter auctions in the past.

I think it happens a lot when they get people bidding that are new to Bidspotter and they think it works like Ebay. It doesn't. Everything favors the auctioneer and bidspotter.

THEY CAN SEE YOUR MAX BIDS

I've seen situations where a bidder will go through and put their max bids on hundreds of lots, kinda the same logic you sometimes use at a live auction to discourage a bidding opponent and get them to settle the fuck down if they're always bidding your lots up. But it doesn't work that way because the auctioneer knows exactly how much your bids are and they are free to shill all they want. So what happens is everything sells for one bid increment below their max bid.

I've got some crazy deals on bidspotter though. Things with bad pictures or like the pristine OD/ID grinder I bought for $1800 that was shown missing the tailstock, but otherwise loaded. The stripped one next to it had the tailstock and went for $10,800 plus 18%. It took me a couple hours, but I found that missing tailstock in the plant. Auctioneer was not happy. I was pretty happy.
 
They did one thing I thought was really questionable. This company had a number of million dollar or close grinders for high volume gear grinding, hobbing etc. They had 3 similar machines listed separately. During the auction they announce we will sell these 3 together.... bid goes over $1,000,000 by a bit. Then they say we are going to bid them out separately now and see if they go higher :eek: What is that? If I was the bidder that just bid a million I would be upset.
 
I think it was about 15 years ago in SoCal I went to an auction where a building was packed with machinery, it was a combination auction of multiple companies. There were manual machines, CNC machines, inspection equipment and tooling lots. The stuff was in a warehouse, nothing was plugged in, it was online and live. I was floored by the prices the CNC stuff went for. On top of not being under power all cabinets were locked, even with that I could tell some machines had missing components, the CNCs all went for the prices of what a good running machine would go for, not a machine that could have been scavenged. There was a line of manual mills, most with tables looking like Swiss cheese, no vises, no dro's, all went for around $3k+ and none were name brand. They were of the type that would be on Craigslist for $1500-$2000 if that. Who the hell was buying all that stuff at those prices?
 
They did one thing I thought was really questionable. This company had a number of million dollar or close grinders for high volume gear grinding, hobbing etc. They had 3 similar machines listed separately. During the auction they announce we will sell these 3 together.... bid goes over $1,000,000 by a bit. Then they say we are going to bid them out separately now and see if they go higher :eek: What is that? If I was the bidder that just bid a million I would be upset.

Seen it at a whole building auction, you could not pay for nor take until 3 days after the auction.

This building had 4 bays, and each bay was totaled up, and then "big guys" went into a room, and bid for the whole bay.

Selling it anyway they can, "Any which way but loose"
Every Which Way But Loose (Eddie Rabbit) - YouTube
 
They did one thing I thought was really questionable. This company had a number of million dollar or close grinders for high volume gear grinding, hobbing etc. They had 3 similar machines listed separately. During the auction they announce we will sell these 3 together.... bid goes over $1,000,000 by a bit. Then they say we are going to bid them out separately now and see if they go higher :eek: What is that? If I was the bidder that just bid a million I would be upset.

Is that even legal?
 
The word "rigged" comes to mind and I don't mean the kind that moves machinery.

So I did the walk through with a buddy of mine who worked at this shop. We were going to go in on a certain tool lot. Anyway with the prices going for what they were he suggested the company who bought this shop out of bankruptcy was buying this stuff. Seems fishy. :toetap:
 
Is that even legal?

Auction terms usually say they can get away with murder.

I remember when I bought my HBM I was there getting it ready to rig after auction and the auction co guy thought I was just a rigger. He asks me if I know anyone who wants to buy it's sister machine right next to it because the buyer backed out. I played dumb and asked for the details and then asked why the buyer would back out of a deal like that? He explains how the the auction had low attendance so they used several shills to have a bidding war against themselves with the second HBM and nobody actually bought it.

I was dumbfounded he just laid it out like that. Standard procedure according to him.
 
I was at a bankruptcy auction once and the banker that had foreclosed on the business was caught with the auctioneer running the bids! A guy jumped up and yelled "stop the auction" and called out the banker and the auctioneer! The banker tried to slide out the side door, but was blocked by some bidders! It took some fancy talk to get going again, and after that things went cheap?
 
I was at a power plant auction last year that had tons of cabinets of NOS sensor equipment, first they auctioned the individual cabinets ( I won a dozen or so), then they auctioned ALL the cabinets for 1 price (I lost), a week later they called demanding payment on the cabinets I had won, seems the high bidder did not want them, I told them to go ____ themselves.

With the quotes I've gotten from riggers recently, if I was 20 years younger, I know what business I would be getting into.
 








 
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