Lewis Machinery Auction?

Anybody here participate in the auction?

Pahl Industrial | Lewis Machinery - Machine Tools lots

I’m curious what the Southbend lathe sold for?

https://www.bidspotter.com/en-us/au...0047/lot-e4570e92-a470-4ba8-a750-ad2c0164cf7a

Kevin

You can call up the auction co. and ask. I've done that and they don't seem to mind.

0t--auction hyjinks?

Pahl Industrial has conducted 5 auctions over past 16 months for Lewis Machinery--portland metro area

the most recent is an enigma--closing date stated Wednesday 26 may 2021---bidspotter was the intermediary-

look closely at the bidspotter closing date--12 may 2021

I am on the direct mailing list of Pahl auctioneers

look closely at the first mailer and verify incorrect date of Thursday 26 May
I tried contacting Pahl regarding obvious error--no answer

Pahl's website did not list the latest Lewis auction when the first mailer was dispatched
the auction house did post a date corrected mailer on Facebook --according to google time stamp 2 days after
auction closing

too many puzzlements for me to unravel--

btw--Dan Lewis has been to my shop and purchased machine components--we had a cordial business relationship--I wish him well in future pursuits

I live in Portland and was watching that auction. I believe that this lathe sold for a reasonable amount, but many items sold for very high prices (IMHO).

I tried to talk with Dan for he had stuff listed on Craigslist all the time. My experience was bad and when I talked to other guys from Portland and Seattle, they also had bad experiences with Dan.

I think that the used machine biz could be tough, but Dan was pretty caustic to me and others, which probably didn’t help his biz.

The few interactions I had with Dan Lewis were cordial and the tooling I bought (direct, not online) was decent. So not everybody had the same experience with him.

Dan Lewis is a shitbag liar.

He screwed me/ lied to me twice.

Probably 60% of those who had any transaction with him got shafted in some way.

He would buy stuff that looked pretty, but didn't work off craigslist turn around and advertise it for top dollar. Unfixed, untested. When he sold something that didn't work he would deal with it by never answering your calls.

About a year ago I sold a non-functional late model Eaton screw compressor for $100. The buyer then resold it to Dan Lewis as non-op for the same $100. Dan put it up for sale as like-new for $4500.

Again, total shitbag.

Garwood said:

Dan Lewis is a shitbag liar.

He screwed me/ lied to me twice.

Probably 60% of those who had any transaction with him got shafted in some way.

He would buy stuff that looked pretty, but didn't work off craigslist turn around and advertise it for top dollar. Unfixed, untested. When he sold something that didn't work he would deal with it by never answering your calls.

About a year ago I sold a non-functional late model Eaton screw compressor for $100. The buyer then resold it to Dan Lewis as non-op for the same $100. Dan put it up for sale as like-new for $4500.

Again, total shitbag.

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So in other words he's a typical used machinery dealer.

Just got a notice from Pahl auctions that they have an auction scheduled at Lewis machinery for the 17 June. Is this for real or??

I have bought from their last auction. I bought an arbor press.
The 19% buyers premium really grinds my gears.
I asked if they took consignments and there is a 10% sellers premium for that.
So 29%, almost a third of the money goes to Pahl. ZOIKS.

And yes, they just keep unpacking boxes and warehouses and run another auction. Seems like they are running one a month lately.

Houndogforever said:

The 19% buyers premium really grinds my gears.
I asked if they took consignments and there is a 10% sellers premium for that.
So 29%, almost a third of the money goes to Pahl. ZOIKS.

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Do you expect the auction outfit to do it for free?

What difference does it make if they had a 5% or a 20,000% buyer's premium? You just add that to your bid in your head.

It's same thing as gas station charging $2.29 and 9/10ths of a penny for gas.

There won't be any deals at the Lewis auctions. They're being promoted to the max and there's a ton of garage machinist stuff in there.

I'm all for people making money in return for providing a service. Dan Lewis does not provide a service. Zero customer service.

The auction companies have a fair bit of labor into putting it all together, promoting, shilling all the bids they can and loading out.

If you're new to auctions live or online you're probably not going to get any deals. Auction co's have some heavy duty strategies to make sure you empty your wallet.

I will say you can game them right back at most online auctions if you're aware of what's actually going on.

Exactly how do you game them? As for auctioneers expenses wouldn't it be lower if online? But the keep going up!

Mebfab said:

Exactly how do you game them? As for auctioneers expenses wouldn't it be lower if online? But the keep going up!

Click to expand...

They shill the shit out of their online auctions. Once you figure out how to tell the difference between a shill VS real bid you take their upper hand away.

Lets say you are looking at buying lots of similar tooling. Say there's 20+ lots of it, no bids. Place a few bids at the opening amount and the place one more with a max bid one or two minimum increments above the opening amount. As the auction begins to close you will see your bids above opening go up to, but not over your max bid.

Those are shills. If they were real they would have outbid you.

As the auction ends they will shill above your bids to inspire you. They will never bid more than an increment or two above you though. They want to ease up your bid, not show you they can smash you with their wallet like a naïve bidder would do. Then just run out the clock. Every time it extends the lot 2 minutes or whatever wait until there's 30 seconds left and bid the next increment. They will quickly give up or lose track and you'll get the lot cheap.

Real bidders that are determined to win something generally place a higher bid at the end. So if you bid up a couple increments and aren't winning you can assume you are bidding against a real person at that point.

If you bid in rapid procession they will assume you are excitable and they keep bidding you up. Run the clock almost out every bid and they will assume it's not worth their hassle.

Edit:

I should add that all the online bidding platforms I have used have a way to tell exactly what the reserve bid is. As you're bidding up the bid will change color or it will flash or the increment will suddenly change when you get close. They all do it. That's how the auctioneer knows when to stop.

Since I've had an experience with Dan, I'll chip in. He had a DoAll saw blade cabinet for sale on craigslist for $200 about a year and a half ago. I have a DoAll 3612 and thought it would be nice to have a matching cabinet. I called him up and we scheduled to meet in a couple of hours. I showed up at his shop in the evening, around 6:30 or so. He showed me in and I was impressed with the amount of machinery he had; a fair amount of it was in very nice shape. We walked to the back of his shop and he showed me the cabinet. It wasn't mint by any means, but it was in decent shape. I agreed to buy it, gave him the cash and backed my truck up to the shop door. I noticed he was acting a little odd as we were loading it in but didn't think much of it, it was about 8:00 by this point and maybe it was late for him? Anyway, I drove home and let it sit until the next day after work. While I was unloading it, I realized why he was acting funny: the lower part of the back of the cabinet was rusted and bent. I can't prove it, but I was believe he was trying to conceal the damage as were loading it in, knowing full well how bad the back of the cabinet was (is). I decided to chalk it up to a lesson learned; you can't see the damage from the front.
I'll end with this: if he was willing to misrepresent a $200 cabinet, is it likely he will be forthright and completely honest about a $10,000 machine?

I watched the auction and no deals good deals were realized by the bidders, IMHO. There were some items that went for much higher than retail.

I guess that Pahl does a great job for the seller. Add 19% for fees and a lot of that stuff was way too expensive for used stuff.

There's a lot of stupid people. Hard to fathom how anyone could bid on something in an auction without understanding it's value.