first online win

won my first surplus auction today, but i think i might have sold myself short. i had 8 big machines i was bidding on, and got tied up with a stupid doctor appointment that they wouldnt let me change so i only won one of them. i hate learning things the hard way but those lessons stick the most. how often do you guys end up not breaking even due to having to travel and ending up in a situation like this? i dont think i will loose but not the score i thought, and the other stuff went for more than i would have paid, but were all in later lots so i couldnt do anything about it anyhow.

You have to bid on items as if you will only win 1 lot. That way you wont loose out if you win only 1 and will make out better if you win 10.

yeah lessons learned. i think that i got overexcited, this was the first one my wife let me jump into and said prove me wrong. but there is always next time, and i know not to do that again.

turns out it was a good deal. ended up winning 2, went out there with a 5 ton trailer, because the riggers said that would work, and low and behold their 4 ton forklift wouldnt budge them. they were 6x7 2" plate sides with huge solid rollers and 4 giant motors on them. sold them outright and traded some other local scrappers there and traded them for this other machine that was 7x3x14 with 3/4 plate sides and 6 7 foot long 2" stainless shafts. i got home and started cutting the shafts out and low and behold the plate throughout the machine is all aluminum.

Won my first auction today. 4 firefighting valves, two have ~20# of aluminum body and probably a copper-nickel alloy ball in each. The other type looks like it *might* be mostly brass. I went & looked at them but couldn't get medieval with the file to determine for sure. $27.07 incl tax. Thinking I'll most likely have to take the invoice to the yard with me... LOL

http://www.renebates.com/bates60/4.JPG

http://www.renebates.com/bates60/5.JPG

http://www.renebates.com/bates60/5a.JPG

those firefighting valves look like ebay material to me, or a nice tax deduction by donating to a firehouse

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Originally Posted by jghilino

those firefighting valves look like ebay material to me, or a nice tax deduction by donating to a firehouse

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Might be some already pulled out of service,,

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Originally Posted by Mechanic688

Might be some already pulled out of service,,

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They are. Good bit of corrosion on the inside of the workings.

I wouldn't want the firefighters showing up to MY house to be using second-rate stuff!

Update on the firefighting valves.

Bought for $27.07 total with tax. Paid $1.42 altogether for a money order & stamp to mail it with. Spent ~ an hour and a half playing with them, and breaking them down. Sold for $65.75 at the yard.

Profit $37.26, some good fun, and a bit of an education.

What I did right: I bid on something that was worth far more than I bid on it. I knew that because I swung by the firehouse & inspected the items firsthand... I hefted it. I touched it. I knew what I was buying and I knew its condition. I bid an amount that I could still make good money with, and I put in a reserve bid that was a penny higher that the next incremental bid to at least throw an obstacle in front of a bid sniper. One guy tried to bid that next increment one minute before the auction closed, but my "maxbid" was still a penny higher than his, so I won with that.

What I did wrong: it was kind of a specialty item. The guy running the scale called the most experienced scale operator over, who in turn called one of the yard's main buyers over. Had I not had the receipt from the auction house they wouldn't have bought the valves at all. Something to keep in mind in the future.

It wasn't a huge payday... I wanted to start small with this auction bidding thing... but all in all, I got all three pieces of my PIE (Profit, Information, Entertainment) . It was a good buy.