Got the Mrs for nothing,cost me a lot since....
edit.we are still together.
edit.we are still together.
The best auction bargains I've ever known were in commercial auctions, bankruptcy sales mainly. Especially in big sales at the end of the day, when most of the dealers had already bought what they wanted and were busy loading rather than buying. A big hydraulic firm went bust near me some years ago and the sale went on late into the evening, I stayed right to the end and bought a whole load of items basically walking around the yard with the auctioneer and him knocking each of them down to me for a fiver.
It always pays to view!!Not an auction bargain but earlier this year a friend sent me a link to someone selling a 'dairy tank' on Facebook for £250. The picture was of it buried in a dark shed under a load of rubbish, but I could see that it was actually a cheese vat, better still it was only a couple of miles up the road so I arranged to go for a look the next day and took cash to pay. When I got there, it was full of cheese moulds, cheese press parts and other useful items, worth the asking price alone. The guy selling said I could take it all but £250 was the price otherwise he would take it for scrap. I made a cheaky bid of 200, saying it would cost him 50 to take to the scrappy, which he accepted. I paid quickly and loaded up! He also had a yoghurt potting machine there that was incomplete, but I knew the company that made it and they had said if I didn't want it, they would buy it. Asking price was £150. I offered £50 to clear it up as that was all I had in my pocket, and got it too. The manufacturer came and bought it off me, they gave me 200 plus a cut of whatever it makes when they do it up and sell it. There was also one of their pot heat sealers in the cheese vat too (I've kept that and we are about to start using it), they said they are worth £1500, the cheese vat itself I've been told is worth £4000.
As it happens, it turns out it originally belonged to one of our long standing milk customer's late brother, she was so pleased when we realised the connection and I'd told her how we'd got it, she burst into tears in our yard.
He should have paid straight away and driven it home there and thenDad bought a Ford 5000 cheap at an auction, comes home and takes me to collect it, tractors nowhere to be seen, pops in to the auctioneer, to both pay and find out where it's gone, " I didn't knock it down to you Charlie it was X who bought it", same surname.
Was the buyers premium on topa bj for £10 and no mess either