Bidding at Auctions

I guess I have been going to farm and consignment auctions for close to 45 years and you can learn a lot by watching people at sales. My late uncle Jerry was one of the best I ever seen at reading the crowd. He could tell you what something was going to bring just by the first item sold by its bids, And 99 times out of a 100 he would be right. In the blazing sun pouring rain or in snow with 50 mph winds and -20 wind chills he would get what he wanted most of the time at his price, And most of the time I was right there with him.

There are guys that will go to a sale for one thing and stand close or right by it (for hours)as the crowd moves closer and are right up front when they start selling it, You know that they came to buy it most of the time for any price. Of course there are guys that will bid on anything that's cheap just to run it up and they never buy anything. Most of the jockeys are always 1 or 2 people back in the crowd so they cant be seen by the other bidders (like we don't know who and what they are doing) and try to by everything cheap. And of course the guys that are interested in an item look it over hard then start running there mouths to everyone about how big a piece of junk it is and so on, But you notice when its selling that they are bidding on it. Jerry taught me to read people at sales, By the way and ware there standing and by the look on there faces and how they bid. Also how to throw someone off there game by throwing in an oddball bid (most people cant change there minds that quick) to get something bought. I bid on something I stand right up front ware I can see who is bidding and make eye contact and not look at anything but them while bidding, When they look away there done bidding and there done. I have gone to look at a tractor at a sale and have an idea what it worth for it's shape (say $6000) and if I really want it when the auctioneer asks for a bid to open it for say $7000 I'll pop off with $5000. A lot of times you will buy it for that or one more bid. You just shocked the crowd and before they can figure out what your doing it's to late, SOLD! It works and sometimes it don't, But at least you tried. I like it when guys that bring their wife's to a sale, Ever notice that she is holding the bidders number so he don't buy something? Or he's bidding on something and she walks up and takes his bidding number and walks away? I feel for you, I really do.

And of course I cant forget one group of guys that will bid and run something up just because you want it and to make you pay more just for fun. I love burning these guys butts every time I can. One of my best was many years ago I went to buy a Ford 8000, This tractor was as good as you could get. It was worth $7000 to $8000 tops and I started it at $6500 and I heard that all to command Yep from him! And I knew it was on. I took my time bidding and as soon as I bid Yep from him with that big grin on his face. I ran him to $14975 my last bid they said $15000 Yeep! I looked at the auctioneer and said I'm done! SOLD! for $15000 What's your number? OH the look on his face was priceless! The deer in the headlight look with the I just craped my pants and OH GOD WHAT JUST HAPPEND look! Simply Priceless!!!!!! He just paid the highest price for a 8000 Ford ever around here! As I walked away with my uncle he came running up to me and said "I really don't need that Ford so I'll let you have it for what I gave for it". You wanted it bad enough so you can keep it and shove it ware the sun don't shine! I turned and walked away with my uncle Jerry grinning ear to ear telling me I've been waiting for a long time for someone to burn his butt up for what he does, I'm just glad to be hear to see it! What was really funny was the tractor sit on his lot for 15 years before he sold it for a lot less than he gave for it.

For me auctions are a good learning experience and can be fun just to watch people and the way they act. Reading people, Figuring out getting the mood of the sale how to shock people and bid to get them off there game with oddball bids its all part of the game to get what you want at the cheapest price. That's what it's all about. What have you learned at sales? Bandit

AS a past used tractor and equipment dealer I probably bought and sold more items at auction then many people will ever see in their life. As such yes I learned the tricks of the trade and the real deal and what was going on and who owned it (often was bidding on it to raise the price) and who was running up the bid etc. IN MY DAY YOU HAD TO LEARN THAT TO SURVIVE. I learned how and when to bid and to read the crowd and figure out the owner or his buddy and the auctioneers tricks which made me a successful dealer in my day. The guys who were talkin "its a piece of crap stay away from it" would hide in the back and try to buy it and they actually fooled some of the rookies lol I could write a book on the tricks and techniques but it was a fun and profitable business which I enjoyed. Its a total different world and perspective from those who occasionaly buy at auctions versus those of us who did it for a living buying and selling hundreds of items.

John T

I very seldom get out to auctions but I have good older friend (70+) who knows how to trade on stuff. He told a good story about a couple of guys they noticed bidding but not buying at several auctions. He figured out they were shill bidders and managed to stick one of them with an overpriced hay rake. I shorten the details but it's a good story.

I've been buying at auctions for over 50 years.
1)I almost never pay any attention to what anyone else says about a piece of equipment
or tractor.I look it over and make up my own mind.
2)I don't care who is bidding against me, the owner,another farmer,guy down the road
I'll have my stopping point and that's where I quit bidding.
3)I've seen a lot of crazy things go on at auctions but I don't think there is nearly as much drama happening as many would like to think.Its all pretty simple if you didn't get the item you wanted you simply quit bidding too quick(LOL)

John T....you SHOULD write that book! I bet it would sell really good!

I hardly ever go to an auction and i seldom buy anything there either.
I hate wasting my time and to wait for hours for something i'm interested in to finally come up to get sold only to see it go twice for what i was willing to pay, yet lots of other items i was not interested in went dirt cheap
Funny thing is,.. the winning buyer is thought to be the biggest fool of all cause no one else thought it was worth that much.Lol

On the other hand what would be really scary is if i had to hold a farm auction not knowing upfront what my stuff would sell for and no say when is just about given away.
I been stung bad once before when i sold my 125 head black angus/limousin cross cow/calf herd with 300+/- lb calves at foot in late April 18 years ago on a cattle auction. i was given quote by the auction representative that had come to my yard to give me an estimate of $1200-1300 a pair. By the time i hit the auction(500 km trip) 1/2 hour after it started my cows where already sold!(they must've been the first ones trough the ring)...they had brought only $700 a pair!.. and i still owed the truckers for transport.
After that episode i lost all trust in an auctioneer.

I know what you mean. If I was really interested in something listed in a sale I would go the day before in the morning to look at things. We did this for several reasons, Mainly to look at the equipment and to see who is there working and hanging around to remember there faces for the next day. You go to enough sales you get to know who's who and who's buddy is who's and who to watch. I always like to get there early to watch the auctioneer and who he is talking to and watch them as they might be trying to make side deals. Its like you said there is a lot more going on at an auction than you think and to make it you have to watch things very closely! Bandit

I've bought a few things on eBay if you can call that an auction. The last was a rather large ticket item and a strange experience. There was a minimum opening bid and a week or so left in the auction. I offered the minimum and the eBay service asked what is your maximum bid. Nothing new there. I placed my maximum at $500 more than the minimum. What was STRANGE was, checking back, any other bidder wanting to bid had to exceed my maximum offer, rather than getting to raise the bid in increments to my maximum. No one offered that so I got it for the minimum. I don't know if the seller wanted to sell for his minimum price but I'll bet he could have got more- I'm happy if he is.

Exactly what I think. Don't get carried away in the moment and stick with your price. Driving up another bidder is a good way to get something dumped in your lap.

Sounds like what happened was no one else wanted to bid on the item but you.

ya, I have even seen some auctioneers pull bids out of the sky when there was only one person giving a bid and no one else would bid. auctioneer ran it up himself.

Many times auctioneers will have absentee bids and they'll bid for the person that left the bid.I leave bids all the time with auctioneers with the understanding they'll bid for me just like I was at the auction.

It is better to go to an auction than to have an auction. Trust me.

What I really don't understand at all is the traditional fast talking auctioneer business. To me it sounds silly and I question whether everyone can really follow the bids he's spewing out. Why can't they just talk at a normal pace so everyone can understand just what he's saying? I've watched some car auctions on TV, Mecum and such where the auctioneer just talks normally and everyone knows the bid and nobody's fooled. Am I the only one that thinks the fast talk is silly? I mean you can talk at a fast pace to be sure but you don't have to start speaking in tongues for crying out loud.

I bought a 930 Case off Ebay, It was down to the last min and still had no bid other than the sellers $1499 minimum and I bid $1500 at the last second and won it! It was a Sunday night late and tried to contact the seller. He emailed me about 10am with his phone # and I called him for some details. As we were talking he asked how much I gave for it as he had forgot about it ending the night before, I said $1500 and I could hear oh crap! I just lost money on that one! Well if you don't want it it can stay right hear and you wont hurt my feelings! The driver that picked it up told me the guy was still mad the next morning when he picked it up. Some days you win and some days your the bug that splatted on the windshield! I really do like the 930 she's a brute! Bandit

I agree all the way.

I was at an auction once where my neighbor and I compared notes ahead of time and found we were both interested in the same item, a log splitter.

He commented he didn't want to bid against me.

I told him, "I thought that's what auctions were for".

Maybe I shouldn't have been so flip about it. He left before the splitter sold. (And I bought it). But, if he'd have stuck around and wanted it worse than I, he'd have bought it.

Could be but it was an odd time to end an auction at 1;30am in the morning. He did tell me that he had lots of calls and emails asking questions about it so who knows. All I know is I won a 930 Case for $1500 and I am happy! Bandit

I don't do farm auctions as much as I did Antique auctions. But, they both seem to have the same type of characters.

For instance, bidding on an 1760 deacons bench(with provenance) would start at $4,500. Auctioneer would keep lowering his initial bid price until it got to around $500 before anyone would holler 'yep'. The piece was worth a lot more than that. The bids would increase at $50 or $100 increments until the final bid was close to the auctioneers original starting point.

It makes no sense to me why waste everyones time making the auctioneer go down so low and then everyone bids up close to the original starting point!

If I am at the auction and the item up for bid/sale is...let's say a mahogany Victorian bedroom set in pristine condition...which I could easily sell for $8,000.

Auctioneer starts off with opening price of $8,500, hoping there might be someone in the audience wanting to buy for personal use. No takers. That's when I raise my hand and start the bidding at $5,500. Usually there are no counter bids because everyone was expecting the auction to go really low in price and then they would start bidding.

What a waste of time!

After a while, I've had many auctioneers(after they have gotten to know me) just say "SOLD" after my initial bid. It seemed they got tired of people trying to 'nickel and dime' the bids.

Just my 2 cents worth.

I bought a revolver on an estate auction once. In talking to the auctioneer before the auction, he told me someone had left a bid with him on it, and he would bid himself up to that point. I was the only one else that bid and I bought it. It was the only firearm on the auction and I may have been the only bidder present with a handgun permit.

BTW, it was a Forehand and Wadsworth .32 DA breaktop in pristine condition except for a small chip on one grip. The latest patent date on it was 1887 and Forehand and Wadsworth split up in 1890 so you can do the math on it's age. I bought it for $200 and the bluebook showed it at $575 at the time.

The whole thing surprised me, actually. Usually firearms go sky high, 'way over book, on an auction.

When I go to an auction or bid on eBay, I don't care what other people are doing or what they are saying.
I don't play games with people, I just have a maximum bid and if someone buys it for One Dollar more, I don't care.
Guess that's why I don't buy a lot at auction sites.
Just last year, a home near me was selling at absolute auction.
I lost it by $3,000 and the gavel was about to be struck.
I let him have it.
Auctioneer told me later that they were surprised that it sold that high.

That's exactly the way I feel about auctions, too much nickel/dimeing.

Sounds like you've experienced poor auctioneers. A good one is very understandable and not a problem to follow. Fact is, when a
farm auction lasts half the day as it is, I can't stand to listen to a slow one. Time is money for everyone. Talking fast
shouldn't be a trade off for sounding garbled or one who can't enunciate. Mecum and others sell to dim-witted folks who have more
money than sense so they need to talk slow. An good auctioneer uses his cadence or chant to develop a rhythm that keeps bidders
listening, attentive, engaged, entertained and most important it keeps it moving. A slow sale will turn people away faster than
anything. People always have other places to be or chores to do etc.

Straw Boss- Kinda like this guy...great auctioneer and can understand every word...
Poke Here

Not good to hear how your cattle were sold but consider this, if you took 100% of your corn crop to the elevator, lets say 100,000
bushels, and told them to sell it next Wednesday with no regard to what the market is doing and corn just happened to drop 60 cents
that day then whose fault is that? Why didn't you split up your critters and sell at three different sale barns or sell a third
one week and a third the next and maybe even hold the smallest ones for another month? In other words spread your risk to protect
yourself. Any auctioneer can tell you what they should bring but there's no guarantee. That's why tractors on auction sometimes
sell for half what they should. The auctioneer has no control over the bidders or more importantly the number of bidders who
happen to show up that day.

LOL Exactly!

Yup. Exactly! Bid what you want to pay. They people who play stupid games usually end up
with stuff they didn't want in the first place. It's prety easy to tell the ones who think
they "know the crowd", too.

I've been to thousands of auctions, and I have NEVER seen a wife holding/taking the number stop a guy from bidding. If I show it at all - it will be after the first item I buy, after that, my number card stays in my pocket unless asked for - and it never has been.

I really like buying things at auctions. Actually almost all of my machinery I have bought at auction except for 2 sickle mowers, a hay rake, a couple wagons and maybe some smaller miscellaneous stuff. I like to test drive a couple days before at least twice and give them a good look over a couple times too. Both of my 4020's I have bought at auction and could not be happier with them. I tried buying a tractor from a dealer and I just do not like having to haggle over price. I ended up not buying it because we could not reach a deal because I didn't want to pay what they wanted because it needed too much work. At an auction I do not have to waste time arguing over price and I set my price. The reason I test drive more than once is because you can see if any one has done anything to it in the hopes of getting it cheaper. I bought a 3020 for my sister one time and I checked it out a week before and then 2 days before the sale and started and drove both times. In that time some one screwed the adjustments on the carb shut and unplugged the coil. I got it running and drove it and the day of the sale it was done again. The owner was there and I was talking to him and he said it always started and ran well which I knew. I told him what had been done to it before. After I bought it it needed to be jump started because some people tried starting it and the starter needed rebuilt too. You are right about the kinds of people at auctions, I fall into the category of the guy who stands close to what I came for if there is only one thing I came for. Looks like I have to change my tactics.

Really thats the whole reason to go to auctions 20 items will sell high 20 about the normal price and then one sells at a rock bottom deal,the trick is to pay attention and be ready when the rock bottom deal comes up.Plus like in your case the better you know whats being sold the more likely you'll get a bargain.

If he didn't want both of us bidding on the splitter I'd of asked him how much $$ he was willing to pay me not to bid.

Best auction storyo I heard was when our veterinarian sent his Dad to farm auction to bid for him. Told him to bid up to $1,080,000. Dad misunderstood and ran it up to $1,800,000. Was next to last bidder. We figured he should have got a commission from the seller.

I'm with you Jiles.

I set a number in my head of what I'd like to pay for item, and one number of the most I'd pay. And that's it.

I don't care if it's $1.00 over, I stop bidding.

Might have missed a few items I would have liked, but I've never left an auction feeling I got ripped off.

If you approach an auction thinking in terms of "winning" - it's very unlikely you will - even if you get the item. I know we've all seen it (over and over and over again).

Yep, life's ALL about "winning". Trouble is paying too much to "win" doesn't make a lot of sense. But you "WON"!

Just like BUYING a simple thing on fleabay and getting a worm and fuzzy email from them telling you that you WON!

(quoted from post at 16:59:28 03/30/15) I'm with you Jiles.

I set a number in my head of what I'd like to pay for item, and one number of the most I'd pay. And that's it.

I don't care if it's $1.00 over, I stop bidding.

Might have missed a few items I would have liked, but I've never left an auction feeling I got ripped off.

If you approach an auction thinking in terms of "winning" - it's very unlikely you will - even if you get the item. I know we've all seen it (over and over and over again).

Click to expand...

At the auction where I bid on the home, they auctioned off several Stihl chainsaws, and blowers. Very few times I will pay over 1/2 of new price for any used item unless I know the owner. Bidding started at nearly new price for every item. These were several years old and they cranked each one and then cut them off. Two of the chainsaws brought more then what they currently cost new! ! Others sold for more then 1/2 new price. Same older man bought them all. He also payed a premium price for a worn out zero turn mower with all the tires worn slick and the mower so nasty the name had to be cleaned off.
He was really happy when he left.
I walked back home without buying a single item.

gtractorfan,

I'd say you were the only bidder and that's why you got the item at the minimum bid price.

When you're the high bidder and have a maximum bid set, if someone bids more than the current high bid but less than your max they immediately get told they've been outbid and you're still the high bidder with an automatic bid that exceeds the other guys bid by the amount listed for bid increases.

I pretty much stick to farm equipment auctions, mostly out in ohio area, but I happened to go
to one for some office equipment at an office near me (Mass.). It was a software company that
folded.

I've never in all my years seen anything so crazy. There was a bidding frenzy over the
computers. They did each pc separately and it's good for them that they did. Each one sold
for at least 10 times what it was worth.

The people there clearly weren't experienced bidders - you could cut the competitiveness with a
knife. People just went crazy.

Funny - in massachusetts you have to try pretty hard just to find an auction. Nothing like
further west were they're just a way of life.

You get a bunch of young dumb competitive people who have a lot of money who've never been to
an auction before and watch out!

(quoted from post at 20:25:41 03/29/15) Sounds like you've experienced poor auctioneers. A good one is very understandable and not a problem to follow. Fact is, when a
farm auction lasts half the day as it is, I can't stand to listen to a slow one. Time is money for everyone. Talking fast
shouldn't be a trade off for sounding garbled or one who can't enunciate. Mecum and others sell to dim-witted folks who have more
money than sense so they need to talk slow. An good auctioneer uses his cadence or chant to develop a rhythm that keeps bidders
listening, attentive, engaged, entertained and most important it keeps it moving. A slow sale will turn people away faster than
anything. People always have other places to be or chores to do etc.

Click to expand...

I would respectfully disagree. I think an auctioneer can talk at a normal pace without doing the fast talking cadence thing and move the auction along at a brisk pace. Maybe it's just me, but I think the fast cadence thing just sounds ridiculous and unnecessary. I know it's tradition and everything but I think a lot of people would agree with me. As to the Mecum buyers being dim witted, I would suggest that they are smart enough to have enough money to be able to afford some of those big ticket items, they can't be any dumber than you or me.

I usually can't make head or tales out of an auctioneer's rattlebabble either and most times I don't have a clue where the price is at at any given time, its one other reason i hardly ever go to an auction.
I buy and sell from and to private parties as much as possible.