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Centralia, MO | 25 years ago, my family held an auction to sell my fathers equipment after he passed. Many things about that auction still stun me today. I was the primary organizer for the sale and the auctioneer told me to paint anything I could. I found a local shop that painted the tractors (a 3020 and a 4230) for $400 a piece and I painted the major tillage equipment. Just washed and waxed the combine however. The amazing part was some peoples reaction to the new paint. I had two people stop and ask me what I was trying to hide with the paint like it was something devious on my part. Despite that I am convinced the new paint helped the auction, after all a nice shiny row of equipment has to look better than a dull sun faded row.
Also on the auctioneers advice, I took the keys out of everything and we made announcements before and early in the sale that if anyone wanted to run something to see me. The auctioneer said people would wear out all the batteries otherwise. This worked pretty well except for the tractors - people brought their own keys !!!!
We had a barn that was separated from the auction area and I even put up a temporary fence to stop people from going to that area. I used it to store items that were not for sale including an old JD A and the neighbors loader tractor. None of that stopped people from milling around in that barn. I had numerous people ask me when the A was going to sell and several people went over to try to help themselves to the loader tractor. My neighbor got a little hot over the deal because he was nice enough to bring his tractor over to help load stuff, but he intended to run it himself.
It seemed like no one brought a hitch pin with them. Dad always had maybe 3 hitch pins on the farm, one on each tractor and one in the PU. After selling about several wagons and several drawn implements, I quickly had 3 or four people begging me for a hitch pin. I had to send a neighbor home to get some of his which I replaced later.
Despite the "as-is" nature of an auction, I got a lot of people demanding a little extra. Guy that bought 2 ton wanted more fuel in it. Guy that bought mower was unhappy with it afterward even though he ran it before buying. Guy that bought an old irrigation pump was unhappy at missing belts that were clearly visibly missing and mentioned as missing by auctioneer. Some guy bent something trying to load it. A couple of gripes on who bet on what referred to the auctioneer.
Overall one of the longer days of my life. | |
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Stupid thieves Farm sale
