Auction Tales

FTLComm - Tisdale - August 12, 1999

With three auction sites in progress at one time, it was hard to determine the actual size of the crowd at the Schpansky Auction yesterday. A parking attendant said he had a count of 3,000 but he said a lot come and go, but that essentially, the sale did have a lot of people on hand.

Though the grounds were soupy in some places, it did not rain and clear skies and sunshine made it a pleasant day with temperatures in the low twenties.

The man in the blue shirt on the right in this group, had just bought a combine. He lives in a small community near London Ontario. He and his wife were on a little Saskatchewan shopping trip. I asked him about crops at home and he said that this year's harvest was almost complete and that they had had a good crop this year.

It seemed curious to me that a fellow from Southern Ontario would come out here to buy a combine and I took this up

with some informed auction visitors. An implement dealer explained that this man may buy ten to twelve such machines on his trip out here. Then he will ship them back home, spend a little money on them fixing them up and resell them with a profit margin of up to 70%.

The Massey Combine, a model 550, sold at this auction for $4,500. It will cost the Ontario man $2,000 to get it back home and he can expect to sell it for about $12,000. Because of so many small, or hobby type farms in Southern Ontario, large machines like this are not readily available and certainly not used ones, so for a small Ontario operator, this is a good buy. Only minutes after the sale of the Massey combine, the John Deere beside sold for $65,000. No doubt the

sign on the window had something to do with it. It says "One owner, reason for selling, Retired."

These pictures were taken late in the afternoon as the bus to the parking lot was about to make its last run, but there were still people at the food concession, which apparently had good hamburgers because Mr. Will dashed off to have his second one.

Several small customers brought along their parents to the auction sale and with still the cars to go, some customers were already loaded up and heading home with their new machines.

Car sales at an auction sale can be extremely volatile because of the numbers of prospective customers and the whole issue of demand.

An aging smoking old Ford pickup brought only $275 and before that several other vehicles that had seen far better days were dispatched for less then $500.

It would seem that this 1993 Mustang with all the frills, and 100,000 Km, would fetch a descent price, but despite starting it up a couple of times and showing off its new paint job, it sold for $4,200.

Today its time to clean up and pay up as that's it for this one.


*FTLComm - Tisdale - August 12, 1999*
With three auction sites in progress at one time, it was hard to determine the actual size of the crowd at the Schpansky Auction yesterday. A parking attendant said he had a count of 3,000 but he said a lot come and go, but that essentially, the sale did have a lot of people on hand. Though the grounds were soupy in some places, it did not rain and clear skies and sunshine made it a pleasant day with temperatures in the low twenties.
The man in the blue shirt on the right in this group, had just bought a combine. He lives in a small community near London Ontario. He and his wife were on a little Saskatchewan shopping trip. I asked him about crops at home and he said that this year's harvest was almost complete and that they had had a good crop this year. It seemed curious to me that a fellow from Southern Ontario would come out here to buy a combine and I took this up
with some informed auction visitors. An implement dealer explained that this man may buy ten to twelve such machines on his trip out here. Then he will ship them back home, spend a little money on them fixing them up and resell them with a profit margin of up to 70%. The Massey Combine, a model 550, sold at this auction for $4,500. It will cost the Ontario man $2,000 to get it back home and he can expect to sell it for about $12,000. Because of so many small, or hobby type farms in Southern Ontario, large machines like this are not readily available and certainly not used ones, so for a small Ontario operator, this is a good buy. Only minutes after the sale of the Massey combine, the John Deere beside sold for $65,000. No doubt the
sign on the window had something to do with it. It says "One owner, reason for selling, Retired."
These pictures were taken late in the afternoon as the bus to the parking lot was about to make its last run, but there were still people at the food concession, which apparently had good hamburgers because Mr. Will dashed off to have his second one.

Several small customers brought along their parents to the auction sale and with still the cars to go, some customers were already loaded up and heading home with their new machines.

Car sales at an auction sale can be extremely volatile because of the numbers of prospective customers and the whole issue of demand. An aging smoking old Ford pickup brought only $275 and before that several other vehicles that had seen far better days were dispatched for less then $500. It would seem that this 1993 Mustang with all the frills, and 100,000 Km, would fetch a descent price, but despite starting it up a couple of times and showing off its new paint job, it sold for $4,200. Today its time to clean up and pay up as that's it for this one.