Event Coverage Auction time at rusty valley, Minnesota

Hope there’s a big turn out for you. Looks like a good collection you have.

 

Hope you have a great sale today and My thought is that Moriarity's photos may help that a lot. A lot of the items he posted should have been in the auction house adds. I saw a lot of potential rod projects in those photos and not just the reasonably complete cars.

 

Wow! Lots of great stuff for sure. Hope you do well on the auction.

 

Wow. 8200 for the sign. Good deal.
I’m glad many showed up!

 

I was there,can’t believe I missed you.
Talked to Skip and Titus. I agree that the amount of cool stuff was fantastic along with a good sized crowd. Been trying to make some room in one of my buildings and realized I didn’t need any more stuff at this time. Had a bidding number but kept it tucked away.

 

Thanks guys for the nice complements. I think it was a good day for all. Lots of folks told me they had a great time due to the wide variety of junk, and I was there to tell some tales about some things whereas often time the owner is shall we say" no longer available".
Some of the cars did not meet reserve, but then the phone starts ringing...so we'll see.
Still more to load out tomorrow, but soon it will be all over, take my first day off since June!

Auctions are not predictable, so certainly you watch some things sell for less than you bought them for, then...The motorized arrow sign you got for free out of a dump 30 years ago sells for 3 grand!
It all works out, and I'm happy with the day and I do believe the scale tipped in my favor. Everyone thought the auction service did a fine job, well, except for when they sold my gas and diesel drums on a stand with filter, luckily both nearly empty! Not whimpering, my fault really, I did not mark them to not sell, and the buyer told me he would back out of the deal, but I said no, you came to an auction to buy and the auctioneer sold you some tanks. Keep em...my fault!

So, one more day of loading out. tonight when putting some cars back in the shed it was like driving into an auditorium, instead of trying to wiggle a car thru a bunch of junk without crashing!

Thanks again Mark for the photos!

 

That '09 Maxwell was the jewel. Got to see & hear it run, watch Skip drive it out of the garage & to its' grassy "show" place.
Marcus...

 

I love it when a plan comes together.

 

Skip, we came close on the 3 window! Bittersweet - cool to see you hang on to it....keep me in mind.
Eric

 

Didn't I see a couple of drop tanks in one of the photos? They looked really nice.

 

Yes, & they were!
Marcus...

 

The drop tanks were NOS, in wooden crates when I got them, 30 years ago. I think, off a 50's vintage Sikorsky helicopter, as I saw them at the Pima air museum in Tucson AZ. Slightly smaller in the middle, and a bit shorter than the desired P38 tanks, but those are not to be found in the wild anymore. Similar, usable, but not the real deal.

Now for some auction weirdness. Not trying to whimper here, but I'll tell some tales. Theres good things that amaze us, like...I tore down a small cabin that had some kinda cool porch brackets holding up the porch roof earlier this summer. Not real fancy gingerbread things, just some simple scroll work, kinda cool, I thought to save them for the auction. Well, somebody , not to mention any names here, initials are me, was too violent with the excavator and broke one of them. Dumb ass I thought, worthless now, just throw them on the fire. Well I never moved them, they laid in the yard and the auctioneers sold them for 175 bucks!!!!

Then, there was a model T motor, that still turned, no idea the condition, mounted in a cut off T frame with legs welded on it so it could be a test stand...475 bucks!!!! Most of the other T motors went to the scrap man.

Rite next to the T motors was a pallet with 3 B motors. 1 complete 32, 2 bare blocks with cranks and rods.
A guy bought the counter balanced crank for 25, and the rest went to the scrap man for 35 bucks! Wish I could buy em for that!
I had a 20's vintage generator test station, that I thought was cool as hell when I got it. Even had a little armature lathe on it. Very high quality gauges, still mint. Always dreamed of it restored on my bench (that will never in my life have room for it), went to the scrap man for 2.50. Mr. @Moriarity has pics of it on the first page.

All day I really thought for the most part things were selling high enough that car people were buying much of it and not the scrap guys. Thats good. But, it seems the real buyers took their new prizes home late Saturday. I learned that when I heard the first big crash Sunday morning.

So, Sunday morning, the "pros" showed up. Big crash from dumping whole pallets on the trailer. Long triple axle trailer, no side boards, tires squatted down like they were flat, piled about waist high with no straps or tarps when he left. The mighty powerstroke did not sound happy, and I'll bet the trans temp was 300 before he got to my mailbox.
He still has another load here waiting to be picked up.

The other big shot scrap guy has a long bed with 3' sides, and a boom with a grapple thing on the back (?)
Perfect for squeezing model T frames and other antiques into a manageable load.

The 3rd big buyer is at least a swap meet/flea market vendor, who I have bought from for decades. So, thats good, he was always a low bidder, but without him there may have not been a bid, or they start to bundle it up with another pallet. Good for him.

Now, lets talk auction theory. When loading pallets, I tried to set things up for the builder, not the scrape man.
So, for example, lets not put 3 sets of the same long 37-41 rear rods on the same pallet, instead ad similar things to make a builder want to buy the pallet instead of the scrap man. Sadly, I don't think a pair of rods sold off choice all day, most went to scrap. I had all, T thru 48, and I never saw a pair get picked off a pallet. Same with front wishbones, a few got sold on axles, but never by themselves, even a bare 34 wishbone brought little, I forget.

I was really in fact not ready, still picking things out of the barn at midnight before the auction. I could have spent another 2 weeks sorting to keep the scrap man more out of the picture, but the date was set, and really I think it went well. Wins overtook the losses.

Not done yet! People still trying to buy cars and cheat on the commission, still have loads to load out, broken pallets and cardboard boxes by the acre....soon...I will be done!

 

I need to add, this stuff is going all over the country!
They guy that bought the drop tanks came from Kentucky, and I believe thats all he bought...both of em
The derelict remains of the 29 Durant is going to St Louis.
I could go on and on, but its nice to see my junk was special enough to get some national attention !

 

You guys should all be using your time tinkering on the fleet, or better yet clean the shop. But if you want to kill time here is a video of the auction. I was told the day of the event there was a youtuber here filming, and now its come out.
I did not realize he is the guy that bought my A coupe, so we spoke quite a bit, but he made no mention of the video. No matter. The 1st half hour is his poor description of the coupe, I think, not a model A guy you'll see, and then its mixed up with unrelated stuff until the 102. mark, and out for a drive in the A, and then more nonsense until the 113
mark and its live auction until the end. Hope you enjoy! I look good for 92!

 

^^ I met that same guy at an auction here in Wisconsin and talked to him for a bit, he bought a frame I had been looking at. Seemed like a real nice guy. Maybe not super knowledgeable about the early Fords/hotrods, but I think he's just starting to get into that era of stuff.

 

Looks like a good start. Needs a banger though. Hehe.