Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion I entered an alternate universe last Friday...

or....."The recession is over!"

Auctions are funny things, I think we'd all agree....I attended one of the craziest I'd ever seen last Friday night.
A "local"(to this area) guy, Doug Smith, passed away in September. Name's probably not familiar, but his company might be--Honest Abe Log Homes, Hermitage Springs Tenn. Mr Smith had a big old building down the road from the log home facility, and he collected cars and other "old" stuff. All told, there were 80-some-odd cars ranging from a C5 Z06 Corvette to a VW beetle, with plenty of odd stuff in between--55 Nomad, 61 Impala 348 conv, 49 Merc, some Harleys, 60 Catalina tripower, two 61 Starliners, two midyear Corvettes,some 1st gen Camaros, a Cuda and Challenger, etc,etc. A great collection of not-so-stellar cars---driver condition at best, but impressive to see all in one place.
Well, along with the cars was a small collection of signs, gas pumps, Coke machines--all of which were auctioned Friday night.
I got my bidders number and took a seat and watched the mayhem commence...
Spintop Coke machine---$1600
Cavalier glass-door Coke machine(ca 1964)--$500
Large Coke and RC picnic coolers,--$350 and $375
5 gal Guarantee visible(Fry), Shell colors, with a Shell clam globe---- $4750
Wayne 605, brush painted, plastic cyl--- $2000
Two AO Smith/Erie electric pumps(ca 1958)One with a Sinclair capco globe, the other with a Standard wide body glass globe...$4000+ EACH
Bennett 966 or 1066(I didn't look close) with rattle can paint and a Texaco globe---I believe it fetched over $4k too
Signs...just common stuff, like a Goodyear tin that was painted over with a brush, a Firestone the same condition, a Mt Dew brush painted....these signs were going for $4-5-600+ bucks! It was unreal! Maybe the cleanest sign there was a approx 3x3 Sinclair gasoline tin sign with the trapezoid logo at the top, Dino in the center, 'gasoline' across the bottom....$2000
Just. Plain. Crazy.
3 wooden Coke cases...looked to be from the 70s... $80 for the set(!) I was in shock so bad I didn't write down what everything brought---I figured later I should have.
The mentality carried over to Saturday with the cars(57 tbird, $65k,70 Malibu, $20k,64 Corvette conv--$52k, etc), but I stayed home......

So tell your friends---the recession is OVER! There's money out there, and people are ready to spend it....just have yourself a big auction!

A MINT 57 D code(if it was a D) thunderbird is worth no more the $35-$40000 in this economy and thats High! People get carried away at auctions! Im sure there were antique dealers looking for inventory.

was that the auction in red boiling springs? had a friend send me a text about it if it was. lokks like i didn't miss any deals!!!

Knew I should have kept the 57 T Bird longer!

You just never no at an auction people get crazy sometimes or stupid.
I was at an anuction earlier in the year and the same kind of thing happened not to that level. But while i was there i started talking to a antique dealer that i knew and he and i realized we only knew four other people at that the auction, it was like we were in the twilight zone like you said. People that we had never seen before all of a sudden were paying good money for junk and were going out of ther way to try and bully people with there bids. I think a lot of it has to do with american pickers and tv shows like that people beleive what they are seeing. Most will get a rude awakening when they try and flip it. You cant put a price on education.

Yea Steve.....you didn't miss NUTHIN"! Ask Midgett---he went with me. It was a circus!

It seems auctions always bring out people with more money than sense. I'm in the VW hobby and always have people come in our store thinking their car is suddenly worth outrageous amounts after what they see at auctions, especially Barrett-Jackson. A Bus recently sold at one for $217800 - which is about $150000 too much even on a great day for what it was. Afterwards every person with a $2000 VW was asking $7000-$10000, at least for a few weeks until reality kicked back in. derpderpderp

Nothing meant nothing implied but red boiling springs is a pretty tight bunch,three quarters of residence is related to my wife. It would not surprise me if something strange went on. Sure there was out of town people there by the bunches but people that live there have the first dollar they ever made,there is no place to spend it.