It was a rather cold day in Wisconsin, (imagine that) and we just went through a pretty heavy snowstorm, the roads were slick, and rather treacherous but I had an auction to attend!
When I first got to the complex, I was a little disappointed to be the only one there, as I thought that it may have been postponed. Eventually more vehicles began to pull up, but I learned that all of these people were co-owners of the complex.
So I was the only one in attendance who wanted to win the unit.
Just as I was about to go through the unit, another truck pulled up, much to my dismay, it was a “Big Dog” he has been at quite a few of the auctions that I attended, and won a lot of merchandise, so needless to say I didn’t want him to be there.
He went through the unit, and picked up a bunch of different things. The story that you read about the Hot Wheels, happened with this guy, he picked them up and thought they were worthless.
So I was quite surprised when he walked pass me, and didn’t even bother bidding on the unit, so once again, I was the only bidder in attendance. I guess snowstorms can be a good thing.
I started looking through the things, in the unit. At first glance you could tell that it was a lot of male items, you couldn’t really find a theme in the unit, but there was a good selection of items. One of the first things I happened upon was a Pipe/Cable locater, but at the time, I had no idea what it was, so I didn’t think much of it, it just looked like some electronics in a duffel bag, so I moved on.
I continued to dig through some boxes, and I found a lot of Navy memorabilia, and other related items, not a lot of the items seemed valuable but, there were some nice things in the boxes.
Then I went over to the corner of the unit where there was an inconspicuous box with the flaps folded down, but not taped shut, this is where the Hot Wheels were, inside along with some car magazines, were two yellow Hot Wheels cases.
Upon opening them, I knew I was in luck; these Hot Wheels were Redlines (you can tell it is a Redline, because it has a red stripe on all four tires.) When I turned them over, and I saw dates from the late 60’s and early 70’s, I knew the unit was a good buy.
I also saw a lot of other interesting stuff, including an old Sega Master System, a computer, lots of old books and much more.
But what I am most happy about is how much I paid for the unit. Remember I was the only person at the auction, so I knew I was at a huge advantage. At first I was thinking about an offer of $25 which would have been more than fair, but I figured I would try to go lower and see what they thought.
When I said I would gladly offer them $10 I could tell they were shocked, the co-owners glared at each other knowing how much time and money it would cost to try and run another auction, if they didn’t accept my offer. They also had paying renters looking to get into the unit.
So they counter offered, there was a small set of pocketknife’s that one of the owners thought had some value, as they wanted to try and recoup some of their money. So they accepted my offer on the conditions, that they get the pocketknife collection.
I accepted this offer, because I wasn’t really sure if there were a lot of value in those knifes, chances are there was, but I would have much rather had the Hot Wheels, and the rest of the unit, then have them decide, that they would auction off the unit at a later date.
So I won the unit, I took a $10 bill out of my wallet, and that was that, I just won a unit full of stuff.
It was a good thing, that there was not any big appliances in this unit because I didn’t have a pickup truck to be able to haul it out. I just had a mini-van that had the back two rows of seats removed.
It was also incredibly cold out, so I was glad there were only a few boxes and other items, which I had to move out of the unit.
When I was back home and I was able to open everything up, I was amazed at the sheer amount of items, and it was basically a whole person’s life. I found his birth certificate, marriage license, divorce license, dog license, and old drivers’ licenses, pictures of his wife and family, as well as other personal items. I put all of these items in a separate box.
I think that is important, if you ever happen across personal information like that in units that you win, to hold on to these items, you really never know what happened to the person who owned the stuff, so if he wanted his personal things back I would be able to give it to him. (By the way I never did hear from him.)
But along with these personal items, I found a lot more interesting and resalable items.
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