Wednesday, July 6th -- DAILY BREAKDOWN

Breakdown:  We went to one of the smaller facilities in town, a stand-alone (not chain) with the owner actually conducting the auction.   Serious pros and cons to this:  the cons are that there are less units and usually less items (because fewer customers) --  pros are that most of the so called "established" bidders stay away from these types of auctions, so there's more to go around for us!

Competition:  2 of the regular guys (who we actually happen to like, which is pretty rare ;))  --  and about 5 or 6 new people we've never seen before.     The 2 regulars are the only ones who dared bid against us.

Reader's Digest Version:  Unit #1 was downstairs and easy to get to, it had a few bicycles and some random toys.  It seemed like a lot of chaos and trash but some good items.  We figured $250 was the most we could get for it so we set our limit at $100.   Because it was between us and one other bidder we   actually went to $125 on a whim, but let it go at $150. It wouldn't have been worth more than that.    Unit #2 was upstairs and didn't have much in it at all, but it had a pretty nifty collector's clock and a few well organized crates  (crates are awesome... they're not generic like boxes -- they just have a mystery to them)... it also didn't hurt that I saw a "Jared Gallery of Jewelry"  bag and something that I swore read "ATARI"...     We got it for $50 and I was right on both counts!    The Jared bag didn't necessarily mean the jewelry was in there but it did mean that they at one point had it-- which is a sign of wealth.   And, the gold actually was in there-- a shiny little 10 karat number.  With the price of gold it was easily $50-$60, paying for our unit.  The Atari was there (albeit a modern one, still cool)  and several other video games and board games barely used.  And the nifty clock!

Bottom line:  We got to bring some out of town friends with us to auction,  make our competition get the bike unit for $140 more than he would have paid for it if we weren't there, and got lots of amazing toys and games for a little hard work.    Not a bad day!