Sunday Reading - Auction Insanity

Friday afternoon the heat wave around here began dissipating and it turned quite nice temperature-wise except it must have made something new bloom because I suddenly started getting a bad headache and stuffy sinuses. Knocked me back pretty good honestly and kept me from getting very motivated or much accomplished at all. I had adjusted to it yesterday and was ready to get back at it but had already promised my mother I would go with her to a nearby farm auction.

You can easily tell I am an auction newb when I thought it would be over by early afternoon. It wasn't even that big of an auction but it took all day and I am still shaking my head about a few things.

Without going into most of the particulars I was amazed at how some high dollar items went for nothing while some low end stuff went for twice or more than you could buy the item somewhere else. The prices they got for some very rough and uncared for firearms just made my jaw drop.

Now I haven't priced a good old Mossin Nagant in a couple of months but $225.00 bucks for one? I almost asked the guy who bought it if he wanted another one and offer to run and get him one (or twenty) at that price. Last time I checked you could buy them for $120.00 at a gun shop not 15 miles from where he stood. This same guy then bid up some loose wolf brand 7.62x39 steel cased ammo in baggies to 13 bucks a pop. Even at inflated prices I never saw steel cased 7.62 for more than eight or nine bucks a box.

There were several things I kinda wanted to bid on but I am just not a fan of the fast talking auction type bidding scene. A lot of times it seems to me they move along too quickly and scream sold why your weighing the pros and cons kinda deal. I just like to take my time I guess.

The truth is I stayed because the particular property in question is easily within the forage range of one of my bee yards (along with another guy's bees I know about) and the original owner there had a lot of old boxes and drawn comb stacked under an awning. Whatever happened to all his bees he originally had I cannot say but I really wanted to open those hives up and see if they had anything in them I needed to worry about. I watched some robbers and the like come and go from them all day and I am sure some of them were my girls.

Well the bee stuff went for some high dollar amounts as well. I picked up a box of 50 unassembled wooden frames for next to nothing which will help with next years projected growth but I wasn't too interested in anything that had been previously used. Perhaps I am missing something though because the empty drawn out boxes brought some good money I can only assume the guy who bought them was paying for the comb inside hoping it would give a package a good jump start.

More importantly for me is that I now know those boxes are going a good long ways away and will trouble me no more. There was also a little extractor there that went for $350.00 or so I think, which is something like 50 bucks more than you can buy them for new. Like I said craziness.

I spent the rest of the evening cleaning the cob webs and debris off my 50 frame parts. The box had gotten wet at some point and some pieces were dry rotted bad but I still managed to find about 44 frames worth of parts in there and two coffee cans full of nails and brads. I would say I easily got these frames for about a 10th of the price it would take me to buy them new. I think the people there buying just didn't know how or were afraid to assemble them themselves. Now I need to order some foundation for my new frames. I suspect this Winter is going to be dedicated to getting all ready for next Spring's swarm growth.

I will say this about the whole adventure. Just about any item that would add to a sustainable and fuel free homesteading life brought top dollar in most cases. I think that should tell us something.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!