Alright, so there’s been a lot of auction talk around here.  What can I say?  We have auction fever.  There are lots of reasons to love auctions, the least of all being that we’ve found some excellent resale items.  Auctions let you sit on your butt and buy stuff while eating popcorn, and it satisfies natural competitive urges.  If you haven’t been auctioning yet, check out auctionzip.com and find one near you!

As we’ve mentioned before, one of the best auctions we know happens every Saturday in Plymouth.  Timmy is so hooked on this auction that he pretty much calls every week to ask if we are going to it.  Last Saturday, he and I went alone, and ended up cleaning the place out.

We made sure to get to the auction really early, and got seats in the third row.  With our game faces on, the auction started.

Tim and I had both written down several items of interest, and kept our notes out to keep track of what we wanted to bid on.  This was smart because I then had a list to consult while looking up similar items on ebay.  One of the items I had noted was an old trumpet by the brand CG Conn.  I thought to myself, “What if is this is a super rare trumpet brand…I better look it up!”  And here is what I found in ebay completed listings:

Those are some high priced trumpets!! I knew that I would be bidding on the one in this auction.  I just hoped no one else had looked it up.  

The trumpet did not go up on the block until the auction was nearly over.  In the meantime, Tim was busy building an arsenal of purchased goods around our feet.

He bought a Tigers baseball bat, some old cricket paddles, two vintage football plaques, a pencil sharpener, a giant bag of old hockey ticket stubs, and who knows what else.  I bid on some old poker chips for $7 which came with an old galvanized watering can and tiny metal oil can.  We were running low on space, and I was about to bid on a giant trumpet in its case.

Luckily, the guy sitting next to us was really polite, and turned his legs out into the aisle so that we could pile stuff up in front of him too.  I will say though, that I thought this man was going to try and kidnap my dad and keep him like a pet hamster or something.  He talked his ear off all night about how he was the first person to sell Beanie Babies at Gibraltar Trade Center and now he is so rich, how he gets into Maple Leaf Gardens for free, how he’s played cricket and is really good at it, and on an on.  I thought at some point he was going to announce how he was once President of the United States.  I ignored most of these tall tales and kept my eyes locked on the trumpet.

So at one point, a bongo drum went up for sale, and no one bid on it.  Not even for $5.  So when this happened, the auctioneer threw in the trumpet WITH the bongo.  I had let my gaze wander for a minute, and didn’t notice that the items had been bundled.  Suddenly, I realized that the trumpet had been moved next to the bongo, and started to bid.

There was only one person bidding against me.  And he was relentless.  As we got up around $80, I started to panic that I would lose out.  I didn’t want to spend over $100.  At $85, the other guy bowed out, and I was victorious.

As soon as I won the trumpet, I told my dad to go grab it for me because he was closer to the aisle, and I was trapped by all of the stuff we had bought.  He had been gabbing away with his new buddy and didn’t notice what item I had actually won.  So Tim wanders up to the front table where the auctioneer is laying out some Harley Davidson ornaments he is about to sell.  My dad then proceeds to START GRABBING AND LOADING UP the ornaments, right as they about to be auctioned off.  The auctioneer looked at him and watched for a minute, totally confused at what this madman was doing.  He then said to my dad, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”  

My dad responded that his daughter had just won these items, and he was picking them up.  It was so hilarious and embarrassing.  I rushed up there to alert him that I did not in fact buy these Harley ornaments, but had actually won the bongo drum and trumpet to the right of him.  It was really the best, and we laughed about him doing this the whole night.

Also, the guy who was bidding against me came over and said, “You must have done your homework.  That is a VERY rare trumpet.”  I told him, “Yes,” and then offered him the bongo as a consolation prize.  He turned down the bongo, and was a good sport about the whole thing. 

The trumpet is up on ebay now, and has two days left in the auction.  It is already bid over the $85 I paid.  And look at how many watchers there are!  This is a record for me.

I hope that this trumpet just explodes with bids in the next few days!  I saw on a message board that this particular trumpet in MINT condition is worth about $900.  Mine is definitely not mint, but is pretty good for its age.  

I was so content after winning the trumpet that everything else I bought after was just icing on the cake.  I won a Limoges box for an incredible $5!  I don’t think anyone looked at the bottom to see what it was.  This is actually the second time I have bought a Limoges box super cheap at this Plymouth auction.

The night ended with even greater success for Tim.  He had been waiting all night to bid on a game used UHL jersey.  My dad used to work for the Motor City Mechanics hockey team, which was part of the UHL.  I asked him how high he would go to win this jersey, and he told me $100.  I speculated that it probably wouldn’t go up that high.

And I was right.  The bidding started on the jersey and my dad was the ONLY person bidding.  He won it for a whopping $5!  He was stunned, and elated.

The Plymouth auction is truly the greatest honeyhole.  No need for you all to rush out and start going to it though.  Stay home on your Saturday night, or go to the club.  Maybe take up crafting.  Anything except going to this auction.  I’m even thinking of banning Sarah from attending. Hey, I gotta protect my territory ;)

-Erin