Saw a whole household sold today.....final bid....$18,500 !

Yep, you read right; $18,500.

Here's the background. This household was stored  in VAULTS at a major moving company. There were 17 vaults.
Some 6 to 8 months ago this unit was also shown to us. They took all the items out of the vaults and had them displayed over a large area. At the last minute, before bidding could begin, the household owner paid up...he paid the $15,000 he owed in back storage fees. Story over ? Nope, now it's today, July 22, 2011.

The items were still displayed EXACTLY as they were months ago (see 8 pictures below). I asked the auctioneer what the plan was. He would open the bidding at a certain amount (unknown to us at that moment). If he didn't get an offer he would sell the stuff piece meal.

First, the crowd. About  40 people and 6 to 10 of us who EACH could have paid $10,000 for these goods, but this didn't stop us from talking to each other about getting together to make our individual pieces in the $2500 to $3000 range by grouping together. During the next 30 minutes the auctioneer was approached by three different groups with their bids.

After selling 3 unrelated vaults (different owners) we got to the biggie. The auctioneer started it at $5,000 (none of the side bids were that high) and he got NO bids. OK, he said..."we'll sell it piecemeal." At that point someone bid $5K and it went from there pretty much $500 to$1k at at time until it sold for $18,500 to......drum roll.....the former property owner ! Again !  Now he was the  original buyer at $x,xxx, then bailed it out 6 months ago at $15K and now at $18.5K !
So he is IN this stuff somewhere around $60K or so.

The auctioneer takes him in the office to verify he actually HAD the money. Came back out..."auction over."

Stuff was really nice, high quality, high-end from a home in exclusive Blackhawk which is near San Francisco. This guy had some dough all right, just not a good manager of that money !

I'll put more pictures in the next post. Images no longer available.

Forgot to take a pic of the HUGE stainless outdoor grill, 3 stainless coolers, Coke machine, etc.

Images no longer available.

Most of the sports stuff looks like it might have been a family member at a college.

Amazing.I used to know a deputy down there,He said you would be amazed at how many of the Blackhawk homes had no furniture(this was 20 years ago).John Madden used to live in Blackhawk.