Hey guys, this is my first post....

I live in New England and there are tons of little 'country' auctions out here; literally like several every night to choose from.  Most of the auction houses have an auction only once a week, and a few of them start with an 'early bird' auction.  That's where box and whole table lots of things get auctioned off, usually starting at around $10, to flea marketers, ebayers, and such.  It seems to me that they get a lot of their merchandise, especially for the early bird, at storage auctions.  I don't think they actually bid on storage units themselves, but I'm pretty sure the guys who do bring their merchandise to the auction houses on consignment.

Running an auction house is definitely a full-time business.  I know that when they're not auctioning things off one day a week, they do appraisals, house clean-outs, consignments, sorting, etc...  Definitely good money in it though, most places charge about 25% consignment to sell your stuff, plus they charge 15-18% buyer's premium.  So they make money from both the sellers and the buyers.  Add whatever they charge for house clean-outs, delivery, etc....  Seems like a decent profit to me, but definitely a full-time gig.