The Finds: Live Auction Version (BHAG)

A fews days ago I was telling you about going to a live auction last week. I have been wanting to go to one for a while but just have never made it a priority. Last week though I finally got around to it. I had researched each lot that I was interested in ahead of time and was really looking forward to it. There were around 12 different lots that I wanted.

I had a ceiling that I put on each lot, the most I would spend on it. I have always heard of stories of people that would go to these types of things and wind up spending MUCH more than they should have because they get caught up in the "bidding frenzy." I was going to be intentional about that not happening to me though.

So, each lot had a maximum, and if I wound up winning nothing then that was fine too. After all this was my first time and it was probably smarter to not bid on anything the first time through.

So, how did I do?

Best buy I have ever had! I bought too much stuff to list everything here. But I will tell you about one particular auction that went very well.

If you have followed this blog long at all you know that one item that I try to find is vintage motorcycle helmets. When I saw this particular lot on the preview day I paid close attention to it. It was a Porsche Design Romar helmet.

I did a little research and saw that a very similar helmet with a different color pattern had sold recently for around $100 with shipping. There where several other items in this lot as well. There were a lot of motorcycle related items: Old Motorcycle Pictures, Boots, Old Belt Buckles, Figurines and some other random items.

This lot was out of an estate of a man that was a long time motorcycle enthusiast and rode back in the 50's and 60's. This lot was for everything related to that genre.

I wasn't sure what I could get for all of the other random things but I knew the helmet was pretty rare and valuable so I placed my max at $80. I thought, "If I could pay for the auction with the money I made off the helmet then hopefully everything else could get close to doubling my money."

So the bidding commenced and I wound up paying $95. That was obviously more than I had planned which is funny because I purposefully set out not to do that, but I just felt good about.

So after a long day of bidding and talking and collecting all the stuff I won, we set out on Saturday to list it all. There was ALOT of it. The auction items along with all of our weekend yardsale items completely covered our living room.

The fun began shortly after I posted a few of these items. Within 2 hours of posting I started receiving questions on several of the items. One of which was a pair of SIDI Sport Full Bore Leather motorcycle riding boots.

I got a message that asked if I would entertain a BIN (Buy it Now) Price for the item. I said yes, thinking I wouldn't take anything less than $100 for them. Within 5 minutes I got a reply back that asked if i would consider and offer for $200! I nearly fainted...but being the person I am i figured if they offered $200 they would definitely pay $250. So I wrote her back and told her that I would do $250 + shipping.

She was ecstatic....and she paid within 30 minutes.

We completed the transaction through PayPal (which is technically against the rules). I canceled my eBay auction once she paid, so the auction doesnt show the final paid amount.

This is one of my best single eBay transaction I've ever had. What is better is that within a few minutes I received another message about some of the old pictures that I has posted offering me $275 for them! I quickly responded like I did with the boots, thinking if they were offering $275 they would probably pay more. I told him that I would take $350. He agreed and we completed that transaction through eBay this time (see that one below).

So with just those two items I grossed $625 on an auction that I paid $95 for. Whats even better is that I still have over 10 items that are still live on eBay as well that came out of that same lot!

BHAG: This was our first step in our BHAG. We spend $1130 of our $1150 at the auction last week. I will update next week with our gross profit.

Here is a list of the other items that are live right now. (Keep in mind that the total cost of all these was $95)























You can see everything at our store HERE

..