A couple weeks ago, I took my family for a weekend getaway to Lansing, Michigan, so I could bid on an ACME 1-5/8″ RBN-8 screw machine built in the ‘60s. It had threading, a slotting attachment and five slides. We figured we had a few interested customers, and my colleague Rex went to inspect it ahead of time.
The trip didn’t go exactly as planned. We got caught in traffic, and by 10 PM we were still an hour and a half away. I got drowsy, my wife tried driving, but after five minutes on construction roads with no lights—and she’s not much of a highway driver to begin with—we called it quits and stayed at a Hampton Inn in Benton Harbor. Abe’s first time in a queen-size bed at a hotel—he loved it!
The auction was truly something out of the past. A bit of a sleeper.
It wasn’t widely advertised, though it was to some extent—because Graff-Pinkert received a print brochure in the mail. It was held on a Saturday during Memorial Day weekend. It wasn’t broadcast on the internet. No buyer’s premium. You had to be in the know.
It was a small place. The owner had lost some key jobs and couldn’t make the nut, so he decided to retire. No CNC equipment. Some nice toolroom machines. Some other older multi-spindles, scrap metal, other pickup. It lasted from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM.
I met a nice woman who came with her son—he wanted to buy a manual lathe or mill to put in his garage. He was a mechanical engineer for his day job, but wanted to do something else.
Ages of attendees ranged from 20s to 80s. They resembled the characters I remembered from the golden age of live sales. Very likely I came from the farthest away—3.5 hours from Chicago (if you knew where you were going). I brought my wife and 3-year-old son, Abe, to have a little weekend getaway in East Lansing, home of Michigan State. Wasn’t as cool of a college town as my alma mater, Madison, but what is. Abe and my wife, Stephanie, did not go to the auction, though I think Abe would have thought it was cool—for about five minutes.
It made me reminisce about going on business trips with my dad as a kid, with my mom and brother Ari. Tagging along to used machine tool dealer conventions in Europe—waiting in the car while my dad visited shops in the Alps with his English partner, Roy. I know, Lansing is about as far away as you can get from the French Alps, but sexy ugly screw machine treasure comes from all kinds of places. Some more exotic than others.
I arrived at the auction around 1:00 and watched for an hour until finally my machine came up. I periodically traded texts with my dad about the sale. The prices were low. Lathes going for a few hundred dollars. Tools going for less than $100.
I sat back eating some butter cookies from Aldi I brought in a plastic bag (it was my lunch).
We got a good deal on the machine. I won’t kiss and tell.
But it was worth the trip.
I felt as though I was following in the footsteps of my father and grandfather. One of the greatest auction stories in Graff-Pinkert history took place in Lansing about 25 years ago. I’ll just say there were militiamen with rifles, but my dad was the one who “made a killing.”
But that will be a blog for the near future.
Question: Could you share your best auction stories?
11 Comments
No auction stories here, of course, but I really want to know about that sale of the century 25 years ago!
It will be good!
I remember going to sales with my late father back in history. We even had some ‘sales of the century’ that we partnered in. Today’s online sales are so sterile, although I don’t miss standing on concrete for hours over many days. It was fun being able to see the action as well who you were bidding against (unless you weren’t).
Yes. Concrete can be brutal. And why do people why dress shoes!
We shouldn’t have to be bidding at dinner time. Why do people do that?
Because it makes money, I guess! 🙂
Thanks for sharing!
In the early 1980s, I went with my uncle to an auction to bid on a very nice 3-1/2″ RB-8 Acme. We were prepared to bid $150K. We were blown out of the water within the first 2 minutes as the machine eventually went for $235K. It was the only screw machine in the auction, but it was a hot commodity at that time.
The other instance was when I bought two 7/16″ RA-6 Acmes at a local auction in Florida. Not sure that we needed them as we never ran any Acmes that small. But they both had Winter thread roll heads. I paid $600 for the pair. It cost more to ship them 15 miles to our facility. They sat idle for a while until we had a job where we made hundreds of thousands of small brass parts used in fire-sprinkler heads. The Acme’s at auction were originally bought to produce ‘retractable golf spikes’. The market disappeared when metal spikes were banned on golf courses.
Those were the days!
Slightly before or right when I started you could still get big money like that.
Well done , Noah. This is supposed to be how it happens.
Hi Russ. Good to see your name again! As you all know, I love the auction business and especially the screw machine and automatics industry. Cut my teeth here starting with my dad in 1980 and ran many screw machine auction sales. Always met super smart, nice sophisticated auction buyers who really knew their way around the auction. Made it so easy to run the sales given their experience and knowledge. I sure miss those days of being on the stand being pushed from machine to machine, table to table, being around both end users and dealers.
All very fond memories!
Robert Levy
Yes. Once in while it goes like that. But now selling it for more than we bought it for in the next few months, that would be how it’s supposed to happen.
Thanks for commenting!
I enjoy going to live auctions, the crowd, visiting with friends that you don’t meet so often. In our area there are quite a few ag equipment auctions. Mostly large consignment events now versus sales on individual farms. Going to livestock sales at a regional barn, the dollars per hour changing hands is hard to imagine! In the busy season the sales last hours one or two days per week. Lines of semi trucks setting the the lot to move stock around, just kind of neat to see.
Auctions are fun to attend, I’ve gotten some good deals during and after the sale ends. Good place to meet peer people and learn to listen. The networking aspect can be more valuable than the sale deals.