Auctions in California

If you're looking for anything and everything to buy, auctions in California may be the best place to start your search ...

Auctions in California range as they do across the nation, but maybe in more concentrated numbers. At any given time in any month and on any day, year-round (thanks to fairly temperate and mild weather, usually) one can find auctions in California that offer airplanes, antiques, cars and trucks, boats and other recreational vehicles, electronics and technological equipment, houses and furniture, and collectibles.

GENERAL AUCTIONS in CALIFORNIA

A common tendency of those in the know is to attend estate sales, recurring auctions, and, especially, police and government auctions in California:  the latter involve foreclosed, bankruptcy, and liquidation items, which can be had for pennies on the dollar. (Or, in some cases, for a dollar!  I just recently read about a prefabricated house that was for sale for one dollar, provided the new owner moves the home him- or herself!)

Consider a sample schedule of auctions in California, and tell me you can’t find anything and everything:  next week, for example, there is an auction of estate contents and the items of consignors; a historic Chapel Hill estate auction; a real estate auction; an antiques and collectibles auction; an auction of office furniture and fixtures; a farmland auction; an auction and subsequent appraisal session; a household auction; an auction selling off the contents of a screen-printing and clothing manufacturing plant/conglomerate;  another business auction; a hydro and CN rail vehicle equipment auction; and several auto auctions in California as well as in neighboring locales.

OTHER AUCTIONS in CALIFORNIA

There are also art, empty warehouses, racehorses, natural resources, stocks and bonds, and used items sales turned auctions.  EBay is a good example of an auction venue that really offers all of the above and more, much more….

THE AUCTION PROCESS

You have likely seen an auction scenario in the movies or on TV, probably set in a humorous context where the attending person accidentally bids on (and wins) a diamond-studded ceramic cat.  But the process is not that daunting:

1. An item or commodity or collection is “offered”, is “up for bid.” (The “owner” of the item pays a percentage to the auction house for the privilege.)  The items to be auctioned off are usually listed/depicted in a catalogue or brochure, which attending buyers receive when they pay their auction entry (admission) fee.  [You can get a discount of sorts by becoming a member of a particular auction—paying a yearly fee that will offset/eliminate the individual admissions fee(s).]

2. The one offering will either determine a minimum or reserve—an amount that must be met before the item will be let go—or will establish no minimums or reserves.

3. The price is decided by the bidders, people in the audience who offer an amount and compete (usually) with others doing the same thing.

4. The item is “sold” when the last bid is called in, written in, or gestured in (with those paddles you have seen or with a nod, etc.)…and no one else raises the bid amount.

I have friends who swear by auctions in California (and on ebay, of course), claiming that every time they “buy” something this way, they save big bucks.  Your turn.

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