Signs of the Times

[WoodMiller]

I went to an auction of a local sawmill just after Thanksgiving last year, and was a little surprised at the makeup of those in attendance.  The auction wasn't advertised as an Industrial Auction and was held on a Saturday, so most of those showing up were ordinary people.  Circle mill blades were going for $50 to $75 each (he had about 20 or 30 of them, all kept indoors).  Top bid (unsuccessful) for a 4 head resaw was $1,000.00.   A lot of the heavier equipment sold for scrap.

Most spirited bidding was for all the walnut lumber lots.  The first lot included a whole unit of 10' 2x4 studs, on top of which was a close stacked pile of random width rough cut 4/4 lumber - about 6 feet in length and weathered on one side - about 1000 BF with some pallets stacked on top of that. The end grain was dark, and the auctioneer said the lot was walnut.  I was more interested in the 8/4 and 12/4 lots, so I didn't pay it a lot of attention.  The high bid was $360.00 for the lot, and the high bidder told me he was really looking forward to working with the walnut.  I told him it wasn't walnut, it appeared to be old barn siding, cut off between the purlins to eliminate the nails, which meant it might be chestnut.  Which was whole lot better deal for him, since we aren't making anymore of that.  Now, the 2x4's alone were worth over $400.00, so he certainly wasn't going to lose any money on the deal, but he didn't know what you could use chestnut for - didn't realize they used to make lumber from it.  Saw him the next day as he was loading his second pickup load and the block plane revealed some of the prettiest cherry you would care to see, most of it 10 to 20 inches wide.  The buyer wanted to know if he got his money's worth.  :D   I guess the gentleman who owned the mill got the boards from Pennsylvania, since we haven't had so much cherry in this part of Virginia that we were siding outbuildings with it......

Anyway, financial considerations for the owner aside, it was a shame that so few of the bidders actually knew what they were buying or what it was actually worth.  Looked like a lot of 60 inch wheels were going to be turned into signage.... :(

[Ron Wenrich]

I went to an auction like that one time.  DanG near bought a skidder because it was cheap.  It wasn't advertised because there was a divorce, and he didn't want his wife to get too much. 

[Bibbyman]

Years back, Mary and I went to a few sawmill auctions that were well advertized and ran by one of the national auction outfits that specialize in forest industry auctions.  Still stuff often went for 10¢on a dollar to what new would cost. 

But we found out that most all the equipment was far too big a scale to use in our operation.  Anything we could use that we were interested in went too high.  But it was entertaining and informative just to be able to be able to look over the mill operation when it was all shut down and cleaned out.