The big auction Saturday I wrote about a little over a week ago turned into a giant disappointment.

Arlene was outbid on every item of interest at the auction she went to in Bagley. The auction in Moorhead turned out to have only one item I was interested in (an early furniture catalog from a company in Grand Rapids, Michigan) and the bid I left with the auctioneer there wasn’t high enough to win the catalog.

The auction in Kindred may have had all kinds of great things in it, but I never had a chance to find out. The attendance of the sale was way underestimated by the auction company holding the sale. It was held inside Kindred’s Community Center and by the time I got there about a half hour before the sale began, the building was so packed with people it was impossible to get inside. They were literally saying “we’re sorry” and turning people away.

I decided to head for home and stop at the antique shops and used book stores in Fargo and Moorhead on the way home to see if I could find a few things to keep the trip from being a complete waste. Between the two towns they have three used book stores and six antique shops/malls.

After going through five of the antique stores and all three book stores I had bought one old - a Noyes Brothers & Cutler surgeon’s equipment catalog for $12 and two books for $1 each, but on the way to the last antique shop things began to look up.

Driving down the street I saw a sign advertising an indoor garage sale that had started the previous day. I thought “why not” and followed the signs. The house was filled with common glassware and pottery including what must have been three to four hundred various pieces of Fire King glassware for sale. I bought forty-two Fire Kings mugs for $.50 each and a Fire King Mosaic snack set for $4 for a total investment of $25.

Things were looking up, and I was in a little better mood, when I headed the Explorer for the last antique mall. A trip through the mall produced one Scripto Vu lighter ($7.50), a 1925 Norse-American Centennial advertising pocket mirror ($19.95), a neat old book about Wells, Mn ($5) and four pieces of college sorority memorabilia ($8).

The evening of the next day the items I’d bought went on eBay and the auction ended last Sunday evening with 14 of the 19 items selling for a total of $662.61 - a pretty good return on my $79.45 investment.

The sell-through rate for the auction was 74%. After eBay fees, PayPal fees, and gas for the two vehicles, the auctions still provided more than a 600% profit on the initial investment.

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