For the last 5 years or so I’ve subscribed to email notifications of State of California surplus property auctions, which take place about once every quarter. Most of the auction catalogs are filled with listings of retired computers, furniture, old cell phones, knives confiscated by TSA, and miscellaneous other stuff. I figured that every now and then some survey equipment must come up for sale, but until recently I hadn’t seen any.
A couple of weeks ago I got another notification, and when I searched through the catalog, one item – out of nearly 1,000 items – was listed as “Survey and testing equipment, 5 pallets.” They usually have a gallery of photos online, but this time there weren’t any photos, so I decided to make the 20-mile drive yesterday to look the stuff over in person.
Here’s what the lot comprised:
One pallet of old leveling rods and pieces of same. I judged these to be not worth the cost of hauling to the dump.
One pallet holding a couple of Leica TCA 2003s, a Leica TC 1800, a Leica T 2000 (I think) with DI 1600, and an older Geodimeter (4400?). The TCA 2003s looked to be in decent shape, the T 2000 (or whatever it was) and DI 1600 well-worn but probably functional, and the Geodimeter not worth much of anything. I think the T 2000 and maybe the Geodimeter were missing their tribrachs.
The remaining three pallets were shrink-wrapped around the sides. We weren’t allowed to remove the shrink wrap, so some of this is nothing more than guesswork:
One pallet holding maybe 15 Trimble TCU robotic kits for 5600-series guns.
One pallet with 6 pairs of Satel radios, and 6 of what might have been Trimble Pro XRS units.
One pallet holding maybe a dozen Trimble Zephyr Geodetic antennas and some other unidentified antennas.
There was no way to actually inspect the shrink-wrapped stuff, and no way to test any of it.
Aside from the Zephyrs, none of it was of use to me in my business, but I thought there might be some money to be made selling it all on eBay. I took some photos and some notes, and went back to the office to put a value on the lot. Given the uncertain identification of some of it and the uncertain condition of all of it, I figured with average luck I could gross $16,000.00. I didn’t want to mess with the whole idea unless I could make a hefty profit after paying the eBay fees, so I decided that at $4,000.00 it would be a steal, but I’d still be interested at $6,000.00. I went to the auction today with a bid maximum of $6,000.00 in mind.
I was full of naïve optimism. I thought that because this was the only survey equipment item in the auction, and because you had to physically inspect the lot to know what it contained, that there wouldn’t be any informed competition for it. However, when I walked through the warehouse door this morning, I immediately saw four surveyors and the owner of the local Trimble dealership, all greeting me with big smiles. Okay, so I had some informed competition. Still, I didn’t think these guys would be ready to lay out the big bucks like I was, so I had a seat and chatted with my colleagues for awhile.
“My” item was No. 773, and the auction was proceeding very slowly, so at noon I ducked out to get some lunch. I had a leisurely meal at a place down the road, and then headed back over. As I walked in the warehouse door, I heard the auctioneer say, “And now, Lot No. 773, survey equipment.” Holy cats, I’d nearly missed it! I hustled over to the crowd around the auctioneer, pulling my bid paddle out of my pocket as I walked so I’d have it ready.
The bidding started at $100.00 and very quickly advanced in hundred-dollar increments to $1,000.00. Then it started jumping in larger increments: it went to $2,000.00, then to $3,000.00, then to $5,000.00, then to $8,000.00. At that point I quietly put my unused bid paddle away, but stuck around to see what would unfold.
The bid soon advanced to $12,000.00, $15,000.00, then $17,000.00. The other surveyors and I stood with mouths agape as it advanced to $20,000.00, then $22,000.00 and finally $23,000.00. Sold to the man with a whole lot more optimism than me! Bruce, the equipment dealer, said that he had been prepared to go as high as $10,000.00, but none of us could fathom how the winner was going to make any money on the deal.
I retrieved my bid deposit and headed home, chalking my day up to education, and relieved to know that I’m a surveyor, not an equipment reseller.
I like a good story with a lesson. Now get back to doing what you know.
Edit: this was meant to be funny on my part. I did enjoy the story.
Was the winner the picker guys or maybe the storage unit guys?
> Was the winner the picker guys or maybe the storage unit guys?
Bruce said he recognized the winner as an eBay seller. I suppose if doing that is his full-time job, he stands a decent chance of making a modest profit from the auction. He may have poked and prodded more diligently during the inspection than I did and come up with a more realistic valuation, and apparently was willing to take the risk for less than a stellar return. I was going for a killing or nothing, which is why I undervalued the lot so much.
> Was the winner the picker guys or maybe the storage unit guys?
Yeah, how was Jim supposed to know that they were filming yet another reality TV show at *his* auction? My guess is that the pallet supposedly carrying Zephyr antennas really had Confederate money, old Playboys, and a highly collectible vintage guitar.
Don't overlook the fact that there were at least two people willing to pay $22,000 for the lot. The "winner" wasn't the only optimist in the crowd.
There's probably some valuable coins hidden in one of the Zephyrs.
Jim just doesn't have enough imagination to be a successful "reality" TV show star.
The picker guy would want the old rusty total stations because you could totally clean those up and sell them to collectors who surely go ape for that sort of thing.
About 15 or so years ago, I found a lot of 47 Wild GDF22 Tribrachs on a government surplus auction site. They were listed as being in new condition. I did some research and decided that it was going to cost between $70 and $75 each to. Buy them. I decided to bid $72.37 each got them. The day that they posted the results, I got an e-mail from a friend about the auction. He was upset that I out bid him buy $0.37 each on them, and won the auction. He suggested that I sell them for $150 each. I thought about it, and made a post on the old RPLS message board, before POB, that I would sell them for $200 each. The only person that only bought one was a dealer. Most of the rest of them sold in lots of six or more. I kept enough for my use.
The Tribrachs had been calibrated and put back into the styrofoam package, and hermetically sealed. I kept 10 for my use.
A utility sold me a T1600, a load of Wild cables, and 5 GRE's for $1000
five years ago. Everything worked fine.
Any idea where all the stuff came from?
> Any idea where all the stuff came from?
It was all State of California gear, but I didn't see an agency stickers (I wasn't looking for them; they might have been there). Caltrans is probably the biggest user of survey-grade measurement gear and thus a good bet, but there are at least 3 other agencies (Parks, Water Resources and Fire come immediately to mind) that could have been the source.
"(Parks, Water Resources and Fire come immediately to mind) "
Meaning, of course, that Karoly's fingerprints are all over the stuff.
🙂
Don
Same thing with Commonwealth of VA surplus stuff. They often mislabel photography tripods as surveying equipment. I have seen a few tripods, but never a level or surveying instrument. I did pick up 2 nice old school wooden drafting tables for about $100 each. They would have been over $1000 new. I also picked up some chairs for my conference table at like $2.50 each (yes, two fiddy) and some drafting chairs for like $5 each.
What I used to REALLY like was that Virginia Tech sells a whole lot of their athletic department clothing also. I used to get some really cool Nike stuff for very, very cheap, but now there is a dude from an "authentic game worn uniform" reseller and he out bids me by 4X and 5X so stuff is now more expensive than from www.footballfanatics.com
Anyway... highest priced item I ever saw sell was a piece of lab equipment go for $85,000±. Guy was an agent for someone else and was given 100k to buy it. Well, he ran his mouth to everybody, and I think somebody just bid him up to screw him over. He got to keep all the money over the bid price to buy this thing (15k for him), but I think if he'd kept his mouth shut, he could have gotten it for about 40k.
These things are hitting eBay. A couple of the Zephyrs, the T2000, a TCA2003, etc. Probably will appear on a regular basis for a while.
Seller is PONGUITA
Yep, that looks like the same stuff.
three.rivers, post: 213273, member: 7485 wrote: A utility sold me a T1600, a load of Wild cables, and 5 GRE's for $1000
five years ago. Everything worked fine.
Interested in selling the T1600, in good working condition?
I sometimes like to go to auctions just to watch the folks that get caught up in the bidding. Our local farm equipment auction is a good place to watch used trailers routinely sell for about 20% higher than you would pay for a new trailer at the tractor supply store. Or to see a $3 Tpost sell for $4.
I don't auction much (read: at all), but right about when I got my SIT and the ex-wife was 8 or so months blessed, I was hard up for a set of wheels and soft in the bank account.
Found an auction with a bunch of cars at death's door, except for this one: 1986 Honda Civic dx (hatchback model). 5 speed, no a/c, bout 80k miles. I had a thousand bucks- like to my name- and after giving it a good look decided I'd go that high on it. When it came up I just sat there, half terrified to get involved, right at the moment of truth I stuck my hand up and got it for 800 bucks. Wish I still had that car. Got almost 50 mpg, and when I did run it out of gas I could push it uphill by myself to the gas station or at least out of the way. Kiddo finally got big enough that I literally couldn't get her in the backseat in her car seat and another human being in the front passenger seat. By that time I'd done a little better in the salary department so I bought a bigger ride. Kept the civic for a bit, but finally figured out it was gluttonous to keep two cars, so got rid of it (after doing no more than changing the tires and spark plugs in four years) for what I paid. That was 15 years ago (wait- no it wasn't, it was nine years ago since the little girl will be a teenager tomorrow)- still see that car around town every once in a while. Damn I wish I woulda kept it.
We sent a ScanStation 2 over there recently. For some reason my boss wanted to keep the huge box. The machine is unserviceable by Leica and expensive software is needed to run it. It is called "surveying out" equipment by the bean counters.
The California State Auto Auction has no trouble selling wrecked Crown Vics, go figure.
Somebody knew just was behind all that shrink wrap. Unless you are on the inside, an auction is always a risk.
A few months ago, the VI govt. auctioned off real estate taken for tax non-payment. There were 2 rules: No bid accepted below the high bid and if the high bid drops out, the 2nd highest gets the property. So one bid is ridiculously low, immediately followed by a ridiculously high bid that then drops out. 2 past customers of mine and an official of the Tax Collection dept. were arrested, but they're big boys who will probably walk.