Why I should stay away from auctions

I went to the big Ritchie Brothers auction last week in Lake Worth and found a brush hog that looked decent. I would up winning the auction for $500. Not bad (or so I thought).  When I got it home I figured out why it was auctioned off. The 2 piece sliding drive shaft was rusted up and it took about half a can of WD40 to get it freed up enough to budge with a hammer, a BIG hammer.

Once I got the drive shaft connected I gave it a test run and found out there appear to be some teeth missing in the gearbox or it has a full race cam. I went back to double check the auction description and nowhere did it say "brush hog with redneck gear box". For the record, I'm not a complete idiot. I did look under the mower to make sure everyting was hunky-dory and spun the driveline by hand before I bid on it to make sure it wasn't seized up. But I didn't spin it enough to go all the way around the gear. Fortunately I have another old mower laying around that I can cannibalize, but for a couple hundred bucks more I could have bought a brand new one.

Then there's the forklift...

I was trying to do a friend a favor and bid on a forklift for him. I had him on the phone telling me what to bid on and how much. Problem is I have some pretty severe tinnitus and hearing loss. Mix in speakers blaring the auctioneer at 100db+ and what we have here is failure to communicate. I don't like it any more than you do...

I wound up the winning bid, but it was a 3 piece lot. I didn't know which one he wanted from the lot and couldn't hear him on the phone so I took the most scientific approach possible in a pinch: eenie, meenie, miney, moe.

I picked meenie when it should have been eenie. So I wound up buying a forklift that neither of us wanted. Hopefully, I can get my money back when I run it back thru their next auction in the spring. But there's still taxes, fees, transportation, ect...

Oh well, I can always just go pick some more cash off my money tree with my new forklift...