Musings

2016 Toolapalooza III – Auction Combat Commences

This year I had my eye on three lots among the 3200 that were being auctioned between 2PM on Thursday and 5PM Saturday.  At a pace of four or five lots per minute you have to pay attention.

At this point I am really only interested in tools that are specific to projects I have underway or scheduled to begin shortly.  I am quite disciplined at auctions, establishing my top bid in my mind and sticking to it.  With that strategy I got two of the three things I wanted, but that is not to say I did not bid on several lots that were interesting and vastly underpriced at the time of my bidding.

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The first thing I wanted a got was this Lie Nielsen beader with all its cutters.  I’ve been building an early-19th-century writing desk and it involves a lot of double and triple beading on curved edges.  So far I have been using a home made scratch stock and an English carriage maker’s beader and neither was really satisfactory.  Had I not been able to get this one I was going to order a new one and have it waiting for me back home, but this one was mine.

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The next thing on the list was a peculiar and I am presuming craftsman-made shooting plane.  Since I am doing more building now and in the future this will be an excellent addition to my workbench.  I will build a shooting board soon.

The third item I did not get.  It was an Emmert K1 missing one part that I could easily make, but the price went too high for my taste.

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It did bid on this sweet little bench but but got passed like a go-kart on a NASCAR track.  It was tight and in fine shape, and could have sufficed excellently for someone working in a confined space, and I happen to know someone for whom it would have been a perfect fit.  I probably bid on another dozen or so lots when they were in the “steal” price range, but dropped once they got too high.

Thus endeth my successes and failures in the bidding wars.  But it was not the end of my treasures from Avoca.