Chapter 10. I Tried My Hand at an Auction for the First Time
Chapter 10. I Tried My Hand at an Auction for the First Time
Once preview time ended, the auction for the trailer, which was up first, began.
“Lot number 59! A dual-axle steel-frame trailer from Big Tex! Starting bid is nine hundred dollars!”
(Translator’s Note: Big Tex is a real trailer manufacturer brand. Its use in the story grounds the trailer auction in an ordinary American work-and-hauling context rather than something exotic or luxury-oriented.)
The booming voice of a professional auctioneer rang out from the speakers.
“One thousand.”
The moment the auction began, a balding man seated near the front quickly raised his hand.
“Twelve hundred.”
Then another man sitting diagonally across from him raised his hand in reply.
“Fifteen hundred.”
The man in front continued the race in an irritated voice.
“All right, we’ve got fifteen hundred dollars. Fifteen hundred.”
The auctioneer repeated the number as he swept his gaze around, urging the crowd on.
The man in the back looked as if he were hesitating for a moment, then—
“Two thousand.”
With a long sigh, he called out a number that jumped sharply upward.
It felt like he was saying, Follow that if you can.
“Oh! We have two thousand dollars! Two thousand! Anyone else? Then two thousand once, two thousand twice...”
The auctioneer began the countdown, but the crowd stayed quiet.
“Two thousand thr—”
“Two thousand three hundred.”
Just as the auctioneer was about to say three, a voice cut low through the quiet audience.
Young, confident, and carrying a strange sense of certainty.
It was mine.
“Two thousand three hundred dollars! We have two thousand three hundred! Anyone above that?”
The auctioneer’s voice rose even louder, practically spraying spit.
But the bald man seated in front merely clicked his tongue and showed no sign of jumping back in.
The man sitting diagonally across simply shook his head slightly, without moving his hand.
“Once, twice, sold!”
After three seconds that felt like three minutes—
“Sold to bidder number 34 for two thousand three hundred dollars!”
Bang—
With the crisp sound of the hammer, the trailer auction ended.
Yes...!
I clenched my fist and quietly cheered to myself.
Everything had gone according to plan.
The trailer I had inspected during preview time was, just as listed online, a steel Big Tex 70DM model.
Its payload capacity was slightly lower than the higher-grade 10DM, but it was still more than capable of hauling an ordinary pickup truck or muscle car.
The usual used-market price for that model was around $2,500 to $3,200.
Of course, condition changed everything, so for a beginner like me, accurately estimating a fair hammer price was nearly impossible.
But as they said, the early bird catches the worm.
Early that morning, before the auction began, I had been looking over the trailer while drinking a hot cup of coffee from the vending machine.
And then an older man with a face full of wrinkles slowly approached me.
Looks like I’m not the only one who came early.
At that hour, aside from a few event staff staring down at their phones, the yard was practically empty, with just the two of us there.
For some reason, it felt awkward to drink alone, so I bought another coffee and handed it to the elderly gentleman.
“Hello. I’m a bidder too. Here, have some coffee. It just came out.”
“Oh, thank you very much. You came quite early yourself. Are you after this trailer?”
He accepted the coffee politely and asked in a gentle tone.
“Yes. I’m thinking of using it for automobile restoration work.”
“Ah, I see. Hmm, in that case, it’s a very good choice. It may look like it has some rust and a few dents on the outside, but unlike the standard model, it has brakes on both axles, and the hubs and undercarriage are still solid.”
“What? How do you know that...?”
“Haha. I’m not a bidder—I’m a county mechanic. I’ve worked with this thing for years, so I know it well. If you take it home, you’ll probably be able to use it comfortably for quite a while.”
The man lightly ran a hand over the trailer as he spoke, wearing a somewhat wistful expression.
Then he glanced around once and lowered his voice.
“This is just my personal opinion, but if it were me, I wouldn’t hesitate to bid up to twenty-five hundred dollars. No, even three thousand. It may be nosy of me to say so, but keep it in mind.”
For a novice like me, he was quietly giving me extremely valuable information.
“No, not nosy at all. That helps a lot. Thank you!”
Thanks to that advice, I was able to set my bidding strategy with peace of mind, and as a result I managed to win a trailer in good condition for the excellent price of $2,300.
I had actually been prepared to go higher if the bidding became more competitive, but unexpectedly, no one followed.
Apparently, at that price, it had lost appeal for dealers thinking in terms of resale, unlike me, who intended to use it myself.
Good. That strategy worked. Let’s do the next one the same way.
In truth, the trailer auction had benefited greatly from luck, and the real challenge would be the vehicle auction that came next.
The strategy would be the same.
Do not get involved until everyone else has pushed the number to a certain point.
If I jump in too early, I might just provoke people’s competitive instincts.
Then, once things seemed to settle down, I would slam in a bid close to the figure I had in mind all at once.
The idea was to show competitors that I was firmly committed to buying it while also creating enough of a jump in price to dampen their desire to keep racing.
Though honestly, things probably won’t go as neatly as I want.
Concealing my nervousness as best I could, I looked over the five Ford Crown Victoria P71s waiting for auction.
There were at least twice as many people gathered for this part of the auction as there had been for the trailer.
Everyone was holding a coffee in one hand and a bidder number in the other while inspecting the cars from corner to corner.
Please let there not be anyone among them thinking the same thing I am.
“We will now begin the Crown Victoria auction.”
At last, the real game started.
“First up, unit number one. Lot number 73, starting bid is two thousand eight hundred dollars!”
The vehicles were auctioned in the same order they had been lined up in the yard.
The first one had looked fine on the outside, but according to the appraisal skill, it had an accident history in the rear that involved welding.
“Three thousand.”
“Three thousand two hundred.”
“Three thousand four hundred.”
The moment it started, a pale-faced man in a polo shirt and a bronze-skinned man tanned by the sun launched into the bidding without giving each other room to breathe.
As expected, the atmosphere is completely different from before.
The eyes of the apparent professionals were fierce.
“Four thousand eight hundred dollars! Anyone above that? Four thousand eight hundred once, four thousand eight hundred twice, four thousand eight hundred three times! Yes, sold to bidder number 44!”
Bidder number 44.
The bronze-skinned man won.
Still, $4,800...
As someone who had thought the upper limit was somewhere in the high $3,000s, it was a figure I could not even begin to touch.
Did I set my target prices too low?
This time there was no one around to advise me, and I had to make every judgment alone, which made my head hurt all the more.
No, it was still too early to jump to conclusions.
An auction was always full of variables depending on the mood of the day and the people participating.
Maybe that guy had simply gotten carried away by competition.
Fortunately, there were still three more units before the one I actually wanted.
A perfect chance to get a read on the market.
The second car started at $2,600, and the final hammer price was $4,500, with bidder number 41—the pale polo-shirt man—taking the win this time.
As expected, it went a little lower than the first one.
After that, the remaining two were split one each between those same two men, at final prices of $4,650 and $4,600.
“Damn it, today’s auction is a total wash.”
“No kidding. The way those two are openly snarling at each other, who’d dare jump into that?”
I could hear the other people at the auction whispering among themselves.
From the mood of the crowd, it seemed that bidders 41 and 44 were the ones overheating the entire auction.
Which meant that the prices those two had won at were probably somewhat higher than usual.
Whew. As much as it pains me, I may have to give up this time.
The demon of an auction had a way of making people call out higher and higher prices before they even realized it.
That was something beginners especially needed to watch out for.
When the atmosphere got overheated like this, the right choice was to go in from the start with the mindset that you might have to let it go.
“Today’s final vehicle! We will now begin bidding on lot number 77! Starting bid is two thousand one hundred dollars!”
At last, it was my turn.
My palm was sweating around the bidder card from sheer tension.
But... why isn’t anyone bidding...?
The two men who had been the fiercest a moment ago were both strangely quiet, as if by prior agreement.
The rest of the auction crowd merely exchanged glances and hesitated.
Was the impact of that crumpled front end just too strong? Or have they already spent too much of their auction funds?
Dozens of seconds had already passed since the auction opened, yet the yard was still wrapped in silence.
“Uh... no one?”
The auctioneer looked around in confusion.
I bit my lip.
No one really wants it? Did I miss something?
A sudden wave of unease hit me, and it felt as though my throat were tightening shut.
No... The front-end damage is definitely in an area that won’t affect later driving, and everything else was clean.
[Front-end collision. No frame deformation. Suspension normal. Powertrain normal.]
I pulled out the slip of paper from my chest pocket where I had written down the car’s condition and read it once more.
It’s fine. Trust yourself. This car clearly suits my situation much better than the four before it. I can cut the parts cost that much.
The auctioneer’s gaze was still drifting through empty air.
At this rate, it would be a no-sale.
If that happened, there might be room afterward to negotiate a purchase price through additional consultation.
But this time, I had no intention of going that far.
I took a deep breath, then slowly raised the paper with bidder number 34 on it.
“Two thousand one hundred fifty dollars.”
Only fifty dollars above the minimum starting bid, the standard bidding increment.
At that moment, I could feel every eye in the auction yard turn toward me.
Even bidders 41 and 44 turned their heads to look at my face.
Who’s that kid?
Never seen him before.
That thing’s obviously going to eat him alive in repair costs. Does he even know what he’s doing?
No one said anything aloud, but the expressions on their faces were more than enough to convey what they were thinking.
Hello there. I’m Jason, beginner bidder and future king of restorations. Please take care of me.
For a second I wondered if I should stand up and introduce myself properly, but for now, all I could do was answer with my eyes.
As I met each gaze one by one and returned it with a faint smile, everyone awkwardly turned back to the front.
Only one person—the bronze-skinned man—gave a slight nod, as though acknowledging my greeting.
And then, in the very next instant—
“Two thousand one hundred fifty dollars! Congratulations to bidder number 34!”
My winning bid was confirmed.
Bang—
“Finding a gem buried in the mud? Come on. In this day and age, nothing like that exists. Information spreads like wildfire.”
It was a scene from a reenactment documentary about the end of the Gold Rush in the late nineteenth century.
“All the good gold veins have already been dug up by companies and professionals. Sure, there might still be something hidden somewhere. But the odds of an amateur finding it are zero. Zero!”
A haggard-looking man, his face caked in dirt so that only the whites of his eyes showed, was shouting and jabbing a finger at the camera.
When I first saw that in high school history class, it had felt like he was speaking directly to me.
A poor second-generation immigrant Asian kid.
No academic connections, no personal network, not even parents to back him up.
Don’t entertain vain hopes. Just know your place and live quietly.
It was not that documentary alone that made me live that way, but looking back, it was true that I more or less had.
But today was different.
Today, I had won two victories at auction—and I was convinced those were real victories.
Even a rat hole gets its day in the sun!
If anyone asked how I felt right now, that would be my answer.
Honestly, after deciding to get into restoration work, the thing that had worried me most was how to obtain restoration base cars.
People with deep connections in the business or long experience had customers who brought them cars on their own.
But a total beginner with no experience like me had no choice except to buy the cars himself, restore them, resell them, and prove his skill that way.
In that sense, today felt like I had seen a ray of hope.
No matter how expert someone is, there are definitely cars where the numbers just don’t work for them. But I can profit from those cars.
Because I had the trump card called the [Coin Market], which could slash repair costs dramatically.
And the more I restored, the more coins I would accumulate.
The proficiency adjustment would keep growing.
The special appraisal skill would improve too.
Right. For now, I’ll focus on vehicles other people skip because of repair costs.
Of course, until I reached a certain level, my body was going to suffer a lot.
But I had already been prepared for that.
If anything, now that I had finally set a direction like this, my mind felt much lighter.
As always, exhausting the body was a hundred times better than exhausting the mind.
[Open car hauler]
CC-BY-2.0 by ED SIMMONS