We went to two auctions Saturday. One was a house auction, followed by a regular auction of some, but not much, of their personal stuff, since they had just moved into a much smaller house. The second, held Saturday evening, was a consignment auction , so it was pretty much all small stuff. Obviously, we don’t need a lot of stuff, but we got some really cool things.

First of all, when we walked through to get a feel for the house (we are going to house auctions to understand the process for when we decide to buy something in the future.) Anyway, there was an electric keyboard sort of like mine, Kylene’s and Erica’s in the basement family room. It wasn’t marked as being for sale, but we stayed around to the bitter end and when the auctioneer started going through the house and auctioning off some of the remaining furniture that hadn’t been moved outside, he put that up for sale. We started at $10, and no one bid against us, so we got it for that. The reason we got it (other than the unbelievable price) is that the choir director was looking for another piano so I can rehearse with the girls and he can rehearse with the guys without having to take the guys all the way across the school to the auditorium to do so. He was tickled pink that I got it and for so CHEAP.

Then there was an electric pressure cooker/rice cooker/slow cooker combination that I’d been looking at getting for quite a while. It was basically new – dusty, but didn’t look like it had ever been used. So we decided we would bid on that. There were several boxes of other appliances and things that no one would even bid $2 for, so he put it all together and we came out on top of the bidding at $25 for the whole lot of it. (The pressure cookers cost over $100 new). When we got home and unpacked it all, it turned out we had a deep fryer, this coffee pot that keeps the hot coffee (or water) inside the tank until you dispense it a cup at a time, a waffle maker that you can flip the plates over to make a grilled cheese sandwich maker, some really nice fry pans (heavy stainless steel), a small stainless steel mixing bowl, a heavy double boiler a bit smaller than the one I have, and one of those chopper things like you see on T.V. Everything in all the boxes turned out to be something I will use. That might be the best $25 I’ve ever spent.

From the evening auction, we came home with a bunch of boxes of small decorative things, as well as a sewing machine in a table that we got for $5. Again, no one else was interested in it. Our total cost was around $35 – not as good as the morning auction, but still good. There is a gorgeous crystal butter tray, some really unique vases, more pillows for the couch, a little remote controlled helicopter, a little stainless steel wastebasket that I’m using for a little hamper for underwear and socks in the bathroom (so I don’t forget them on the floor), and other things that were just cool, not necessarily valuable, like a metal egg with a beautiful rooster painted on it, a dragon made of brown marble, a cobalt blue inkwell to go with my blue glass collection, and a couple of beautiful brass and porcelain candle sticks.  We hadn’t gotten there early enough to look at the contents of the boxes, and although there was a camera sort of showing the stuff, it was still hard to see what all was in the boxes. We did throw quite a bit of it away, but we still definitely got our money’s worth.

Altogether a fun day! But Dad really needs to get a job if we want to do this again!