Might have done it this time

[Anonymous Poster]

I went to a sealed bid sale last week, and naturally had to put in a few bids on things I just couldn't live without. I really didn't figure I'd actually get anything, after all, I havent since I bought the 3 schoolbuses by accident.
Well, the award letter arrived today, and I'm now the new owner of a paint striping machine for parking lots. So, after I finish painting fog lines on the driveway, what do I do with this new toy? I wonder if the wiff will leave her car outside so I can put it in HER garage?

 

[Bird]

Franz, you can now start another occupation./w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif I have a cousin who bought a paint striping machine about 20 years ago and made good money striping parking spaces on private parking lots, and I worked with him on a few jobs. Just remember those machines are a pain to clean up, and they make a bunch of different kinds of paint for different surfaces; i.e., use a different paint on asphalt than what you use on concrete. And of course, if you're in that business you need some templates for such things as handicapped parking spaces and fire zones, and you have to have red, yellow, white, and blue paint./w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif Oh well, like a lot of businesses, good money, but a lot of work./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

 

[patrickg]

Sounds neat, hope the price was right.

Once back in my youth (post USAF but pre-brain function) a friend and I got interested in a Government auction which had Post Office vans in it. These were 2wd Jeeps that had the controls on the right (but wrong) side. Nice roll up door in back, cute lil buggers. We kicked the tires, checked the dipsticks, ran the engines, and tried the trannys in low, drive, and reverse but were not allowed to move them. We wanted a couple for ourselves but weren't sure how much to bid SO...... we bid on all the "good" ones. Some low, some medium, and a couple fairly high. We made our bid price end in 69 cents so we would know it was us. Figured we'd take the cheapest two we could and ignore the rest. Well, we were, in a word, naive (stupid is closer). Seems the US Government has rules. You don't need to know the rules to bid but they apply anyway.

We got nearly every unit we bid on and that is as close to good news as there was. The bad news was in two parts: 1. you are charged/fined by the Government 1/2 of the bid price to NOT take the item. 2. Between us we didn't have enough ready cash to pay for all of them, we didn't even have enough to pay to not take them.

Got short term loans from friends, paid for the units and ran an advertisement to sell them off. Not looking for a profit, just recoup our loaned capital. My mom and her second husband took two for their business. A college friend then in Tuscon took one sight unseen but we had to deliver it (drove two out, gave him his pick, and drove the other home again. Sold several to a guy in the icecream vending business (Alice's Ice Cream, after Alice's Resturant). Sold one to a young man who worked for me part time (became a micro-motor home). Then with only a few left to sell to the general public via the newspaper, a guy comes into our storefront operation (sold auto stereo stuff in front and developed oceanographic instruments in the back) and flashed a badge on me. He was from the DMV in response to a complaint that we were running an unliscensed used car lot. He had a signed complaint from a liscensed car lot and a copy of our newspaper advertisement.

I told him the whole story from the naive bidding on and showed him the paper work on what we paid and who took how many. I stressed the part where we would be charged to not take them and couldn't withstand that financial hit. He was only mildly amused and said he would not haul us in this time but would make an official report and that if he had to come back on a similar complaint we wouldn't be able to tell the judge we didn't know any better.

Pretty funny looking back at it but a bit stressful at the time (still we laughed at ourselves a lot).

To put this in perspective: This is the same storefront and the same friend who shot the .44 mag through the wall, by accident, into the Mex resturant next door. We were the epicenter of strange happenings.

Patrick

 

[Bird]

That's great, Patrick./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif It does help if you know the rules before you play the game, doesn't it?/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif And it's a darned shame they don't make those jeeps anymore. I never could understand why all the rural mail carriers didn't buy them (as some did), and then the police department used a lot of them for parking control in the downtown area and we had a tough time trying to come up with a replacement when they quit making them.

 

[MossRoad]

They used to make those little mail vans here in South Bend, Indiana at AM General(now makes the Hummer and H2). I worked for a company driving them from AM General to rail yards all over the county. We'd get six guys with cars. We'd meet at the rail yard, all pile into one car and drive to AM General. Pick up six of our lot, drive them back to the rail yard, hop into someone else's car, drive back to AM General and so on until we had one car left. Go back and get our cars and come back to the rail yard. 6 guys could move 30 vans in just a few hours. It was fun driving in little trains of six all over town. They had really good bumpers. One of the lead guys used to like to pull the parking brake and lock up the rear wheels. Of course, there were no brake lights, so he'd get five mail vans to rear end him. Later, we'd set plates between rail cars and start loading them up. We'd hook up chains to the front of the unit, then smoke the tires off in reverse to tension the chains and stomp on the brake. Then hook up the rear chains as tight as possible and let off the brake.

So, you see, they took alot of abuse before they even got out of the rail yards /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif.

Thanks for the memories! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[Hawkflyer]

The part I never understood was that they bought those for rural mail carriers. You know, folks who were supposed to ignore rain, snow, sleet, dark of night and such. BUT THEY WERE ALL 2WD! We regularly had to "assist" our carrier up the hill in front of the house when it snowed. Of course WE had 4WD. /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

 

[Ozarker]

I loved those little Cushman 3 wheelers they used. In high school, I worked for a service station that had the contract to take care of the local post office vehicles. When it showed, they all showed up to have their chains installed then, when it all melted, showed up to have them removed. I was an expert at installing chains after the first day I ever did it to about 20 different postal vehicles in a row.

We did all the services and my job was driving them back and forth as the services were due. You could really smoke the tires on those 3 wheelers if you tried.

 

[Bird]

Hawkflyer, I agree that 4WD would make a lot of sense in a lot of places, and I met one rural carrier in Virginia who was driving a 4WD Subaru wagon with the steering wheel on the right, but around here very very few rural carriers have 4WD, and I think the majority are either driving an ordinary sedan or pickup and I suppose they get used to it, but looks awkward as the dickens to try to sit in the middle of the front seat and drive with your left hand and left foot, so they don't have to slide back and forth to be able to reach out the right window to reach the mailboxes, but that's what they're all doing in my area.

 

[Gary_in_Indiana]

My oddest bid purchase (and there have been a few) was probably a 1954 GMC trash compactor. This was quite a few years ago. I was bidding on trades from the local park department for the GMC store here.

I'm there on the Saturday all bidders are allowed in to view the fleet with everyone else and making my notes. I looked at this thing and was totally clueless so asked an old friend in the business who was there bidding for the Ford dealer what he called the old thing. He showed me his sheet and had marked $150 down. I really didn't want it so I marked mine $100. My thinking was I'll look like I'm in the ballpark with at least one other bidder but won't end up with it. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Of course, the bids are awarded to the new truck stores and units ordered. Weeks pass and the new trucks arrive and are delivered and the trades picked up. The GMC dealer calls me to come pick up my stuff from him. I arrive and the first thing I see is this compactor truck, complete with a load of garbage! /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif Yes, I owned it, garbage and all. /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

After talking with me, my "friend" had reconsidered his $200 bid and marked it down to $100, thus making me the "winning" bidder. As it turned out it was his loss.

I called the local dealer auction who came and picked it up (yes, garbage and all) and it sold there for over $600. Another guy I know bought it to use at his business, had it there for years then sold it to a mobile home park in his town at a profit. Go figure.

 

[bgott]

I worked for a car lot in Stockton, CA. that ended up with one of those on the tail end of a package deal. It didn't have a top and someone had transplanted a small block Chrysler into it. They were afraid to sell it without the top and it probably wouldn't have passed smog anyway so I got stuck using it for a parts runner. That lasted about two weeks until one of the owners caught me carrying a wheelie down Miner Ave. in it.