All types of deal-makers flock to OU’s quarterly surplus auction
By Corey Ryan
June 30, 2008
He leans against a black cart containing a 20-inch television and VCR, glancing back and forth between his clipboard and the man spouting out numbers. Ed Hergatt knows what he wants.
With his eyes peering from under his red Ohio State hat, he looks at the man shouting out numbers and sticks his hand out, palm up. He bends his fingers inward like he is signaling the shouting man to come closer, but that’s not what he wants.
Hergatt wants to bid and leave his mark, the number 221. It represents his bidder’s number, marking his card and the items he purchased Saturday at the Ohio University surplus auction.
By law, government-funded organizations such as OU need to make their surplus supplies available for public auction. In compliance, OU holds quarterly auctions outside Building 9 on the Ridges. Yet these are not bargain shoppers on a tepid weekend afternoon. People make a living going to these auctions.
Hergatt, a Mansfield resident, quit his construction job three years ago because he said he was tired. Now, he frequents public auctions across the state and buys computers, monitors, projectors and any other electronic product that he can fix to sell.
“I bought a lot,” said Hergatt while he was looking at his list of purchases. The Gateway desktop computers he purchased for around $40 each cost about $65-$85 on eBay.
His brother got him started as an auction attendee, helping to buy and fix items. Then he went into business for himself.
Hergatt will research an item’s worth by checking eBay, deciding what he will bid on before he gets to the auction. He claims to be pretty good at valuing merchandise. After buying what he can, he takes the merchandise and repairs it, a skill he picked up in the Navy, he said.
But Hergatt is not a unique entrepreneur.
“There are a lot more people coming to auctions like me than there used to be,” Hergatt said. “Times are tough.”
Barry Coruts of Cincinnati buys items to sell on eBay to supplement his income. His number, 217, marked a dozen or so printers that he purchased for under $5 apiece. On eBay, similar printers are sold for between $10 and $20.
“I buy what I know I can sell,” Coruts said. The most he has ever made on one item was $10,000 on a copy machine, and Saturday he may have cashed in again. For sale outside Building 9 was a research treadmill with a computer attached, and Coruts paid $37 for it. A similar item went for $1,500 a couple weeks ago, Coruts said.
How the auction works
Coruts does not use a definitive bid gesture like Hergatt’s finger motion. He, like most bidders, just gestures to the auctioneer.
“One time, a guy bid by touching me on the back of the leg,” said Brent King, one of three Shamrock Auctions auctioneers at the event.
Head nodding, eye contact, winking and verbal confirmation are common for bidders. But how does an auction attendee get started?
Before a person can bid, auction attendees need to register on-site for their number. After registering, a prospective bidder should look for the list of items available (which also can be found online at the OU Surplus Department Web site) and find an auctioneer.
If a person wants to bid, gesture to the auctioneer who’s shouting item numbers and running bid prices. When the bid comes to a close, the auctioneer says “sold,” and the clerk types in the item number, the price it sold for, and the winning bidder’s number. Finally, the winning bidder goes to the cashier trailer to pay.
There are three types of bidders, King said: people who want the item, people who want to scrap it, and people who want to repair and sell it. Of the people who bid for profit, King said about 200 regulars frequent auctions across southern Ohio. But a handful of auction-goers do fall into the first bidder category.
Philip Miller, an OU senior, anxiously waited for the furniture to be auctioned off in hopes of buying a desk for $25 or less.
In addition to furniture and computer products, the auction featured machinery, which buyers either bought for scrap metal or to use, and nine automobiles.
“I think overall we’ve done real well,” said Gary Dicken, OU’s director of property management and moving services. “I’d guess we had about 250 people.”
Dicken estimated the day’s revenue to be around $30,000, though no exact figure could be determined on Saturday. But expenses include paying for the employees to work overtime and Shamrock-Auction’s commission fee.
Consumers and the self-employed can expect another OU surplus auction in September.
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