Dropped by an estate tool auction this morning. Was primarily interested in a good used belt sander as my own one only lasted a minute after my son in law returned it. Phase of the moon I suppose? To buy it's new equivelant today is 350.00 with tax on sale.

Looked over everything there and registered just to get the belt sander if it did not go too high. I felt 50-80 dollars was not out of line for the model there. They started putting things up and I took the opening bid of 5.00 never figuring I would prevail on a few items. It soon became obvious that there were few people interested in a lot of items.

So I got a better grade so called proffessional craftman 1/2 inch self powered 18 volt drill with two battery packs charger and case. Figuring that maybe the packs were bad. Tested really good when I got them home right out of the case was a little suprising. Then a dual action sander rated at 4.5 amps like new in appearance. It turned out that a bearing block had broken in it at one time and it is the only thing that was not in good condition but the broken part easily made in half an hour when I thought about it. Or 3.26 from sears plus postage when I looked it up.

Next was about 15 pounds of solder and a pile of other related items in a box. Then a detail sander that gets into really tight spaces with 10.00-20.00 worth of specialized sandpaper for it. Then the belt sander came up. All the above items came my way just for my opening bid of 5.00 each.

I was going to go home then but there was a box coming up with a clean dual action air straight line sander. An air palm sander, electric powered metal shears good for fourteen gauge steel that also looked fairly new. A smaller detail air paint gun, three sets of sheet metal gripping vice grips and a 20 inch heavy duty C clamp in the box.

So I stayed and that combined lot went for thirty dollars to me as well. Then I paid up and left.

What did disturb me was that nothing basically was bringing much action. Have people stopped doing stuff was what I was wondering? I do not think the economy is that bad. Or have the cheap chinese tools enabled most people to have most tools they need so there is little demand? Even if their quality is questionable. Decent tools used to bring decent prices at auctions.

To me it hardly seemed worthwhile for the auction service to be there. Any single power tool would probably cost as much or more than my total of items did at a retail outlet. It was a great oportunity for a young guy starting out in my opinion.

The mechanics tools also went dirt cheap but I have all I need. Decent not worn brand name air powered 1/2 impact tools for 5.00 each for example. I never remember an auction with perhaps a hundred to a hundred and fifty people there being so inactive before. All the like new makita stuff went for 5.00 each as well with the exception of a heavily built 1/2 inch drill and a drywall screwdriver. Those two items brought ten dollars each.

Whoever the deceased guy was he never brought really cheap stuff. His widow was there and hopefully had no ideal of how much he probably paid for all his tools. If nothing else it did prove to me how litle residue value our used tools seem to have now. She should have given them all to a relative unless she was financially strapped. Then again like myself she would have thought they should have done better than the prices they got. I posted this just because I cannot really put my finger on why the prices recieved were so low.