auctions

Me and a buddy of mine went to an auction today for an estate in a rural area of maryland. There was a lot of junk vehicles, tractors and just misc. junk steel and aluminum way beyond something that could be useful other then for scrap. We were hopeful we would make a killing at the scrapyard with this junk that they would sell for next to nothing.... people were buying piles of junk steel for the same if not more then what our local yards would be paying for it, about 10.00...100. we left with nothing...can anybody make sense of this?

the only thought i had was maybe people are buying this stuff and hanging on to it as an investment?

Well either they wanted the steel for something else, or they knew of a yard with better prices... If they could sell it for 12 cents per pound, they would have been making $45 per gross ton....doesn't seem like any type of profit to me...

What was the aluminum selling for?

Could be that somebody thought it looked heavier than it actually was, or you underestimated the weight.

they were definitly paying well over the scrap price on some items, a stainless steel sink sold for 160 old junk trucks selling for over 800$ there was around 100lbs of aluminum selling for 100$ and i do recall the announcer at one point making a comment begging for a higher bid cause they were only at about 10 cents a lb on one item

Hard saying. Sometimes you get people with too much money and no brains. Or as others said, maybe there really is more there than it seems.

Government auctions are irritating. Some big players in there. I've watched lots go for far more than I could scrap it for. Wonder if refineries are getting in on it or what.

I've had one score from a government auction and I doubt it'll ever happen again.