Buying from Internet auctions

Buying from the well known scrap metal auctions can be profitable.What works well for me is to concentrate on the local area auctions,I do area searches 100 miles from my zip code,This allowys me to go look and see how good or bad the city or county employe took pic's and how his description is,Keeping in mind most of these guy's or gals do not like to do this its a pain in the a,,,s for them.I have found that the smaller lots are where I do better,the guy's that aren't close will not bid on these good for me.Case in point there was a lot last week on gov d,,,s,it was fifteen miles form me,the description was 105 box's of plug,s each box contains four of course they did not take the time to open a box and take out one to see what they were for a pic,the box's were small cardboard box's like four inches high and about six inches wide.While looking at the box's I noticed that they were heavy gauge cardboard,they had them on a pallet and it looked like a bunch of little box's,in my mind I kept thinking what the hell is a plug???So I take a ride a look at this lot.well I open a box and the PLUGS are Red Brass squares Score,,,there plugs were brought to plug water meters that they shut off for non payment of water bills,they never used this batch and just wanted to get ride of them taking up space.my little portable scale read 2 and a half pounds for one Plug.so I figure 2 1/2 x four -10 pounds a box x 105- 1050 lbs I get a price of 2.00 a lb for red brass ok the auction goes off and I am the winning bidder I paid 1200.00 for the lot buyer prem 5 percent I am tax except total 1260.00 I go get the plugs and go right to the scrap yard they weighed up 1005 lbs got my 2010.00 and left,was not the biggest score but it was a easy 750.00 so check those auctions makes a nice sandwich.

Did you take any photos?

Thanks.

ginofrater

Sorry just did not think about taking pics.

Auctions are an amazing way to get scrap.



90% of the time when I win an auction I end up coming home with more than what was listed.

The last one I won was an auction for 35 Towers. I emailed the guy to set up an appointment and he told me he found more and if i wanted.them I could have them. Well after driving around to 4 different locations (schools) I ended up coming home with 110 towers, 7 laptops, 3 Apple emacs, 5 APCs, and about 10 small servers. All for about $100 plus a tank of gas. Plus most of the additional towers had core 2 processors and 2 gb ram. The heatsinks with fans alone are selling at a rate of 2 a day on eBay for $10.

Originally Posted by 1956

Sorry just did not think about taking pics.

I was just trying to learn what an "plug water meter", looks like, for the future reference,It is like this photo?



Thanks
gino

Hello do you have any sites in particular that you use. I tried a surplus site and eBay but am not having too much luck.

Well try the govdeals,govliquidation,they are pretty good also public surplus good luck