Auction of 400 radios

I went... and I was shocked.  Very very shocked at times.  We took the horse float with us just in case I got carried away... suffice to say it was pretty empty coming home!

It was wet - torrential wet, which given the drought we have at home where it is often wet - being in Nelson where it is always sunny was a bit weird... it was still warm though, so it was quite stuffy inside with a massive crowd of wet people in the rooms.

400 radios.  300-odd to one buyer, loaded into the biggest trailer I have seen in a long time and off to Christchurch somewhere - I'm still looking into that one.  I did some quick estimation and reckon he must have spent $20k given the prices things ended up going for.

Almost every radio got at least $50, most well over $100.  The biggest shock I think I got was a Thorn M4 transistorised mantle set from the 70's... very common, not that flash... a bidding war saw it go over $200 from memory - I was still picking my jaw up off the floor and missed the final call.  I'd actually paid $1.50 for the same radio 2 days prior just so I could look inside and get some details for my site.  I thought *I'd* paid too much!

There were some very odd prices though - I bought an Ultimate "Hanging Horror" and a dual wave Colt for $70 each because I wanted them - I'm doing a video on the Ultimate at the moment and I want to reverse engineer the schematic for the Colt... I didn't think I would get either given the prices things were going for but I was ok with what I paid.  Some other Colts went for over $100.  Anything coloured was $300-400.

Top price of the day went to 2 Chinese vases - each one was darn near as tall as me - that was over $1000... the top price for a radio was a fret and foot - $750.  There was a very nice Zenith console with the big black 1938ish dial which went for close to $400 from memory, and an Atwater Kent console that went for nearly as much.  I had a flutter on all three of those radios but bowed out before the final hammer fell... although (surprisingly) Nicki kept nudging me about the fret and foot... I don't know what she was prepared to pay for it but I was done at about $700 (and even then that was just auctionitis setting in - I don't think I really wanted it!).  All 3 went to a collection in Blenheim I think.

But watching Columbus model 66's go for $200 or more blew my mind.  You struggle to get $30-40 on Trade Me for those.  Admittedly they were refinished nicely, but WOW!  It was nice to know those old sets can still get a reasonable price and lots of people came and bought one or two then left - so they will probably end up in peoples lounges or man caves - I do like the idea of collections being spread back out to people who admire those old sets... no doubt in time they will come back into someone elses collection, and then back out again.  Its a good reminder that we don't own them... we just curate them for a while (even of we often pay a hefty price in $ and time to do so).

My best buy of the day was a huge shelving unit that had been covered in radios - $5.  It will end up in the garage covered in radios again.

Cheers, Steve

Well done on keeping a record of the bids - I was too busy hoping I would be able to afford the next lot because this one was too pricey to think about writing the prices down...

The 'happy vendor' had apparently been told by her hubby that all the radios were only worth $1 perhaps to hide the spending he must have done on some of them. She did seem genuinely happy about the outcome when I had a talk to her at the end, although I think what she seemed most happy about was having the rooms in her house back! The garage, rumpus room and another side room were all pretty packed with sets and parts.

Cheers, Steve

I can also provide some feedback on the condition of the sets having now serviced quite a few for people at the auction, as well as the ones I bought home. They were refinished nicely and all very well presented - but I don't think they had received any electrical love - at least not the ones I've seen. If you saw my video on the Hanging Horror then you'll know that one was factory original - nothing had been done to it at all. I've also serviced a Pacemaker 515 predecessor (like a 515, but no code and UX valves), a Columbus 91, A Philips 594 (what a pig to work on!), a Columbus 26P, a Columbus 5M, a Gulbransen 425, a Columbus 24, an Ultimate Troubadour portable, a Bell Colt and a few others I think, I'm losing track... all had either original caps or they'd been serviced in the '70's or earlier...