Bidding Insanity!

[jensen wise]

It can also work the other way! I just wanted to take part in the bidding experience when I sore an M.L.E. on Holt's internet web auction site, I placed the starting bid weeks before the auction ended.
I received an email telling me I had won it! I was the only one to have placed a bid on it, even though the number of people watching it was in the thousands.

[P51Mustang]

I have seen that happen before. That what can happen when you get Two scholars in One room....

[Flying10uk]

I use to know a chap, long since no longer with us, who served the whole of WW2 with Bomber Command, flying in aircraft such as Wellington bombers and amazingly survived the war. When he left the RAF at the end of the war all that he had was pretty much what he left the RAF with, after risking his life for over 5 years fighting for his country. After several salesman type jobs, living out of B&B's, for a few years, he started on his own going to MOD auctions buying ex MOD fire extinguishers reconditioning them and repainting them with Woolworths paint. He always used Woolworths paint because he considered that it was good value for money. Not many people go to MOD auctions, or they didn't when he attended years ago, to buy used fire extinguishers that may also need repair and reconditioning but he did and he made a good living out of it for many years. He would also bid on tools or anything else if it was going cheap if he thought that he could make something out of it. He told me that at one MOD auction he went to he thought that he had bid and won a small lot but after the auction was over he was asked to move a giant framework for holding an aircraft fuselage or wing that was located elsewhere because it was too big to get into where the auction was being held.

He had identified something that he could buy cheap, add value and then resell at a profit and for him this was mainly ex MOD fire extinguishers.

[Sunray]

"...things that I can flip..." You'd have to get the stuff really cheap for that to work.
The auctioneer's job is to get the most money for his client. A lot of the assorted on-line auction sites(Gunbroker and Guns International, for example) seem to be populated with dealers who think they're going to get rich by selling mediocre stuff for high prices to people who don't know any better.
Mind you, vintage bayonets and the like have not been made for 70 plus years and are getting scarce in decent condition. Not many Ross rifle bayonets to start with either.
"...my main source of inventory is auctions..." No more wholesale milsurp distributors these days. Used to be a gun shop could buy milsurp stuff from distributors without much fuss. Those days are long gone. Governments don't seem to be surplusing stuff either. Our bunch chopped literally thousands of perfectly good No. 4 and No. 7 Lee-Enfields when they took 'em away from Cadets. Plus thousands of brand spanking new C1A1 rifles(I heard there were something like 500,000 of 'em in War storage.) and C2 LMGs and Sterling SMGs. Even the old green CF combat uniforms were not surplused.

[mmppres]

I agree with Sunray. No long a source of milsup stuff out there. Here in USA Springfield Sporters sold out. Very few government auctions that go reasonable. My business is parts. To find them, Its a daily hunt.
Auctions are some of my ways. For me to buy a lot it cost me. But I have to figure out per piece. Then bid for whole lot. Some of those rare pieces go really high. These young collectors have no choice but to buy high. They also have more money than us old guys lololol