FEATURES: AVC Auction is a Huge Success

On Saturday, the college warehouse threw open its massive doors to the public and auctioned off its surplus inventory.

Buyers crowded around the auctioneers from High Desert Auction, clutching their yellow bidding paddles and vying for bargains.

Some items, like a large walk-in freezer were purchased for as little as $5. Trevor bought the large freezer to sell for scrap metal. “I got it for cheap and that’s $90 of scrap metal, combined with the other thing I bought, I spent $15 to make $150, it’s a pretty good day.”

Bargains were to be had-but it definitely was buyer beware. The advertised coke machine needed work-the coin feeder was hanging by its wires, spiderwebs crisscrossed the bottle dispenser and decals were peeling away from its sides. But for $25 it was worth a shot at making it beautiful again.

Football goalposts went for $40 but the running joke was how the heck would you get the 30 ft. long poles home?

A Toyota sold for the parts was jokingly described by the auctioneer as, “needing just a little TLC to make it run again!” A mustang that was even in worse shape sold for $75. One wife forbid her husband from bidding more. “When will this be ready for us to ride in, when I’m retired?” the forty-something woman remarked.

While some people looked they walked right out of the TV show “Hoarders” and were bidding on nearly everything, others came with a bidding strategy and a list.

Janie Hodge, executive director of Paving The Way Foundation http://www.pavingthewayfd.com needed office display equipment. She bid on and won a bulletin board and a brochure stand to display pamphlets. ” I came here to get two things for our office and I got those things.”

Paving the Way works in the community, providing education about community beautification, anger management and domestic violence. Being a non-profit, Hodge doesn’t have a huge equipment budget so this auction is a godsend to her.

The oddest item in the auction? Large plastic buckets reeking of formaldehyde that were labeled, “Brain”, “Livers” and “Brain#2”. They actually were sold, even though they did look like they came out of Dr. Frankenstein’s lab.

Four basketball hoops were purchased for $20 for a Sunday school playground. The item with the biggest bid was forklift that was sold for $1200.

This 1954 Packard Patrician brought $900 for the college, it had been sitting out in the sun a long time.

A whopping $12,300 was made for AVC and was one of the highest totals ever in the history of this auction. The annual event generally brings in $5,000-$10,000 according to Stan Moore, coordinator of AVC ‘s Warehouse and Inventory.

-By Trisha Tighe