On Sat, 8 Feb 2003 21:13:30 -0000, you wrote:

>Mike Harrison wrote:
>> At this sort of auction you are unlikely to get any mega-bargains on
>> stuff like test gear - if you're lucky you can get stuff for a little
>> below used equipment dealer prices (that's where they get it from
>> before they add their margin...)
>Really? I went to the "John's Radio" liquidation auction last year - it =
was
>run by www.tech-asset.co.uk IIRC. Some idiot put a #300 each bid in on =
an
>entire batch of frequency generators. Just put his hand up, said "Three
>hundred quid each for the lot" and that was it. Did the same thing to =
all
>the frequency generators in the auction. Grr... Nothing worse than a =
rich
>git.
Any reputable auctioneer should ahve asked the room if there were any =
objections in a situation like
this - it's normal to let the room bit & offer an option on similar lots =
(again accepting objections
before bididng starts  if the lots aren't the same). It's also quite =
common for the auctioneer to
offer 'buyers choice' where the buyer can choose which lots he wants =
within the lots covered by an
option. Sounds like none of this happenned - maybe the auctioneer was in =
a hurry!

>> but remember there's no warranty
>> etc. At company liquidations like this, little details like
>> calibration sticker dates can tell you a lot.
>Indeed they can - my 466 had an "MSL Calibration Laboratory, Hitchin,
>Herts" cal label dated 2nd January 1996, with a "Next Recalibration
>Due" date of 2nd January 1997. $DEITY knows what happened to MSL, but
>they did a bang-up job of calibrating the scope!
In sales like that it's less useful as you don't know how long it's been =
sitting on the shelf - at a
factory liquidation, an old cal date suggests it's been out of use, =
probably because it failed cal
or was faulty. Conversely a recent cal data is a pretty good bet that =
it's OK

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