Compressor Envy

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I've bought things (machine tools) from other government auctions in the past. It can be hit or miss, and inspecting items prior to purchase is absolutely essential. Generally speaking, all items are untested and photos are taken by someone who probably has no idea what a potential buyer would actually like to see, if there's even more than one photo of an item.

They also usually charge some type of auctioneer fee, possibly more fees on top of that. I think I wound up paying something like 30% more than my winning bid after taxes and fees. If you bid a lot, that can be substantial.

There are definitely some amazing deals that come out of government auctions (I feel I did pretty well..) but they're also far from secret, so educating yourself on the make/model and knowing what to look for, and knowing what fees are involved is critical. Fees they're very up front about, in my experience. Visiting to look at items is often restricted access (government facility) and limited to one or two days during normal business hours, so you may have to miss work to go look at things on their schedule.
 
I bought one of the UDT trimix boosters from GovLiquidation. It was very straightforward and the booster worked like a champ. Bought it for $1,000 and sold it for $5000 3 years after. I just didn’t have the drive air it required.
 
Don't bid more than you can afford to lose. It is a gamble at best. I got two compressors for a great price and when they showed up, they were both frozen. One was the engine and the other was the compressor.
 
Beware the Never Ending Bid...
- I tried bidding on some RIX SA-6 compressors they were auctioning individually a few months ago. When the auction ended, they gave a time extension for more bids. And the auction wouldn't end until the bidding stopped for several hours. And just as those hours were about to finish, somebody would put in another bid and start it all over again. No significant increase in the price... Just keeping it going until all the bidders got tired of waiting.I think probably one buyer ended up sticking around long enough to buy all of those compressors.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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