Auction idiots (and not just the bidders)

[Brad Johnson]

Many of you may have heard about a guy named Jody Nelson - he's the goober that embezzled 70 million from the Patterson UTI energy company. Made the news big around here last year (mostly because it was in a town only 2 hrs away) and moderate headlines in the rest of the country.

Well, fast forward a year and several felony convictions later...

His personal assets are being auctioned here in Lubbock next weekend by the Ritchie Brothers auction company. They have a preview set up and, since there are over a hundred guns included and the preview is less than ten minutes from my house, I went. They have the guns set aside in a special room (no surprise there) and guarded by a contingent of Texas Rangers. Nice guys, too. I know and regularly shoot with some of them. The rest seem pleasant enough.

However...

I noticed that many of the guns I was interested in seeing - Colt 1911's, H&K's, Smith revolvers, a Barret .50, etc. - were not on display. When I asked the poor Ranger in the room about it, he just sighed and shook his head. Turns out that the auction service has a policy that any semi-auto rifle or pistol, any DA revolver, and anything that might be considered and "assault weapons" (in other words, black and scary) are put in a special room and are viewable only by FFL's. They are also sold on sealed bid. I went to the booth the auction service had set up and asked about it. The reply was "oh, those are all the "assault weapons and machine guns". I was about to open my big fat mouth when the guy standing next to me opened his. Let's just say that he said what I was going to, then proceeded to unload on the auction people. Seems this poor sap had taken a day off work and driven from eastern southeastern Colorado (about 5 hrs) just to preview the guns. To say he was upset would be a laughable understatement. And I don't blame him. The auction web site clearly lists the guns, and says NOTHING about their sale being restricted to FFL's. There is nothing to indicate that they will be handled any different than the myriad of Winny mod 70's and Remmy mod 700's also in the sale (and available to the general public).

Stupid, plain and simple. And they aren't helping to generate any higher profits on the sale for the simple reason that the people buying these guns will be buying them FOR RESALE. They want to make a profit, so the guns will - by default - sell for around 50-70% of their retail value.

Sigh... okay. I'm done venting now.

Brad

[K Frame]

Great.

You KNOW the country is doomed when Texas turnes into the Republic of Pussyland.

And how in the hell do they have a "contingent" of Texas Rangers do the guarding when there's only 120 of them in the entire state?

Working armed security is so far outside the pale of what a Ranger would normally be doing that it's scary.

[Brad Johnson]

These are the Texas Rangers.  A "contingent" is any number more than one.

Brad

[Larry Ashcraft]

You didn't get the name or location of the guy from Southeastern Colorado, did you?  Chances are I might know him.

[K Frame]

OH!

THE Texas Rangers.

The baseball team.

OK.

[crt360]

Lame.  I'd have been mad as hell if I drove a long way (pretty much anywhere to Lubbock is a long way) and only got to look at a few bolt actions out of a collection that size.

Mike, I don't think it's "one riot, one ranger" anymore.  They're sort of mysterious - you never know where they'll show or for what purpose.  They do get called up for luke warm pursuit sort of stuff.  I've witnessed this on several occasions, one only a few blocks from my house where there were some armed bank robbers on the loose.  I think it's because they still carry saddles in the trunks of their unmarked white cars in case they need to ride a horse.  They do have some horses, too, but they're usually in a trailer.  Somehow driving around in a white sedan with a SIG 226 instead of riding a horse and carrying a Colt revolver kind of kills the traditional aura.  They could at least get some 4x4s and lever guns.  I think they still have a musuem in Waco.  It's been a long time since I checked it out.

[K Frame]

I just find it to be very odd that Rangers would be providing what essentially amounts to private security.

It's like going to a hamburger joint in a rough neighborhood and finding an FBI agent working counter security.

*expletive deleted*it, Rangers ARE the FBI of Texas in many ways. It was always my impression that moonlighting in any way, shape, or form was essentially banned.

[crt360]

I just find it to be very odd that Rangers would be providing what essentially amounts to private security.

I'd be rather nervous about hanging out at an auction where Rangers "appeared" to be working as security.

[Brad Johnson]

I think the Rangers are there as a function of the seller, not the auctioneer. This is a siezure auction and the feds most likely asked the Texas Dept of Public Safety for assistance. The Rangers, being a specialized part of the DPS with more flexibile schedules than uniformed troopers, were the logical choice.

Brad

[K Frame]

"I think the Rangers are there as a function of the seller, not the auctioneer. This is a siezure auction and the feds most likely asked the Texas Dept of Public Safety for assistance. The Rangers, being a specialized part of the DPS with more flexibile schedules than uniformed troopers, were the logical choice."

OH! It was a government seizure auction, not the family getting rid of personal possessions!

OK, I didn't glean that from the original message.

That makes a LOT more sense now as to why there were Rangers there.

[Brad Johnson]

Yep, this guy embezzled some 70 mil from Patterson-UTI in Snyder, TX. The feds stepped in an seized all assets, even going so far as to try and get everything he had ever given anyone as a present. His ex-wife and her attorney were even forced to give up the proceeds from her divorce settlement!

Here's a list of all the items in the auction. I noticed when I was looking through it this morning that they have removed all the "FFL Only" stuff. I'd like to think the little phone converstation I had with their regional manager had something to do with that.

http://www.rbauction.com/auction_catalog/catalog_results_lubbock.jsp?Search_type=Basic&auction_id=2006200&industry_id=13

FYI - is it their corporate policy to only sell shotguns and long guns in "everyday" calibers in the general public auctions. Any "odd caliber" long guns (Barrett .50), "scawy bwack guns" and any handgun other than black powder and historic single action are sold in the FFL only sealed-bid auctions. Their regional manager was very specific as to why. He said that the company heads "did not want to be associated with those kinds of guns".

So instead the company heads are okay with being "a bunch of retarded PC morons"?

Brad

[K Frame]

For some reason your link doesn't bring anything up for me -- just a generic auction page for the company, but no specifics.

OK, I finally figured out how to manually make my way through the site.

They took out revolvers and "assault weapon" like firearms and left in the semi-automatic shotguns?

Imbicilic phucking retards!

[Brad Johnson]

The same day I started this thread I sent the Ritchie Bros corporate office an email (nice, polite, and businesslike) about their firearms policy. I expected it would be read and ignored.

Would you believe that I just got a phone call from the Texas Divisional Manager (Texas is their largest continental U.S. division)! He was actually very sympathetic. He explained that they really didn't want to handle any firearms at all, but this was the comprimise he worked out with his superiors to have at least some of the guns available for the general public. He really did seem a little embarrassed to have to explain that the corporate policy was both longstanding and very politically motivated. I'm impressed that he even called, much less was reasonably apologetic for the situation.

Still sucks, though. Plus, you have to have a $10,000 deposit or secure a line of credit with a guarantee of payment to RB just to register to bid ($2,000 for some of the smaller items). Hmph.

Brad

[crt360]

I'm impressed that he even called, much less was reasonably apologetic for the situation.

That is a surprise.  Maybe he thought you were loaded (in a money kind of way).

[Brad Johnson]

Update...

I am no longer impressed with the RB Auction guy at the site. I called him back to ask the simple question of who the FFL was that was handling the transfers. I wanted to know so I could used them as a proxy for a couple of items I wanted to bid on.

The guy never called me back. Total blow-off. Heck with 'em.

That being said, there were an estimated ten thousand(!!) people at the auction, some from as far away as Europe. I had to show a house nearby and got a good look at the crowd. All the parking lots at the airpark were completely full. All the adjoining businesses who were charging $5 a car to park were all full. And there were vehicles parked two deep for at least a mile in every direction. It was a friggin' sea of people! From what I gathered on the news and from people I knew that went, there were ZERO bargains to be had. Everything was going full pop or better - people were getting stupid and paying silly-high amounts of money for stuff.

Brad

[K Frame]

"people were getting stupid and paying silly-high amounts of money for stuff."

I've seen that happen at so many auctions it's not even funny.

You sort of look at people and say under your breath "You could have bought that, with a warranty, at Wal Mart for $70 less than what you paid for it."

The neatest bargain I ever got, though, was on a box lot of basically crap. There was an old quilt on the bottom of the box that was pretty much trashed. I gave it to my Mom, and she pulled it apart for the fabric, and found in the middle of the quilt a home-woven coverlet dated 1836 from the county where we lived.

I have to ask Mom what ever happened to it. I know she has it, but I don't know where.