If I am staring at you at an auction, it’s not cuz I like you.
I want you to get the hell off of what I’m biddin’ on. When two good friends have eyes on the same car, it’s up to one of them to say, “Hey! I want this one! Lay off! I’ll look out for you on the next one!” A quick stare with the moving of the eyes towards the vehicle in question does the trick quite well.
The same is true for the hidden language between the auctioneer and the ringman. What is a ringman? Well, a ringman kinda looks like this.
He hoots. He hollers. And he does whatever it takes to help the auctioneer create the urgency to buy.
Often times he will make a difference between a good auction and a bad auction, and it will be that hidden communication he has between himself and the auctioneer that makes it possible.
When the auctioneer wants to get people ‘off their heels’ and start bidding on the cars, he will give off a hidden symbol to the ringman.
Old school auctioneers often used a pinky off the microphone. While more contemporary bid callers will use small words in their chant such as “Bid” or “Do” to get the word out to the ringman. The two of them will then start to pretend that a live bidder is out there.
Once the ringman hears that word, the bumping of the bid will begin.
“10-grand!, 10-1-2! Habadgive! 10-2! 10-3! Bidagive 10-3!”
“Yeeeahhh!!! Yep!…Yep!!!”, the ringman will exclaim with his arm outward towards a phantom bidder as the bid will quickly get bumped about $300 to $500 bid over a few seconds. When the ringman does this, he will want to keep close attention to the rhythm of the bump and his eyes from ‘sticking’ to a potential bidder.
You want to give off the vibe that there is “real money” among the crowd. If the ringman or auctioneer bump the bid too quickly when folks are ‘sitting on their heels’, or make sticky eye contact while bumping the bid, those potential bidders will know that neither one of them have money and will continue to not bid on the vehicle.
I’ll give you a personal example. One time when I was green in this business, I was working the floor as a ringman at a wholesale auction. And to be blunt with you, I couldn’t bump a dealer into bidding on a car to save my ass from first base.
I would be in the middle of the opposite side of where the car was – a good ten feet or so away from the potential buyers – and I worked with an auctioneer who always pointed with his outstretched hand towards where the bid was supposed to be.
The only problem was that I was also a ‘pointer’ at the time. My styles would in time change with the auctioneer, as I did these sales five to seven times a week. But for now, I was hopeless…
When he would give off the bump word of ‘Money’, I would point one way and he would point the exact opposite way. It looked ridiculous. We were like two guys doing a disco dance with a hand sticking out instead of a finger. It got so laughable that a few of our veteran consignors would hide their laughs while watching the spectacle that was two guys failing miserably at the bumping process.
What saved our skins back then was that public auctions were as common as kudzu here in Georgia.Many of the public bidders who were immigrants didn’t speak a lick of English. I was conversational in Spanish, which I still think is all that kept me from experiencing a shortened career in this business at the beginning. My ability to speak to Mexicans and Guatemalans, and help them understand where the bid was at, easily yielded five to seven extra sales an auction.
“Mil-quinientos!” – $1500 “Mil-seiscientos!” $1600. “No pesos por favor!” These bidders would often be among their wives, cousins, and other acquaintances. They would all look at vehicles together before the sale and then go right up to the auction block. Even kids in strollers would be a mere few feet from the vehicles, and I would at times have to herd them back more towards the center of the sale so that the muchachos and muchachas would stay safe.
Once I got them to a safer area, I usually asked them in Spanish what vehicles interested them. Once those vehicles came to the block, I would stay with these folks and give them a reserved soft sell while the auctioneer would bump the vehicle into a sellable range.
The Latinos would bid, get outbid, and then converse with each other for a good ten to fifteen seconds before offering another bid.
Typically the bidding would be in hundred dollar increments. Once they shook their heads to an increase in a hundred dollar bid, you would go down to a $50 bid for the very last one. 99 times out of 100 this would yield a final bid and the dealer would sell the vehicle with a healthy extra few hundred dollars of return on that vehicle.
A lot of those extra bids from those Spanish speakers would also enable me to get anywhere from a $20 to $100 tip for my efforts. Some of the larger dealerships would plug in a $200 bonus into my check which would make life interesting. Since once a month, I would get a larger check than the auctioneer along with a healthy supplement in tips. It wasn’t too long later that I started to teach my partner the Spanish names for all those numbers he had to mumble around.
The need to get the bid into a sellable range depends entirely on the seller and the inventory he brings to the sale. On a sale when the seller has a very low reserve, bumping the bid doesn’t matter so much. The auction staff needs to get the deal done and come hell or lowballers who want to offer two grand on an eight grand car, you are still going to be able to make the sale work; especially when the seller has a realistic price on this vehicle.
Contrary to popular lore, the goal of an auctioneer and ringman is not to become a ‘hero’. If the bid gets to a point where we can sell that car, our work is done. We don’t want to get 10 grand for a car that has only a 9 grand reserve. We want to get as close to that 9 grand as possible and have a ‘meeting of the minds’. Once we put the deal together, our job is done.
Now having said that, high reserves are a harder nut in this business. You have to deal with the reality of having only one bidder on that car. So your bumping skills have to be sharp. There will also likely be only one chance to make that deal work. Once a dealer isn’t interested in bidding (a.k.a. off the money), it is usually very hard to bring them back in.
For example, you can’t bump one guy two grand while he’s biddin’ against a Coke machine. Even the freshest of rookie dealers (with a few exceptions) have their limits as to how easily they can be bumped and stay in the game.
Your best bet is usually to start $1000 to $1500 under the money (money = the selling price) bump it up about $500 to $700, and see whether you can make good eye contact with any potential bidders in the audience on the late end side of the bumping.
On that evening at the public auction, we had some real hard nuts. I had my talents, but I needed a little coachin’.
“Steve, look. What you do here is don’t point. Wait for my bump and then take an off-half second or so and then you bump. Keep it off rhythm and see if you can get eyes out there. Once you meet eyes, show me where that bidder is and I’ll go on ahead and get him in the money.”
‘Eyes’ meant an interested delaler. If a guy has eyes on a vehicle, he will inevitably look at you instead of staring off into space. He wants to be part of the action, but he doesn’t want to be ripped off and… of course… he wants to buy that car as cheaply as possible.
In due time I learned how to ‘find money’. It became such a strong point of mine that at certain sales, I would match up with another ringman (who was far more experienced) and we would ‘two-man’ the operation so that even the sharpest of dealers would have trouble detecting that we were just running the bid.
I would travel to glorified hellholes such as Centerpoint, Alabama… Loganville, Georgia… Acworth, Georgia… which were given the colorful names of Centerhole, The Red Light District, and Crackworth. Every auction barn was a shithole with toilets that barely worked, drivers who were occasionally senile or on drugs (sometimes both), and locals who would pull up in beach chairs and watch the auctioneer and ringman do their magic.
The pay was insanely strong for work that seemingly didn’t require a third grade education. But to do it well, you had to be smart, and you had to know people in a way that no textbook or Dale Carnegie course could teach you.
I enjoy these insider accounts of the sometimes seamy underbelly of the used car business.
The underbelly of the used car is not “sometimes” seamy. It is ALWAYS seamy….
HA!
Hmmm, I almost bought two Subaru XTs at the Centerhole (LOL) auction…if it’s the one right off Hwy 79 close to Carson Road. I lived about five miles from that place for a few years.
They usually had interesting (crappy) vehicles which went pretty cheap. I never saw any “steals” there…probably because of “Shelly Bidder”. I know it was your job but as a buyer, I personally find this practice a bit unethical.
I am a big estate auction attender & tend to stay away from the ones that pull this crap… My emotional weaknesses succumbed to this at a certain estate auction and now I have a POS rustbucket ’67 Mustang to remind me of my ignorance. Thankfully I’m only $1,500 into it.
Thanks for the insight: I never knew this went on at the car auctions (but I probably should have figured it did). Your writeups are great reads.
I used to pass by the “red light district” every day when I commuted between my then-home in Walton County and my job in Duluth. Did ol’ Maxie have an interest in that place? (I know he owned several BHPH lots in the Hwy 78 corridor.)
My uncle was a farm auctioneer. I used to go to auctions with him in the early ’60s, generally for the Maid-Rites. As a 13-year old kid, I had a pretty good idea of what stuff was worth (Hey, come on! I watched the Price Is Right.) and it amused me how a good auctioneer could get two parties bidding against each other such that the sale price was higher than on a new item.
Tools are the biggest money-makers at the estate auctions thanks to old men. Some tools literally sell for more than their original cost: we are not talking antiques either. I stopped going to auctions that are dominated by tools unless I know there’ll be more than a few old window fans, light fixtures, lava lamps, hubcaps, etc.
I’ve lingered at a few auctions when the auctioneer happens to be one of my favorites though. Some auctioneers make a sale fun even when the treasures are too pricey for my tastes.
I’ve seen even crappy tools – Harbor Freight stuff – go for way too much at auctions.
I’ll agree with the auctioneer making the difference. There are auction companies where I’ll go to their auctions even if I don’t see anything interesting in the ads, because I know they run a good auction – they are friendly, will split lots if requested, ect. And there are companies I’ll never go to another auction from again even if it was next door to me, because their auctioneers are jerks or worse – I once watched an auctioneer remove a “broken” sticker from a computer before it came up for bid.
I also once had an auctioneer harangue me for dropping out of bidding against a woman that “I shouldn’t let myself be beaten by a girl”. I’m not going to buy something for more that I can resell it for because the bidder can’t pee standing up, either.
Is a Maid-Rite a sandwich? I’ve never heard of one before.
Yes. Kevin must be an Iowa boy.
Well, a sandwich and a restaurant. Lots of them here in the QC.
http://maid-rite.com/
In the early 2000’s I bought two cars at auction: a 1994 Caprice 9c1 for myself and a Toyota Carolla for a girlfriend. This was at a rurual Mississippi auction house outside Hattiesburg. The first time I wanted a 9c1 and that seemed like the place to get one. There was still a fair trickle of Caprices coming out of service. The Crown Vics would struggle to bring $1000 from the cab companies but when the one good 9c1 came across the block, it took $3500 for me to bring it home. It was a fair price for a 120k mile LT1, nicely equiped “detectives” Caprice (as opposed to a patrol car).
After seeing the deals people got on the lower end cars, when the time came for my girlfriend to get a car I took her down there. Her only requirement was it had to have a manual (what a woman). The main contenders were a Nissan 4×4 pickup truck and a 1998 Carolla. The truck sold first and was quickly bid to almost $4000 (I bumped it a few times myself once it became obvious there was one guy that just had to have it). People in the south love a 4×4, but that was a lot of money for truck that wouldn’t stay running for more then 10 seconds. Maybe it was an easy fix, but the buyer was still messing with it when we left that evening….
That is, when we left driving a 7 year old Toyota for $1300. The car was a base model, no options but AC. The black paint was burned and flaking off, the interior was filthy. Judging by the mess and “Cowgirl Up” stickers it had been owned by a young mother. But it had low miles and ran great and even today people are asking $2000 for those cars in similar condition. She drove that car easily another 100k miles and might be driving it today for all I know. We got a great deal and had a good time.
So in closing, if you know a friend who wants a good deal on a car and isn’t too picky, take them to an auction. It’s a lot of fun.
Great insights into bumping, and in many other contexts I might feel that it is a dishonest practice. But when put into the context that a car won’t sell below a given price and sometimes buyers need a boost it makes sense.
I’ve even seen an auctioneer tell the crowd “the seller will let this go for $1500 even though the reserve is currently at $2000” when a car stalled at $1400. Just trying to make the deal.
Fascinating stuff! Story reminds me a bit of how one of my friends used to play poker professionally. He told me that some players are paid by card houses to play. They usually get a couple hundred in chips and then they play for real. It’s good because there’s always someone at the table anteing up.
Fascinating to hear about how the car business works. I worked summers at a large dealership when I was in college and always transported the auction cars to them. The auctions themselves (lingo, etiquette, etc.) was mostly a mystery to me–I would just sneak a few free hotdogs and stay behind the action. After reading this and the comments, I’m thinking it might be fun to go to a few when the time comes to replace my current daily driver. I wonder if there’s good stuff at the public auctions that doesn’t attract a ton of bidders that I can get cheap? Hmmmm…
Steven, I would love to hear your take on the Public auctions.
At ours there are 3 types of vehicles. Non-runners, runs with problems, and runs & drives.
Of the non-runners some are obviously accident victims, but some look like they were towed and never claimed. These look like they might be the potential lottery tickets. If the car runs and drives, but the lot doesn’t have keys or any way to check, you might luck out. Or might strike out.
I always assume the extra competition at a public auction drives up prices too much.
Would love to hear your thoughts.
A lot of the success in buying inops has to do with your diagnostic skills of course, and also…
the consignor.
Some sellers have used car sales managers or remarketing who will not put in the time needed to have the car properly diagnosed. This is especially true for cheap trades that have been sitting around for quite a while or were in marginal condition when they were brought to the dealership. Others are obligated to sell a vehicle after a certain time period, regardless of the current condition.
The public auctions are among the most difficult to find good quality cars. A lot of dealers will use them as the dumping ground for vehicles that they believe won’t go for as much money at a dealer auction. A lot of cars that are either unpopular or have serious issues (mechanical and/or cosmetic) fall into this category.
If I were to try to find a deal at a public auction and had limited experience, the inop vehicles would not be my first choice.
As always, great post by Steve.
Gotta admit, I always wonder how much money these guys are making. I’d hazard a guess that most don’t make much; some make a living; and a few clean up.
But it sure does seem like a seedy business by and large (although that doesn’t apply in Steve’s case). When I think of auctions and ringmen, I think of those Mecum boys. Man are they shady or what. And the prices people are [over]paying at those tv auctions are a joke.