Ruhter Auctions

On my recent visit to Kansas , I stopped in and visited with Randy Ruhter as he was doing a farm sale. Randy promptly introduced me to the owner, and told him how his advertsing program had attracted a bidder from Canada to go with the Mexican bidder that he had met earlier ! This is what the Internet is all about.

Here are some photos of the nice oufit that Randy runs.

A Couple of Stealthy Vehicles

While travelling through the Badlands last month, I stopped at the museum at Ellsworth AFB just outside Rapid City SD. They have a very nice display, and you can get up close with the planes on display.

The B-1 bomber looked very much like our 300M, even down to the same color. The car would get a scratch on it the following week, but that is another story.

Purple Wave Auctions

Last month when I was in Kansas for the Kansas Auctioneers Association annual convention in Salina, I stopped to visit the Aaron's of Purple Wave Auctions in Manhattan Kansas. They run a very nice show, with an innovative online bidding system. They catolog their entire auction and place on the website for pre-bidding. They remove the items from the website just before the auction and use these as proxy bids for the live auction. This eliminates the hassle and costs of live online webcasting, but allows for easy bidding through the website.

Aaron Mckee and Aaron Traffas are also very committed to advertising their upcoming auctions on as many websites as possible. They input their entire catolog on asmany sites as possible, and invite bidders to click through the listing directly back to the pre-bidding page for all the individual items.

I really think these guys have the model working for them that most auctioneers will have adopted 5 years from now.

Interview on CBC

I have been meaning to post a link to this TV interview I did last summer. It must have been a very slow newsday for them to drive out and do this interview on a hot summer day when I was busy doing some farming jobs.

We had some great feedback on it, and the reporter did a great job of tyeing it all together.

Although we didn't need to talk about Ebay, did we ?

Download the 2 minute video from here.

We are a new columnist for Successful Farming Magazine

I have been friends with Dave Mowitz , the Machinery Editor with Successful Farming magazine for several years. We had been bouncing ideas around for sometime about how we could work together as the auction topic is very popular with the 442,000 readers of every issue of the 104 year old magazine. This is publication that started the company that became Meredith Publishing which includes Better Homes and Gardens

So I wasn't surprised when in mid November when he calls me up and tells me he needs some articles about auctions and finding equipment on the Internet. It also didn't surprise me that he needed it within a week. That's just Dave.

So we made our debut in the magazine in the January Edition of the magazine, and you can find the online version of it at Searching for iron on the Net

We also contributed Internet Iron: 5 tips for auction success

They also have a very nice feature that includes testimonials from many auctioneers at Internet Iron: Online machinery buyers share their thoughts

We look forward to working with them in the future and this can only bring more people to be aware of Farm Auction Guide

Louisville Farm Show

We had a show booth at the National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville Kentucky earlier in the month. With over 300,000 farmers through the doors over 4 days, it was great talking to many of you at the show.

I also want to drop some names of some others we had the privilege of spending some time with.

Successful Farming magazine was out in full force with Curt Blades working their booth with Greg Pedersen aka "Machinery Pete". Dave Mowitz was also checking out the new equipment for future articles in the magazine.

It was nice to once again say Hi to Tom Davis, the publisher of Successful Farming

Thanks to the guys at Phoenix Rotary Harrow for the hospitality. Russell Clark, Todd Botterill, and Bob Botterill.

Lots of entertainment watching the different distributors selling AgCams Great seeing Dave and Chissy Rubey again, and it was fun meeting Andy Glover , if only for the drive across town for dinner. Thanks again for the Tractor Pull ticket Andy.

It was an amazing show, and we look forward to being back again in '07

Auctioneers that are Blogging

Just came across this blog that appears to be run by an auctioneer.

Have a look at AuctionMethod.Org