The auction ended with no bids and no sale. The auctioneer started in the
multi-digit millions and worked his way down to 3 million before calling it
quits.

I haven't heard what has happened since. It seemed to me that the control of
the sale remained in the hands of the auction house even after the official
auction. They certainly continued to work the few capable bidders after they
ended the auction. The auctioneer made a prediction that he would have the
company sold within a few days "gaaraauuntteeeeed."

There was a couple of weird things during that auction.

1) For those of you who didn't see the announcements, you had to put up a
$100,000USD deposit to be eligible to bid. So, the interested parties were
certainly known to the auctioneers and yet they used spotters to work the
crowd as if anyone could chime in.

2) They started the auction and then took a long break. The reason was
because someone needed to make a few phone calls. I'm sorry, what?! No bids
had been placed so it wasn't like someone had to figure out if they could
afford to go up another million. Perhaps someone realized that the bidding
was going to start lower than they ever dreamed and suddenly realized that
they could own it after all. However, if you hadn't done your homework and
weren't prepared with the deposit, it seems a little late.

3) They had a one-man band playing during all the lulls. Pretty annoying.
They introduced him as coming from Las Vegas. I suspect that they took away
his musicians license there - OK that might have been a cheap shot but I
thought it was a waste of electricity. On the other hand, he was able to
provide a mic when the built-in one didn't work.

All in all, a pretty entertaining hour - but then I'm a Lake owner.
---------------------------------
Travis

"Darrel Toepfer" wrote in message
...
Anybody able to report on the sale of the Lake amphib line auction?

This was also a "new feature at OSH"...