About 300 people came and went, bid and bought, and the successful carried away what they hoped would be bargains.
The annual County of Wellington OPP auction held in Rockwood on the weekend and it had goods that would attract just about anyone, and most of those goods attracted multiple bidding.
One man walked up the hill from behind the OPP station carrying a computer tower. Upon being congratulated on his purchase he smiled a little ruefully, and noted now he had to take it home and hook it up.
Others carried away such things as televisions, DVD players, DVDs and CDs, trading cards, tools, an ipod, a Serius radio receiver, jewelry, including wedding rings and a pocket watch, not to mention bracelets and necklaces, various bolt cutters, sanders, saddles, and flashlights. Still others were forced to get up from the office chairs they were sitting on because those chairs were sold.
The goods were part of the police confiscations and recoveries during the course of a year.
It was all a part of the annual police auction. The largest set of goods was a collection of unclaimed, recovered bicycles that sold for a fraction of their retail costs. Bicycles worth over $300 were sold for half their value, or less.
The auction began at 12:30pm and was run by Steven Parr, who kept the crowd not only bidding, but laughing. At one point, with no bids at all for an item, he asked who would take it for free. When nobody volunteered, he offered to pay a dollar to whomever would take the item, and when he got a taker, he went right into his auction spiel, trying to bid that up to bring in some real cash.
He had the crowd smiling appreciatively when he caught a wife topping her husband’s bid. He added that this year’s event far exceeded last year’s.
The beneficiary of the auction has traditionally been Crime Stoppers of Guelph and Wellington.
A Crime Stoppers spokesman estimated the barbecue raised $480.
