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My Dad bought the last couple cars that he owned at Dealers auctions.

My experience has been with spoon, art, antiques and general merchandise auctions. I have dealt with every major spoon auctioneer, along with dozens of the second and third tier ones from coast to coast and even over seas. On several occasions I have been a successful phone bidder down under.

In all of this I do know their quirks and reputations about how clean their fingers are.

Then I can gauge the strength that an auction went off by the prices realized in relationship to their estimates. Then from watching the overall results of a number of auctions from coast to coast on a weekly basis you can begin to gauge the strenght of markets. Which can be used as a factor in determining what is going on in the general economy.