Shirkle,
Welcome to the show. The Baltimore Auction was my first one as well and I went in there with no real clue outside of some 10 year old FAQs. I will be happy to share with you what experience I have. First of all, go ahead and get something. Even if you have to take it apart and carry it up piece by piece it will be worth it.
What to expect. When you arrive there will be a table set up where you need to go and register. You pay a refundable deposit to get your bidders card. You then go onto the floor and the games will be lined up and marked with a number. Make a note of the game numbers you are interested in. Be careful as you select these so that you don't waste your time or attention on something you won't want or get. Last year they had two auctioneers running down the rows so games were being auctioned at the same time. Take a hard look at
http://www.basementarcade.com/arcade/auction/a55/Data.html for a list of what the games sold for at that auction in precious years. You can then build a list of games to bid on and more importantly games to pass on. If I had done just that on my first auction it would have been 100% better.
The auction normally starts with new production Galaga machines and the like that go for high hundreds to a few grand in with a heavy mix of crap. Inkjet printers, popcorn makers, bar trivia machines, slot machines, wooden indians, CD jukes, and all manner of hot dog cookers. The money bags who came for a Galaga will be thinned out here. This part will also last an hour or two. Instead of being a total newbee and sitting in the front row go play some games and savor the flavor of being surrounded by hundreds of classics. After the crapfest ends they start running down the rows. You will see allot of bidding by people who want something, anything, and are bidding on just about everything for the first part of the first row. Then it tends to settle down a bit. The real frustration last year was the tandem auctions so you had to jump between crowds and try to hear the dualing PA systems. There will be some freakin hotties that follow the auctioneer and write up sale tickets, if you are the high bidder on an item collect your sale sheet from them. As soon as you pay for the item at the table you registered at you are free to go load it. You will read allot about the non working games being auctioned off last, at the Baltimore auction last year they had them all mixed in so be aware of that. They power each game up as the auctioneer reaches it so you can see what is up. Watch carefully for games that you saw working or tested yourself that don't work when they try to power them up. I bought one like that and the toadie powering them up for the auctioneer simply didn't know how to turn the game on OR didn't wiat for it to warm up or finish booting.
And best of all, get ready to see a virtual freak show when it comes to people attending the auction. You will see some normal people like yourself but there will be many ones that look like they stepped out of a timewarp. Big thick plastic framed rose tinted glasses, lots and lots of satin jackets with company logos, beligerant old men in power chairs hell bent on running you down, a virtual sea of bad comb overs, and a few hot women with guys who look like they were realeased from prison the night before and slept in a bus station down the road. Bring a camera.
It would make sense to be there when they start if you're after working games, as they start on those as soon as they're done with the misc junk. I'm generally more interested in the non working stuff they sell off last, so I'll sleep in and show up later in the day.
Watch out this year, they may be changing that format. Last year at Baltimore they mixed the working and non working games together, marking the non working with a red X. It seemed to bolster up the prices of the non working ones.
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Topic: Who is going to the Baltimore auction in Nov? (Read 2226 times)
