A bid of fun

Ever since I came back from the local auction house with tales of "Guitar Hero: Rock Band" selling for £20, the boys have said they wanted to go and pick up such legendary bargains.

This Friday, I remembered to go to the viewing. Matt was away at a friend's and Karen didn't fancy the outing. Harry also wasn't keen but once he got there he was very taken with ... many things, mostly entirely impractical.

Amongst more realistic options, I decided we could look out for a toaster for Matt (apparently the boathouse needs one), a backpack for Harry and perhaps a new breadmaker for Karen.

On the morning of the auction, we all went down although the boys lacked patience to stand around and wait for the auction to reach the required stage.

Karen agreed to keep me company. For the most part we were simply watching. Over time, you understand the protocols and the subtleties of the format.

We were a bit reluctant to bid for anything, and of course were careful not to scratch our noses or point at things !

Eventually, the sale came around to the section where our target items were on display but before we could get to that, we suddenly found ourselves bidding for some BT cordless phones. Karen is always on the lookout for the perfect handsets.

£18 seemed a relative bargain. In fact I decided to bid and buy a second set of phones although, when some other phone lots went for as little as £6, they didn't seem quite as cheap.

Having overcome the initial anxiety about bidding, it seemed rather easier to get involved with other lots.

In due course, we landed a huge glass vase, a hoover, a juicer, 2 breadmakers and a draining board ! We failed to secure any of the toasters or the bag that we came for.

Although we started tentatively, by the end the auctioneer knew our bidding number and we were known as "in the hat". Our bidding signals - very bold in the early rounds - became more subtle as we were acknowledged as serial buyers !

So, in the end we had committed to about £100 of hammer-price items and had of course mentally forgotten about 15%+VAT premium and 15% of VAT.

Still, the checkout process was very efficient: we couldn't even remember what we'd bought but 10 minutes after we had left the floor we had an itemised bill and were all sorted.

Of course I had to go and get the car and a boy to help with the loading. The roads were somewhat chaotic around the auction site - we took the safe option of parking a distance away so as not to add a £60 parking ticket to the auction costs.

On the face of it, our items were bargains. £135 all in for face-value of about £500+ and it all looked in good order.

We have become more aware of what caveat emptor means though as most of the boxed items that looked new have revealed themselves to be probably returned stock with some faults.

In the case of the juicer, the fault is remedied by a quick tweak here and there. In the case of the £12 hoover (RRP: £99) it seems it may be going straight to the tip - no signs of life in it !

Karen is cooking test loaves today in the breadmakers and the phones are on charge. The vase definitely works although it turns out to be more of a bargain than we bargained for: it is HUGE !

The Simple Human draining system was probably the biggest disappointment: they retail at over £50 and Karen wants a new one. This one was ours for just £4 (plus 15% and 15% of 15% and another 15% of course !) but on purchase it turns out to be a well-used one in a brand new box - a bit sneaky that one.

Perhaps we should stick to towels, flowers and chairs next time but it was good fun I think !