JEFCO Auction trip report from Mark J. Sullivan: February 9th 2012

Dirty Dirty Dirty!!!

Snow and Ice covered.

As I was leaving the shop here at the house, to head North to the auction in Golden, CO., on the morning of Friday February 3rd, the weather was getting worse as the time and miles passed on. Once on the road with the trailer in tow, I hit wet slushy snow on Highway 115 headed North towards Colorado Springs Co.

Once North of Colorado Springs, on I-25, I got into the worst of the road conditions of snow-packed roads and reduced visibility from the snow fall.

Traffic was for the most part, doing very well, and speeds were moderate, without a lot of people sliding into the ditches.

Snow Piled up deep!

Upon my arrival at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds facility, where the auction was being held at, the fairgrounds personnel were hard at it plowing the parking lots and sidewalks around the facility to alleviate trying to get around in the 18" of wet snow, and they did a very admirable job of it. 

Jefferson County Fairgrounds

 The registration process, along with using the new JEFCO Club catalog website, was fast and painless to say the very least. 


I had one JEFCO club member assigned exclusively to me, to help me register and get my items unloaded and placed inside the building on Friday. Carl was a tremendous asset to everyone all throughout the event.


 Once the event got underway on Saturday, the auctioneers were moving things across the block at a very rapid rate, with help from all of the volunteers and runners. 


It was a very hard read of the event, as to what was selling well and what wasn't moving at all. Except to say that Nitro burning helicopters were NOT SELLING AT ALL.


Electric planes and helicopters sold well it seems, and of all sizes too. Not just the tiny park flyer stuff. Radios and servo's did a bit better than usual but, still at give away pricing as usual.


Giant Scale and 3D-style air frames were a definite bargain too.


I was unable to get even a single opening bid of $100.00 on my quarter scale size SIG brand Piper Cub on Sunday morning, but I attributed that to an error that the auctioneer did when he started the bidding on it.....Mistakes happen I guess......darn it.

RV-4 airplane

I brought the Cub and my remote control Traxxas REVO monster truck back home, as they didn't get any offers at the pass table either.

60" wingspan Chaos Style plane

CM Pro Giles 202 

 I got 4 different planes and 2 different 4 stroke motors that I won the bids on.....plus of course the obligatory bid I wasn't trying to win on a bag of miscellaneous fuel tanks and fuel items.

A very nice OS FS-70 II Surpass glow engine

SAITO .62 FS 4 stroke

Isn't that how auctions go tho? I was just simply trying to hurry up the bidding and got stuck with the items. HA!!!


The trip home was entirely uneventful as the roads were mostly all dry except for a few small patches of water/snow melting across the roads and some spray hitting the windshield was about it, in limited places.


 All in all it was a very profitable trip for me, and I met up with our club president Ed Vincent and club member Rhett Sharp at the auction, along with Rhett's beautiful yet ornery daughter....She's a sweetie....HAHAHA!!!


Right now it's time to get out to the shop, and get busy for a bit, helping Buzz Haviland with his beautifully built SIG LT-40 trainer plane with a verrrry sweeeeeet Saito .62 powerplant.