Up for Auction

New Zealand's most popular web site, apparently, is Trade Me. It's kinda a combination of ebay and craigslist, for Kiwis only. I saw stated on the news here the other day that on any given day, 67% of web pages hit by New Zealanders are Trade Me pages. That's kinda insane.

Trade Me is one of two main site for NZ job listings (the other being Seek), and has the most comprehensive real estate listings. We found our house initially on Trade Me, and I got my job through Trade Me. But it's mainly an auction site. So far I've only participated in one auction, which I won, for a kids desk and bench for the girls' art work.

This week, I won another auction. But this time, it was in person. At a real auction house. Maidens and Foster is right next door to my office building, and every Wednesday at 1:00pm they hold an auction for general household items. I've been wanting a desk chair for awhile, but I was loathe to pay the $100 the cheapest new ones were at stores. Several weeks ago I went to check out the auction items during the open viewing time, and I saw a few adequate desk chairs. Not wanting to take too much time out of my day, I placed absentee bids on 2 of them (hoping I would not win both, but since one of them I was only bidding $15 on, it wouldn't have been the end of the world). Well, I lost them both, both by $5. I figured if I had the chance again, I'd have to be there in person to bid.

For the next few weeks there were no desk chairs, but finally this week there were several. They were lots number 140 - 146, and I was told that they usually run through about 100 lots an hour. So starting around 2:00 on Wednesday I stuck my head out the window at work to listen for the lot numbers they were up to. When then got to 130, I went down. I was nervous, as I'd never been to a real auction before. I kept my hands tight in my pockets as I didn't want to accidentally bid on something. All sorts of people were crammed into the room, a lot looked like they were just there passing time. But in those 10 lots I got the gist of how it went. And when lot 140 came I, I jumped in right away. I wasn't going to wait around to let any chairs get by me. The bidding started at $20, another guy bid $25, I went $30, and it was over. Whohoo! It was fun, but nerve-racking. And now I've got a sweet desk chair.