Now that the auction fever has died down from the Lambrecht Auction held in Pierce, NE on Sept. 28-29, 2013 we can look at the cars and prices more objectively.
Many folks were questioning the prices these “rough” cars were obtaining, but as I’ve said before, at an auction, all it takes is two deep wallets to jack up the prices. To my mind, the true gems were the low mileage cars, some with less than ten miles on the odometer and sold on Manufacturer Statement of Origin (MSO). I’m still amazed the original paperwork was available and on hand for so many of these cars. I guess Mrs. Lambrecht knew a good filing system.
Amongst the 500 cars sold were plenty of four door posts, 150 Chevy’s and some rather pedestrian grocery getters. My guess is any in demand classics were long since sold by the owners; as they knew what they had in their wooded lots.
As soon as Van DerBrink Auctions hammered the last car sold, some were popping up on Internet sites touting their connections to Lambrecht Chevrolet. Even now there are lots of New, Old Stock (NOS) parts being marketed as coming from the auction.
The bad news is that 36 car deals were never finalized. Apparently the buyers suffered “buyer’s remorse” and backed out of their deals. That is real sad to hear that someone, knowing that the sale was “as is” would come up for “reasons” to back out of the sale. Many auction sites require bidders, on site or on-line, to post a deposit in advance to avoid some of these unpleasantries.
But of these 36 cars, only 18 were considered by the auctioneers as being worth an attempt to resell them. And over a 10 day online auction, 17 of them sold; but none for astounding prices.
A 1949 Chevy 3600 pickup originally sold for $5,500 but only garnered $3,800 on the second chance. Likewise a 1947 Fleetmaster 4 door originally was bid to $650 but was sold on the second offer to $375, barely more than the salvage value.
And a 1957 Chevy 210 station wagon sold originally for $7,500 but sold for a thousand less on the second try. So it seems reason and logic dropped most prices on the second try.
And let’s see how the flippers of other sold cars fared. These folks paid for the cars and then offered them for sale on the web. Some of the cars were seen on some forums and sites that don’t show the selling price, if any, so it was hard to see how those sellers fared.
But on the auction sites, only one car seemed to jump up in value. A 1959 Bel Air Chevrolet 2-door sedan sold at VanDerBrink for $18,000 and on the web it sold for $25,000 after some cleaning. A 1957 Chevy 210 4-door originally sold by VanDerBrink for $7,000 but only drew a top bid of $5,300 and wasn’t sold. Likewise, a ‘60 Chevy Monza sold for $3,800 but couldn’t draw the requested opening bid of $6,000. And one lad found out the hard way that a car sitting on flat ties in a damp field will probably have a rusted out frame. So his 1969 Chevy Estate Wagon only drew $305 for its parts and didn’t match the original VanDerBrink selling price of $900. A lesson learned, but not too expensive of a price paid!
Note that all these prices do not reflect the buyer’s premiums or commissions on the selling sites. Plus taxes, transportation costs and titling fees were not included.
So it seems that the prices of these “one-time only” cars have settled down to more realistic numbers. My guess is the listings here on Auto Round-Up would be a better value. Keep looking through these pages now for true gems!