I attended the Tri-Lakes Chamber of Commerce awards banquet in Colorado Springs on April 14. One part of an enjoyable evening was a live auction, during which the best items were sold.

The auctioneers did a good job. So good that I got caught up in some transtemporal travel. I went back to my years in the auto industry and the unique experience that is an auto auction.

There’s nothing quite like an auto auction, particularly large ones where they run as many as six “lanes.” That means there are six auctions going on simultaneously. You may have a car you’re interested in selling at Lane 2 right now, then have to dash to Lane 5 hoping that another target vehicle hasn’t crossed the block yet.

But watch out for the shill.

At an auction, a shill is someone who surreptitiously works for the seller. They bid on the seller’s cars in order to drive the price up. It’s a dangerous game because if they win the bid, the seller will end up paying the buyer’s and seller’s auction fees without actually selling the car. Skilled shills are able to drive the price up without being the winning bid.

Shills are strictly forbidden by auction rules, but with six lanes running at the same time, they are hard for the auction staff to identify.

As a buyer, finding the shill is a priority.

A buyer should arrive at the auction grounds long before the sale starts. In some cases, even the day before. The auction book lists every car that will be offered during the sale, so you identify those that would fit your inventory needs. After personally inspecting each and arriving at a price that makes sense, make a note of who the seller is.

Next, you scan the book for other vehicles being offered by the same seller that will run before the one you want. When the bidding gets down to two prospective buyers, make a note of them — in particular the one who finished second in the bidding. If you have the luxury of watching 2-3 sales before your target vehicle runs and the same person is involved in the bidding, you may have identified the shill.

When you’re bidding, if it comes down to you and the potential shill, back off the bidding and pretend you’re letting the shill win. Once the shill knows they’ve been marked, you’ll be able to get the car with a “half,” or $50 bid increase.

Identifying the shill can save you a few hundred dollars on each sale.

It’s not foolproof. Sometime, particularly if you’ve only been able to witness one sale from the seller, the guy you’re bidding against just happened to be bidding during the previous sale and isn’t a shill at all. In those cases, you lose.

Interesting characters

At high-end auto auctions, like the Barrett-Jackson in Scottsdale, Ariz., you run into some interesting cars and characters. One year, they had an entire tent full of Ferraris. There are also interesting historic vehicles like Mae West’s limousine and Douglas MacArthur’s staff car.

But it’s the people you see in Scottsdale that are the most fun. One year, I was sitting in the buyer’s tent waiting to pay for an old fixer-upper I had purchased. The guy sitting next to me looked very familiar. When I asked where we met, I found out that it was rock star Alice Cooper. He’s nothing like his onstage persona. He’s a very nice guy who enjoyed talking about coaching his son’s Little League team.

Another time, my brother, David, who’s a true car expert, kept correcting the large, boisterous guy at the table next to us during dinner.

My oldest brother, Dennis, whispered to David: “Don’t you know who that is? It’s Reggie Jackson.”

“Who the (expletive) is Reggie Jackson?” David responded loudly.

“Mr. October!” Dennis answered. “One of the greatest baseball players of all time.”

“It’s a good thing he’s good at baseball,” David said, again loudly, “because he doesn’t know (expletive) about cars.”

Jackson loved it. For the rest of the auction, the two were inseparable. David’s not the biggest guy around and Jackson is huge, so they looked like Mutt and Jeff as they tromped around the grounds comparing notes.

And guys like them don’t worry about shills.

I attended a Chamber of Commerce awards banquet in Colorado Springs on April 14. One part of an enjoyable evening was a live auction, during which the best items were sold.

The auctioneers did a good job. So good that I got caught up in some transtemporal travel. I went back to my years in the auto industry and the unique experience that is an auto auction.

There’s nothing quite like an auto auction, particularly large ones where they run as many as six “lanes.” That means there are six auctions going on simultaneously. You may have a car you’re interested in selling at Lane 2 right now, then have to dash to Lane 5 hoping that another target vehicle hasn’t crossed the block yet.

But watch out for the shill.

At an auction, a shill is someone who surreptitiously works for the seller. They bid on the seller’s cars in order to drive the price up. It’s a dangerous game because if they win the bid, the seller will end up paying the buyer’s and seller’s auction fees without actually selling the car. Skilled shills are able to drive the price up without being the winning bid.

Shills are strictly forbidden by auction rules, but with six lanes running at the same time, they are hard for the auction staff to identify.

As a buyer, finding the shill is a priority.

A buyer should arrive at the auction grounds long before the sale starts. In some cases, even the day before. The auction book lists every car that will be offered during the sale, so you identify those that would fit your inventory needs. After personally inspecting each and arriving at a price that makes sense, make a note of who the seller is.

Next, you scan the book for other vehicles being offered by the same seller that will run before the one you want. When the bidding gets down to two prospective buyers, make a note of them — in particular the one who finished second in the bidding. If you have the luxury of watching 2-3 sales before your target vehicle runs and the same person is involved in the bidding, you may have identified the shill.

When you’re bidding, if it comes down to you and the potential shill, back off the bidding and pretend you’re letting the shill win. Once the shill knows they’ve been marked, you’ll be able to get the car with a “half,” or $50 bid increase.

Identifying the shill can save you a few hundred dollars on each sale.

It’s not foolproof. Sometime, particularly if you’ve only been able to witness one sale from the seller, the guy you’re bidding against just happened to be bidding during the previous sale and isn’t a shill at all. In those cases, you lose.

Interesting characters

At high-end auto auctions, like the Barrett-Jackson in Scottsdale, Ariz., you run into some interesting cars and characters. One year, they had an entire tent full of Ferraris. There are also interesting historic vehicles like Mae West’s limousine and Douglas MacArthur’s staff car.

But it’s the people you see in Scottsdale that are the most fun. One year, I was sitting in the buyer’s tent waiting to pay for an old fixer-upper I had purchased. The guy sitting next to me looked very familiar. When I asked where we met, I found out that it was rock star Alice Cooper. He’s nothing like his onstage persona. He’s a very nice guy who enjoyed talking about coaching his son’s Little League team.

Another time, my brother, David, who’s a true car expert, kept correcting the large, boisterous guy at the table next to us during dinner.

My oldest brother, Dennis, whispered to David: “Don’t you know who that is? It’s Reggie Jackson.”

“Who the (expletive) is Reggie Jackson?” David responded loudly.

“Mr. October!” Dennis answered. “One of the greatest baseball players of all time.”

“It’s a good thing he’s good at baseball,” David said, again loudly, “because he doesn’t know (expletive) about cars.”

Jackson loved it. For the rest of the auction, the two were inseparable. David’s not the biggest guy around and Jackson is huge, so they looked like Mutt and Jeff as they tromped around the grounds comparing notes.

And guys like them don’t worry about shills.