But at least you went home with something, it is very depressing to spend 3 hours at an auction and leave with nothing ;.... Rusty
Been there, done that. I've attended two high end tool auctions, e.g. conducted by prestigious auction houses or prestigious tool associations using prestigious auctioneers, where after an hour it turned out there were only a few wrenches to be sold and a whole lot of wood planes and chisels, a.k.a. slicks, gouges, saws, drills, etc. Talk about disappointing!~ I derived several insights from this kind of experience. One, Martin Donnelly always has more wood working tools to sell than he has collectible wrenches. Two, there are a large number of woodworking tool collectors out there (I only know of 6 or 7, personally). Three, some woodworking tool collectors envy wrench collectors because we collect just one tool category (I have been told this by a friend who owns a large volume of 18th century signed planes and a number 1 Stanley, various slicks, etc.). Four, there are more wood trim planes out there than there are interesting wrenches possibly because few can use one of those planes today, but anybody can pick up and use a wrench, (which is not always a good thing).
