RB Auctions preps for equipment sale

There's little that grows well across the vast scablands on the West Plains.

But Ritchie Brothers Auctions has found a crop that can temporarily turn serious money out of several acres of land the company occupies along Interstate 90.

A used equipment sale that takes place Friday, Nov. 13 will move between 200-300 pieces of equipment that is slowly being assembled along Geiger Boulevard, RB Auctions territory sales manager, Josh Lubig, said.

This area last hosted a sale in 2011. "We've been in Pasco for the last couple of years," Lubig said.

"We were founded in the Vancouver, B.C. area by the Ritchie Brothers back in the 1950s," with the present company forming out of a furniture business, Lubig explained.

The company had a bank note on a building they bought and sold furniture through an auction. That led to handling the liquidation of a trucking company and they realized it was much more profitable to sell a $10,000 truck than a sofa worth a fraction of that.

And so was born a company that has expanded operations worldwide, has conducted 350-plus auctions and did over $4 billion in business last year. "We're the Barrett-Jackson of the equipment world," Lubig said, referring to the company that auctions exotic automobiles.

The focus of the business shifted entirely to equipment in the 1960s and 1970s. "The lumber industry went through a lot of changes and there were a lot of mill liquidations," Lubig said. Farm sales were the next to be part of the Ritchie Brothers fold.

"In the Northwest we have a main office in Chehalis, (Wash.)," Lubig said. That's a permanent auction facility with a 200-acre lot that is all enclosed and includes theater seating.

A recent auction there had buyers from 43 different countries, and all of the continental United States and Canada as bidders can submit offers on the Internet. Some 1,700 items sold at a value of $14 million in just six hours. "We were done by 2 p.m.," Lubig said.

"When the bids come in you see Nevada, Mexico, you see Michigan (online), and a guy in the crowd puts his hand up," Lubig said. "It happens really fast and each item sells, regardless of value we sell about one item a minute."

The auction will sell equipment from industries such as logging, farming, paving and construction. While Ritchie Brothers is a household name in the equipment industry, "Out in the normal civilian life nobody's ever heard of us," Lubig said.

"Typically, specifically for this sale, I manage Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho," Lubig said. "It's basically the top of Snoqualmie Pass to the Montana border."

From farm tractors to dozers and almost every other conceivable type of used equipment, Ritchie Brothers sells it. This past Monday, Spokane County brought out a fleet of surplus snowplows to join several early-arriving school buses.

"The used market is actually bigger than the new market because there's so much used equipment out there," Lubig said. "We sell 20-year-old dozers that work just fine," fitting the budget of those who cannot afford new."

In the used market there's something in every age, condition and price. "Certain items hold their value longer," Lubig said. "Really it's just like you were buying a car."

Buyers look at the year and how many hours the equipment has operated. Hours equate to the number of miles consumers look at in purchasing an automobile, but it's a similar formula.

"10,000 hours on a machine is like 100,000 miles on a car," Lubig said.

With its decades of experience, Ritchie Brothers also has a solid reputation in determining equipment values, similar to Kelly Blue Book in the automobile world.

"We'll sell a $200,000 piece of equipment that starts at zero and it goes to the highest bidder," Lubig said. "It can sell for $100,000, it can sell for $300,000."

Not all that will be sold are big behemoths.

"In that list of equipment will be a stack of tires or a pallet full of hose clips," Lubig said. "There will be items at the end of the auction where some guy will say, 'Who'll give me $200 for this?'"

Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].