Auction results

I waited for a going-out-of-business nursery auction for about two weeks and the day arrived Saturday. Alex decided at the last minute to come with the kids so an hour's drive time and we arrived.
So excited!
I'm thinking we're going to score some big trees for $10, $20.
Then came reality. Japanese maples - common - can get it at the big box fix-it-up stores for $50 or so. People start bidding $100 plus. Are you kidding me??
Seriously discouraged. Want to drive home.
Decide to wait for the fruit trees to go up for bid and the piddly yard decor stuff inside. Peruse the big equipment and decide to lurk near some exhaust fans that would be PERFECT for the run-in shed. Surely I could get these for $50 tops. After all, I've seen them in catalogs for slightly more than that.
Somebody outbids us early on the fans - $130 each and she wants all three. I'm like, C'MON, you don't NEED all three!
Back to the fruit trees. I'm lamenting to other auction attendees that I think this is a rip. What's up with people?
Hayes wants a Red Delicious apple tree. I bid on a Granny Smith and get it for $30, at a $35 savings. Red Delicious comes up and I get outbid seriously on those. For pete's sake!
Peach trees are up and there's a bunch. Surely, I can get one or two? Guy bids $80 for each and takes all 12. Ok, I've had it. I politely ask the fellow if he'd like to sell me one. ONE. He says he has 80 acres and can use all 12. For real? You can't part with one??
Now we get to the piddly indoor yard stuff and some fellow auction attendees and I quickly realize the blonde in front of us is scooping up everything for her nursery business and we haven't got a chance. I mean she's not even writing down the stuff she's buying nor what she's paying for it.
Finally, I score some stupid brass frog hooks and rain gauge for $7.50, just BECAUSE.
I go up to the blonde nursery owner: look, can I buy such and such from you and she agrees. While wheeling and dealing with her husband, I ask to trade two of my boxes of brass frog hooks for one, just one, of the box full of slate welcome signs. I get seriously gyped on this transaction but it's of my own doing.
Even before stuff I'd really like to get comes up, I'm done. Let's go, I say to Alex and the kids.
What a bust.