British Columbia-based Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers broke its record for the highest-value equipment item ever sold in a Denver auction last week during a two-day multi-million dollar unreserved public auction at the company's permanent site in Denver, Colo. More than 1,900 registered bidders from 32 countries, including 45 U.S. states and nine Canadian provinces, competed for 1,400 equipment items, trucks and cranes.
Bids were placed in person at the Denver auction site and online in real time at the Ritchie Bros. website. The highest-value equipment item sold in the auction was a 440-ton 2006 Manitowoc 16000 self-erecting crawler crane, the largest Manitowoc crawler ever sold in the auction company’s history. A buyer from California purchased the crane for $2.5 million. That same buyer also purchased the highest priced rough-terrain crane in the auction, a 130-ton Grove RT9130E, for $675,000.
"All the cranes sold in the auction, including the Manitowoc 16000, performed well. Overall it was a very successful auction," said Steve Merich, Ritchie Bros. regional manager. "The fact that we conducted a large crane auction last year, and had a solid marketing strategy in place to advertise these cranes, really paid off. Not only did we attract many on-site bidders on auction day interested in these cranes, but also we had equally strong interest online."
Prior to last week's Denver auction, the highest value equipment item ever sold at the site was an unused 220-ton Manitowoc 14000 crawler that sold for $1.75 million in October 2009. Both Manitowoc crawler cranes were consigned by Energy Transportation Inc., a Wyoming-based heavy haul and crane and rigging company.
Other late-model Grove RTs and hydraulic truck cranes sold to out-of-state buyers in the Denver auction included a 90-ton Grove TMS990E hydraulic truck crane purchased online by a buyer from Ontario, Canada, and Grove 90-ton RT890 and 60-ton RT760E RTs purchased by buyers from Ohio.
Telescopic forklifts, skid steer loaders, hydraulic excavators, loader backhoes, wheel loaders, motor graders, motor scrapers, trenchers and crawler tractors, trucks and trailers were among the large selection of other equipment items sold in the auction with no minimum bids or reserve prices.
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