If someone was interested in starting a sugar cane plantation, Wednesday was a great day to go shopping for equipment on Maui. Today, too.
The owner of what had been Hawaii’s last and largest sugar plantation began auctioning off nearly everything used to run the 36,000-acre Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. farm that shut down in December.
SOLD!
Items up for bid at the Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. farm auction sold at these prices:
$21,500
2015 Toyota Tacoma 4×4 truck with 20,700 miles
$9,500
Metal truck ramp
$2,100
Rolling stepladder
$200
Atomic absorption spectrophotometer
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Items in the auction represent a bonanza of farm and industrial equipment, including dozens of tractors and bulldozers, cranes, lathes, welding machines and car lifts.
A fleet of passenger vehicles that included more than 100 4×4 pickup trucks also is part of the huge sale, along with components of the sugar mill that has a capacity to turn 7,200 tons of cane into 1,200 tons of sugar daily.
Bidding, which took place at the Maui Beach Hotel and via live webcast, was fast-paced.
At one point, an auctioneer sat down and put his feet up on a table as he watched online bids flood in and push up the price for a 2015 Toyota Tacoma 4×4 truck with 20,700 miles to $21,000.
“We got 21,000. I’m just going to sit here,” the auctioneer announced. “I’m going to do all the auctions this way from now on.”
With a final call pending after three warnings, someone in the hotel meeting room raised the bid by $500 and won. “I’ve got twenty-one-five in the room … sold your way. One bid, that’s all it takes,” the auctioneer said, congratulating the winner on topping his online competition. “He sat there, he watched everything. He bid once. He drives on. That’s how you do it.”
HC&S had more than 60 Tacoma trucks, nearly all of them red, that were sold Wednesday. More than 50 Ford F150 4×4 trucks also were sold.
About 340 items — mostly small vehicles and machinery — were sold Wednesday for a total of about $1.6 million.
A sampling of other items sold Wednesday: a metal truck ramp for $9,500; a rolling stepladder for $2,100; an atomic absorption spectrophotometer (a machine that analyzes the mineral content of soil in plants) for $200; and a gear cutting and shaping machine for $25.
The heavier machinery — including cane hauling trucks and machines that plant cane stalks, spread fertilizer and bury drip-irrigation lines — is slated to be sold today at the auction, which is scheduled to resume at 10 a.m.
Auction firm CA Global Partners is conducting the auction with used machinery seller Perry-Videx and local auctioneer Joe Teipel.
Proceeds from the sale are going to the owner of HC&S, Honolulu-based Alexander & Baldwin Inc.
