Four days left. 87 bids have been placed across 133 items, and 77 of them still have nobody on the board.
Which is roughly how this always goes. Most of what happens at a silent auction happens in the last two days, and most of what happens in the last two days happens in the last two hours. We are about to find that out again.
So before Sunday, here is an honest accounting of where things stand.
What has already moved
The Complete Vehicle Detailing Service has been going back and forth all week and sits at $110.
The Costco Gift Card has 3 bidders competing for it.
The signature styled Kendra Scott Elisa Gold Pendant Necklace is at $70 and seeing stiff competition between two bidders keen on taking it home.
40lbs of Grass Fed Ground Beef from one of our local farm families is up to $180 with three bids so far.
If you are in one of those races, this is the moment to decide what your actual ceiling is and enter it, rather than finding out at 7:40 on Sunday that you had one more bid in you and no time to place it.
What is still sitting there
A Made in KC gift basket with a $150 Jack Stack gift card in it. Read that again: the gift card inside is worth more than the opening bid on the whole basket. Burnt ends and everything that comes with them, plus a basket full of Kansas City favorites around it. Opens at $100.
A 2007 Club Car 48-volt electric golf cart. It has spent years shuttling guests across the Heart of Life parking lot every week, which is the best condition report anybody can give you — this thing works, and people have been riding in it recently. Four seats, batteries less than a year old. If you have a campground site, lake property, or more acreage than you want to walk, this solves a problem you have been living with. Opens at $2,000.
An authenticated, game-model Bobby Witt Jr. autographed Homewood bat. Most signed memorabilia is a photograph of somebody doing something. This is the actual object — a full-size pro-model bat with a Royals-blue barrel, signed in silver, hologram attached, brand new. Opens at $550.
Andy Reid and Steve Spagnuolo, both signatures on one framed photograph. Either coach alone is a find. Getting both on the same piece is the hard part, and somebody already did that work for you — matted in Chiefs red, engraved nameplate, twenty by sixteen, ready to hang the day you get it. Opens at $450.
Four custom-finished crankbaits in the Wiggle Wart style. The man who made these fishes them himself, and there’s video of him pulling fish out of the water on his own baits — a stronger product review than anything we could write. Hand-finished, not pulled off a factory line, and there are five more lots of his work in the catalog: jigs, lipless baits, deep divers, glide baits, most opening at $25 or under. Opens at $25.
None of these are going to stay quiet. Somebody will find them on Sunday afternoon. The question is only whether that somebody is you, bidding calmly on Wednesday, or four people at once on Sunday evening.
And the small things
There are still 54 items in this catalog sitting at an opening bid of twenty-five dollars or less.
Handmade cards. Crocheted animals. Christmas baskets. A teacup with a fern in it. A jar of hand-turned pencils. All of it was made or gathered by somebody who wanted to help, which is a different kind of value and worth more than the price on it.
If you have been waiting for a reason to join in and the big lots felt out of reach, this is the part of the catalog that was built for you.
How Sunday night actually works
Everything closes at 7:45 PM — but “closes” is softer than it sounds, and that is deliberate.
If an item gets a bid in the final three minutes, its end time moves back three minutes to give everyone room to answer. If another bid lands in that window, it moves back again. This keeps repeating until three full minutes pass with no new bid, or until the auction has run thirty minutes past its original close, whichever comes first. So nothing goes beyond 8:15, and most items will have settled well before then.
Two things follow from that. Nobody wins by swooping in at 7:44 and fifty-nine seconds — a last-second bid just hands you three more minutes to respond. And nothing you wanted disappears because you stepped away for a plate of food.
If you are watching that last half hour, the site makes it easy: once extended bidding starts, you will see Extended Bidding notices with a link that shows every item still in play. One page, everything still live, no hunting through the catalog.
The 50/50 closes earlier than everything else
The raffle is at $330, which means the winner currently takes home $165.
Ticket sales stop hard at 7:30 PM on Sunday — fifteen minutes before the lots start closing, and with no extensions. Tickets are $5, five for $20, twenty for $50, online or at the door. You do not need to be present to win.
Come anyway
Sunday, November 8 is Orphan Sunday. Doors open at 6:00 and the program begins at 6:30 at the Garden City campus. It is free, there is food, children are welcome, and you do not have to bid on a single thing to come.
Four days. Go set your maximums.
