As mentioned in my previous blog, I spent this past weekend covering the George Watterson Collection auction in Mitchell, Indiana. In that blog, I mistakenly identified this event as a salvage yard auction, and want to correct that piece of information.

    Watterson, over several decades on his property on the western boundary of Mitchell, accumulated hundreds of old cars and trucks (and a mountain of related parts), but never operated as a salvage yard. Quite the contrary. From bits of information I picked up at the auction from locals, Watterson not only did not sell his vehicles or their parts, he did his best to discourage potential buyers from even coming on his property asking if things could be bought.

    The story goes that Watterson was a delivery driver for the Carpenter bus building facility located in Mitchell for many years. He would deliver buses around the country, and then buy a car or truck at that location to drive back to Mitchell. Those vehicles would then get parked on his property and basically remained untouched except to become repositories for more parts.

    The property where Watterson stored his vehicles is, for the most part, a wooded parcel of land that concealed most of his collection except those vehicles parked close to Highway 60 that passed by this property. Further camouflaging the vehicles were several shanty-type outbuildings that were "constructed" from tree limbs, discarded lumber and sheets of metal siding and whatever appeared to be handy at the time of their being erected. Several of these outbuildings were large enough to hold several vehicles and many parts.

    At some point in time, all of these outbuildings collapsed. Whatever their contents remained buried under the remnants of shattered roofs and walls, and years of leaves, limbs and other falling debris that occurs naturally in wooded areas. Many of the vehicles in the Watterson Collection that didn't make the cut to be housed in these outbuildings were just randomly parked in the woods, and suffered the ravages of decades of exposure to the elements. These vehicles included two Willys pickups, a Mitchell touring, a pair of 1958 Ford Skyliner retractable hardtops and enough 1932-'33-'34 Fords of all body styles to keep the hot rod builders busy for the next few years. These cars were numbered and sold first at the sale.

     Due to time constraints, the auction company presenting this sale, Brewer Auction Service, did not attempt to extract any of the vehicles, parts and whatever else was contained in all the collapsed outbuildings. A somewhat unique approach, the auction company owner, Barry Brewer, once all the "visible" vehicles were auctioned, then took the crowd of registered bidders on a walking tour of the property, auctioning parcels one-by-one (roughly: "From that tree over there to the path over there", let the bidding commence). All those interested were bidding on spec, the high bid getting everything on that particular parcel, including what could and what could not be seen, if the parcel contained a pile of parts or a collapsed outbuilding filled with mystery items.

     By the time darkness settled Saturday evening, buyers of some of the parcels that had contained outbuildings had cleared away enough debris to begin revealing some of the buried treasure that Watterson had all those years before stashed away. Speculation was rampant that more cars would be found, and this proved to be true. One lucky parcel buyer, after clearing away a fallen wall, discovered the battered, but restorable remains of an extremely rare 1932 Ford cabriolet.

    The buyers of all these parcels have until the end of the year to unbury their newly purchased items and remove them from the woods. Based on what I saw as the "tip of the iceburg" on what was being unearthed late Saturday night, this is a story of discovery that will continue until after Christmas. Until then, for those who purchased these parcels, every day will likely seem like Christmas with all the treasures that will be found.