Folks Of Interest Another yard closes

For those of us living in southeastern Virginia, Philbates Auto Wrecking has been a treasure trove since the mid fifties. Word came out last evening that it has been sold to an investment group, and closes 24 March. 48 acres of old cars are going to be crushed to make way for an industrial park. Sad

 

Any possibility of a "last chance" sale/auction?! Sad News.

 

https://www.facebook.com/Philbates-Auto-Wrecking-Inc-155070724528686/photos/?ref=page_internal

Rust in Peace...

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It seems there’s all those old parts/cars rusting away in junkyards, but no one wants them until the yard is sold and the stuff will be scrap metal…

 

Maybe Leno would buy 'em out!

 

Yeah. Anything? The last post on their FB page was 2019

 

I had heard that they were pretty much closed up 2 years ago.

 

24 march is close anyone close by, one may perhaps get one last stab at it but I suspect Insurance and liability would say no sorry...fingers crossed for anyone taking that initiative...

 

It is still open from 8 to Noon on Thursdays, which has been the hours for the last few years. A group of us go every week. Lots of stuff still to be found piled in the buses. Recently picked up a hard to find 364 Nailhead 4 barrel intake, as well as a couple of Ford Maverick 8 inch rears and a set of 15" Buick 5x5 Rallye Wheels.
A lot of the things shown in the pictures long gone...

 

That's good then and it's great you might get a couple more visits...I guess the fact there was that vintage of tin means there could still be some buried treasure...

 

A lot of time the owner wanted too much for his parts, or was too stubborn to sell. that may be why there is still so much stuff there. We had a junk yard in Colchester, Connecticut that closed about 8 years ago. That was the attitude of Tony Galatro, the owner. Before the yard closed Tony finally let some of us in there to pick some parts. He went into a senior citizen type home, and his family convinced him to sell everything for scrap. He died soon after.

 

I bet there isn't one Gearhead in that investment group, that has enough foresight, to save a variety of the pieces of cool trim and metal shown in the pictures, to at least make a cool artistic tribute wall, to show respect for what the new industrial park, used to be!

 

Those poor school busses

 

That's really not the function of an investment group, even though there are many kinds of "investment groups". Some are in for the long haul and some are strip it quick and bury it like Carl Icahn. Junk yards are not considered investments beyond their scrap metal and real estate value and even then, y'all better consider it might be a hazardous waste site.

 

That owner was pricey while he was still living. His wife, who runs it now, has prices that are more fair

 

The son posted in 2018 that they hoped someone would buy the property and keep the yard going

 

I'll bet your right...

 

I was actually thinking about you when I saw those busses, then when I read your post I spewed Crown all over my desk computer...and by crown I meant Royal Crown cola and by desk computer I meant my personal laptop, during my break, since it is still business hours and I never surf on line on company time/property. Damn it Anthony!

 

Those large rounded rear ends.

dang.

the wife and most of my kinfolks call my bus “Big Girl”

mmmm

 

Always surprised these situations don't end with a auction.
My guess is that the amount is too much for the family to do if the kids have other jobs.

 

Sad to see but I'd have to think that too many times the land under the wrecking yard gets way too valuable and the taxes get way too high. That and a nice retirement kitty for mom and maybe a college fund for the grands looks pretty good after years of working there every day.
As for selling off parts or cars, what I have seen in this area is that the operators would rather crush cars and sell parts for scrap rather than give someone a deal that brought a few dollars more than scrap price. I tried to buy a cab out of a yard that was closing out here locally a few years ago and they still wanted a full bore price for it rather than taking what amounted to a bit over twice the going scrap price for crushed cars at the time.

 

Another heartbreaker. Has happened around here several times in the last 10 years or so. When the owners are ready to deal it's great to buy huge amounts to save it, but it's a huge undertaking to do that for the buyer.

This is one of those situations where a middleman is the hero. It would take someone to pony up the cash up front to buy out a bunch of the good stuff (at least, big piles of loose parts and some cherry-picked treasures) in order to resell them later. At least that way it gets saved. A lot of people shit on those re-sellers trying to make a buck, but they're doing the work that really needs to be done in times like this.

 

Sad state of the times. While the cry of the day is recycling, it seems as though they don't recognize the way we use and reuse old parts, it's just junk to them. Everything is buy, use, and throw away anymore. Really sad.

We lost all the good old yards several years ago around here when scrap went sky high. The few left won't let anybody in and don't carry much over 20 years old.

 

The convenient way is to hire an auction Co. to come in and manage the sale soup-nuts. They take their % cut and the rest of proceeds go to the family.
Probably not enough single/high dollar items (such as rather complete sought after cars like you see in Vanderbrink estate sales) to make it worthwhile for an auctioneer. There's a ton of labor in cataloging, photographing and listing items. Most of the random parts are probably $25-$100. They would have to auction entire sections of the yard to make it worthwhile. But then it would probably bid out to scrap or just over scrap, so again, it's not worth the work.
The other problem with yards is getting large items out. It's not likely you'd just drive your truck/trailer in there and winch a car on. That 57 Olds would take a helo to get it out.
Sucks, but we see this time and time again. The old curmudgeon has this much old stuff because he always set prices over the years at 125-150% and wouldn't budge on price. He passes, and the family wholesales it off to a scrapper and developer for a quick turnaround.
Only hope as mentioned is a few saviors get in there and cherry pick good stuff, stainless trim, etc.
I'm amazed when I see pics of these old yards. You'd have to go back 40+ years to see that type of yard in Socal.

 

Hot Rods Ta Hell is right, there's probably very little in that yard that would sell for much above scrap price in an auction setting. That's a damn shame, because there's a TON of stuff in there that would sell for good money, but it would have to be picked out of the yard, cleaned and inventoried and listed on the internet with plenty of time to find a buyer.

I'd love to get into a place like that and buy up a huge amount, but I'd have to be getting it pretty cheap, and it would take a fair amount of time. It really is a shame, but there's no real easy way to "save" most of this.

One of my favorite local salvage yards bought out most of the inventory of another nearby yard when they were crushing out, lots of 40's and 50's cars hit that yard over a period of about a year and it was open season for picking for me. I still go there quite a bit. But it takes someone else to be nearby, have a salvage license, have a bunch of investment cash, and have the time and equipment to move hundreds of cars, to make that happen.

 

A lot of good exhaust manifolds on that wall.

 

Several years ago City Auto Parts in Hartford, Connecticut was being sold. Same story, 2 brothers, one was okay, but Tony was hard to deal with. I was asked to come look / bid on some 1950's-1960's stuff. I looked the room full over, and made an offer for about 25% of the parts. Tony wanted top dollar, and you had to take it all. I passed on it. I know the 2 guys that bought it all. They had a friend selling the parts on Evil-bay. They sold about the same amount, 25% of the parts that I tried to buy. They picked the cherries to sell first. They now have a pile of so-so parts that probably should go to Carlisle where someone might need / want them.