An Arkansas buyer successfully bid USD10,500 to buy this 2001 Daewoo forklift through the Ritchie Bros. auction in Texas

Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers Inc moved forklifts, excavators, cranes, heavy equipment and other items-more than 2,400 in total-at a three-day auction for on-site and online bidders.

"We sold 188 forklifts at our Fort Worth unreserved public auction in July, generating gross auction proceeds totaling more than USD1.5 million," says David Hobbs, division manager for Ritchie Bros. in Fort Worth.

The auction moved equipment and assets that sold for a total of USD35 million of which USD12 million involved bids from buyers outside the US.

"Of the forklifts, 63% went to purchasers outside the state of Texas including to places like Mexico, Venezuela, Poland, Egypt, Panama, 16 other US states and three Canadian provinces," Hobbs says.

More than 30% of the forklift sales were to Internet buyers participating online using Ritchie Bros.'s Internet bidding service introduced in 2002.

"In general, when looking at the past year of auction sales, we are seeing the value of forklifts at our auctions as staying quite strong," Hobbs says.

More than 1,300 people registered to bid in person or by proxy and another 900 registered to bid over the Internet.

Ritchie Bros., based in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada, auctions industrial equipment through more than 110 locations-including the permanent Fort Worth site-in 25 countries.

"Contractors in booming regions like Mexico need equipment they can put straight to work," Hobbs says. "They travel to our Fort Worth auctions knowing they can find the different types of equipment they need."