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Advice on Possible Surplus Auction Purchase (MR Reflection 17)

Joined
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Location
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Good evening, all. I’m pretty new to the forum. I joined becau I’m thinking of building a cedar strip canoe over the winter. I currently have a Sea Eagle kayak that we use on RV trips, but I wouldn’t mind having a knock-around canoe to use locally.

Anyhow, I work at a local army base and the outdoor rec department is selling some of their rental canoe inventory, specifically seven Mad River Reflection 17s. Sale is sealed bid, and you have to bid on a specific canoe or canoes. If you bid on multiple canoes, you have the chance/risk of getting all you bid on. I looked at them today and they look to be in ok shape for rental canoes. I realize the pics dont show a lot of details but wondered if anyone had any thoughts. I was thinking about throwing a bid on maybe two or three at $200 and seeing if I get lucky.
 

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We had both the Dagger Reflection 15 and 17. Excellent recreation boats IMO. They definitely look like they are worth $200.

Good Luck!
Barry
Thanks for weighing in, Barry! We’ll see how it goes. I wish it was a live auction instead of sealed bid. Hard to decide which ones to bid on because they’re all in pretty similar condition.
 
Update: I stopped over at Outdoor Rec again today to look again and I was talking to the manager. He said I should put in bids for each of the eight canoes. He said if I happened to win all, I don’t have to follow through and purchase all. I can take one (or more) and then they would move to the next highest bidder on the others. So I’ll probably do that and also put a bid on a four canoe trailer they have.

Looked the canoes over a little more closely and they seem pretty decent. Seats, thwarts and yokes look good.
 

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go for the gold! even if you get all of them a little cleanup should easily get you $1000 a pop...
$1000 CDN? :) In all seriousness, I don't think the canoe market is that hot here in the midwest. The rental guy said they are getting rid of most of their rental canoe fleet because everyone wants kayaks. I am definitely going to bid on all of them, although I think I'll stick with my $200 a canoe amount and see what happens. I might not get any. There is apparently a boy scout troop interested as well. $50 is the minimum bid. They also have some 15' Old Towns, but I'm not really interested in them. I greatly appreciate all the input.
 
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Those look like good heavy haulers, and in good shape. You can't go wrong buying 2 of them. Good luck with your bids.
 
Bids have been placed. We’ll see what happens.
Some of them have wear through the ABS layer at stems/sterns shown below. Others don’t. I bumped my bid up a hair on a couple with less wear. I’ll let you know how it goes after bids are opened next week.
 

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Seems like great opportunity to get a good canoe for a low price, very locally. You can put skid plates on a canoe with worn stems. There are lots of picture threads here documenting how to do that.
 
Jag - you are right about the canoe market In the Midwest. A few years ago during the height of the pandemic I was purchasing used canoes for the local nature center where I volunteer. The pricing on used Grummans was pretty high but seems to have cooled more recently. And we have also found that in terms of rentals, kayaks are in much more demand. The center recently got several aluminum canoes donated which they don’t really need and will probably be turning down future donations of canoes.
 
$1000 CDN? :) In all seriousness, I don't think the canoe market is that hot here in the midwest. The rental guy said they are getting rid of most of their rental canoe fleet because everyone wants kayaks. I am definitely going to bid on all of them, although I think I'll stick with my $200 a canoe amount and see what happens. I might not get any. There is apparently a boy scout troop interested as well. $50 is the minimum bid. They also have some 15' Old Towns, but I'm not really interested in them. I greatly appreciate all the input.
there has been very high demand in Canada for the last year, because so many suppliers had to shut down, and with most social activities also shut down new people turned to the outdoors for their downtime, I've seen "planter- grade" fiberglass rec canoes that cost $600 new go for as high as $12-1500CDN, theft is also high so people are desperate to get back paddling at any cost, My 54yr old woodstream was stolen the summer before last and probably sold to some unfortunate sucker, because anybody with experience knew it was on it's last legs with brittle glass, rotten woodwork, and several large patches...
 
I have bought and refurbished a few “fleet” boats in the past. They all had decent enough hulls, maybe not good enough for heavy use but they made excellent canoes for folks who wanted to hone their white water skills on the rocky nearby Connecticut rivers where I lived at the time.
I payed maybe $150 a canoe and sold them for around $550-700 back about 10 years ago. I didn’t get fancy, no deck plates on some, just removed old stickers, scrubbed them clean and installed new spliced ash gunnels and decent webbed seats.
I made very little money considering the time, transportation, and material but it was fun and I met some great folks.

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Results are in! I ended up getting one canoe, that I bid $275 for. As I mentioned up above, I bumped up my bid on a couple of the nicer ones and this seemed to be the best of the lot. Although the stem and stern have wear, they are not worn through to the foam. I bid $200 on most of the rest and was not the high bidder at that price. The bidding rules seemed a bit loose. Although we were required to submit bids on each canoe individually, I think they would have sold me as many as I wanted for $275. I decided to stick with just the one.

I'll post a pic when I pick it up, which probably won't be until next week. So I'll get it just in time for winter. :) Meanwhile, I may or may not get started on a stripper project, but I'll leave that for another thread. Thanks for the helpful advice.
 
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You are fortunate to have a wife who will paddle with you. Of course, I have myself to blame for taking my wife paddling way back when we were dating and still learning to paddle and I way over-estimated our ability to handle swift water resulting in a few unintended swims.

But just yesterday she agreed to paddle down a local river to a heron rookery where it is reported that a few bald eagles have evicted the usual tenants and moved in. It’s taken about 45 years but I am getting her back in the canoe.
 
Finally picked up my surplus auction canoe today and got it home. I’m very pleased. When I went to pick it up the gal said she was only going to charge me $200 instead of the $275 I bid. It’s dirty and scuffed up from being a rental, but otherwise in fine working order. Now I need to see if I can get anyone in the family to go on the water with me this weekend before the snow flies! CB33B5F9-99EB-4EAE-AFA9-66C296EFF026.jpeg8E3B9D6C-9007-4BA0-AC9F-CF566F93ABF4.jpegF8DEF716-048F-490D-9979-21686E42D9F8.jpeg
 
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