Cycad Auction: Actual bidding

The past Saturday I attended a Cycad auction, with the view to buy a few bargains. This however did not happen as prices were quite high on the day. Cycads are quite collectible and collectors will pay good prices for plants that are desirable, or to add plants to their collection that they don't posses yet!!

The nursery where the auction took place, also sells cycads, the photo above and below show some of the available plants.

The plant below, which is a Heenanii sold for 12000 Rand, which in my books is a lot of money, for a small plant like that. (R14.50 = $1.00)

The plant below however was the most expensive plant of the day selling for R25000!!! This plant was a Hirsitus and does not look like much!!

Imagine you buy an expensive plant like this and for some reason it dies!! Most of the plants were however not that expensive. For most lots, they combined 3 or 4 plants which mostly sold between a 1000 and 3000 rand per lot.

The auction house provided free beer, this might have had something to do with the high prices the plants fetched!! Free beer, but you had to pay for normal cold drinks!!

Although I did not buy anything, except for something to eat and drink, I did enjoy the auction and the day out, it was quite interesting. I do have some cycads in my garden and will do a post of one that I have, shortly.

All photos and the video were taken by me, in Pretoria, South-Africa, using my iPhone.