Good auctioneers make sure that there is a buyer for specific things like that. I'm surprised that there wasn't a used book buyer in the crowd. Though maybe his guy didn't show up.
It's a Salvation Army auction. I imagine the main purpose is to dump stuff that they haven't found any other use for. They get all this stuff for free, any money they happen to make from an auction is just a nice bonus.
Exactly this - and 99% of the time a “pallet of books from Salvation Army/Goodwill” will be entirely romance novels and cookbooks and not worth the pulp.
That depends. For things they expect to go be worth a lot they want two buyers. However for things like scrap metal they just want one buyer - they know that buyer will get a great deal, but the value in scrap isn't high enough to support two and so getting a second buyer means both will disappear soon.
