The Know Your Auction team
Last updated .
Three people write Know Your Auction. Marcus Hale edits the site and buys at dealer sales every week. Priya Raman builds the fee and title tables and rechecks them monthly. Curtis Delgado writes the inspection, collection and transport pages after nine years around a physical auction lane.
Marcus Hale
Editor
Marcus ran a small independent lot in the Midwest for eleven years and bought most of his stock at dealer sales within a day's drive. He still bids most weeks, usually on late-model trade-ins, which is why the arithmetic on this site is laid out the way a buyer meets it: hammer price first, then the invoice with the premium and the gate charge, then the bill from whoever moves the vehicle. He writes the pillar guides and the platform comparisons, and he signs off on any figure that goes into a table. Marcus is direct about the limits of his own experience. He has never bought a boat at auction and says so on the pages where that matters. Corrections about a fee tier or a registration rule reach him first, and he will tell you plainly whether we are changing the page or standing by it.
Pages by Marcus
Priya Raman
Research and data
Priya builds and maintains the fee tables and the fifty-state title reference. Before this she spent six years doing data work for a remarketing company, cleaning sale files and reconciling what a lane reported against what the invoice actually said, which is a thorough education in how many charges never appear in a headline rate. She rechecks every published figure each month against the platform's own schedule, records the date on the page, and flags anything that has moved so the change is visible rather than silent. Where a schedule is vague, or varies by branch or membership tier, she publishes a range instead of a false precision. She also writes the two title how-tos, on the grounds that the state-by-state reference work and the practical business of clearing a lien are the same research problem approached from opposite ends.
Pages by Priya
Curtis Delgado
Field and inspection
Curtis spent nine years driving transport and then writing condition reports at a physical auction, which means he has walked around several thousand vehicles with a flashlight and a clipboard. He writes the inspection, collection and transport pages, and the printable checklist. His argument is that most auction regret is settled before bidding opens, in the twenty minutes a buyer either spends or skips looking at the unit and its paperwork. He is the reason we describe what damage looks like rather than quoting a grade, since grades are defined differently from one sale to the next and a photograph of a soaked carpet is not. Curtis also handles the boat and equipment how-tos, where hull numbers, hour meters and load widths decide far more than the odometer ever will.
Pages by Curtis
About the photograph
The image at the top is a placeholder drawing, not a picture of anyone. We would rather show nothing than a stock photograph of three strangers presented as our staff. If we publish a real photograph later, it will be of the actual people named on this page.