It's funny, I was sitting at my desk ready to bid on at that auction and I couldn't believe the amount some of the equipment was going for, like you say. I was joking that there must be something in the kool-aid there but then the machine I wanted came up and I won it, probably one of the only machines that went for a reasonable price, especially when you consider how well Dril-Quip took care of their machines, the control retrofit they had put on it, and the capacity of the machine itself. When the Schunk pneumatic chucks came up they went for $8250 each and the buyer purchased all 4 at that price. Once you add the auction fees and state taxes that is over 10k per chuck, but worth it if you have machines of that capacity that need chucks, I can only imagine how much those are new. If you want to see unbelievable used CNC prices, just look at machines in my area.
I'm a long way from Houston so my shipping is really expensive otherwise I would have easily considered one of those boring mills. To have to pay someone else to prepare it for shipping and then the cost of that shipping it almost doesn't matter how cheap you could get it for.
That Meuser lathe was huge. I hope whomever bought it gives it the love it needs. For the price they paid for it I would hope so, it didn't even include the one turret that was designed for it.