we want to say thanks to everybody for watching. that's it for us tonight. >> beauty's in the eye of the beholder. so meet the beholders. >> these paintings just did not appeal to me. and i don't think they appealed to my wife, either. >> i said, well, i guess the salvation army is as good as anyplace. we don't want them. >> but one man's trash... >> it just knocked my socks off. >> we have $50,000. >> within a few weeks, everybody knew about it. >> ...is another's treasure. >> did you ever consider stopping? >> there is a point we all have to stop. but no. >> i'm jamie colby, and today,

i'm in denver, colorado. i'm meeting a retired couple who relocated here to be close to family. it was that move, or rather the downsizing that preceded it, that brought this inheritance surprise to light. >> my name's don camp. i don't know a thing about art, and i doubt you'll disagree when you hear about the two paintings that sat in my basement for years. >> don, phyllis, i'm jamie. >> jamie, glad to meet you. >> you have a beautiful home. don and phyllis's story starts a few years back in 2011, when don retires from his job as an electrical engineer in upstate new york. oh, they have all sorts of plans. they want to downsize. they want to travel the world, see their daughter in taiwan and work with christian charities in africa. and they want to be closer to their grandchildren in denver. so don and phyllis sell their house. how long had you been in that house?

>> about 20 years. we had accumulated a lot of stuff. >> with the move date looming, phyllis assigns don the unpleasant task of going through the basement. >> we had a path with boxes on both sides. it was a challenge. >> it's there that don rediscovers two paintings, draped under a bed sheet. >> both of them were probably the same vintage, probably 1920s, in their original frames. >> i knew about the paintings down there, because i'd covered them up with a sheet. >> did you know how you and your husband had obtained them? >> they came from don's parents, so that's all i knew. >> don inherited the paintings from his mother, lillian camp, who had died 21 years earlier in 1990. >> we weren't fond of them, and so they ended up in the basement. ♪ >> one of them is titled "arizona desert."

>> one was a landscape scene from the southwest. >> it was a nice mountain scene. didn't have any particular meaning to us, though. >> eh. the other is titled "ruth." >> it's a woman standing by a doorway and a wall, and you can't make out her features very well. and in the foreground is a pillar with a vine running up the side of it. and that's about it. >> you wanted them out. >> i even mentioned throwing them in the dumpster. >> but phyllis figures a charity will take them. >> i said, "well, i guess the salvation army is as good as anyplace. we don't want them." >> don's about to give 'em away, but hesitates. did you think they were valuable? >> had no idea. so i wanted to contact our local auctioneer and get an opinion. >> that local auctioneer is david mapes, in vestal,

new york, just west of binghamton. don sticks the paintings in the back of his van and calls david on his cell. >> what were you thinking? >> well, i see a lot of paintings come in on the back of cars, so i wasn't real excited. >> don's not getting his hopes up, either. if this doesn't pan out, his next stop -- the salvation army, that is, if he doesn't pass a dumpster along the way. then he opens the hatch to show the auctioneer. >> what happened? >> they were laid out in the back of my mini-van. and his mouth kind of dropped open. i remember his words. he said, "that's just a painting. this other one is art." >> but first, our "strange inheritance" quiz question. grant wood's "american gothic" is one of the most recognized paintings in the world. whom did wood use as his models? his plumber and the plumber's wife, his sister and his

dentist, or his own parents? the answer after the break.

>> so, whom did painter grant wood recruit as the models for his iconic painting, "american gothic"? it's b. wood chose his sister and his dentist to be the farmer and daughter depicted in the painting. >> retirees don and phyllis camp

are busy packing for their move from upstate new york to denver, colorado, when they decide to get rid of two paintings don inherited from his mother decades ago. >> they were not our favorite. >> [ chuckles ] >> if we'd fallen in love with them, then i think it would have been a different story. >> on a lark, don takes them down the road to local estate appraiser david mapes. first, david eyeballs that southwestern landscape. >> it was a pleasant picture. >> pleasant? >> yeah. >> then the appraiser takes a good, long look at the woman in the red shawl. while the appraiser is staring at that painting, don is staring at the appraiser. >> and his mouth kind of dropped open. >> it just knocked my socks off. >> right in the parking lot? >> it just spoke to me. it's just one woman. you can't see her face. it's covered with a shawl. this simple, plain, exciting scene of this woman.

>> they bring the paintings inside so david can look up the signatures on his computer database. first, he types in the signature on that "pleasant" western landscape. >> karl hoerman, a german artist. >> did he tell you what he thought that one was worth? >> maybe $800. >> nothing to sneeze at. then david examines the picture of the woman in the red shawl. in the lower left-hand corner, a signature -- victor higgins. >> victor higgins. how much did you know? >> i never heard of him before. >> turns out, the guy's work sells for big bucks. >> one of his paintings sold at sotheby's for over $400,000. >> he appeals to the modern aesthetics, not only back then, but specifically today. >> mark sublette, an authority on western painting, knows all about victor higgins.

born on a farm in indiana in 1884, the artist leaves home as a teenager and studies painting at the art institute of chicago. in 1913, he's one of many american artists blown away by an international exhibition of modern art called the armory show. >> you had all these cubist and impressionistic paintings coming from europe. and it really shook up the entire art world. >> the staggered american artists, including higgins, resolve to develop their own modern styles. so several artists from around the country converge in taos, new mexico -- at the time, a sleepy southwestern pueblo. >> we have crystal-clear, blue skies with wonderful light penetration. it's a perfect setup for a colony, and that was exactly what happened. >> they establish the taos society of artists.

higgins travels to taos and becomes a member. his southwest paintings are a hit with his wealthy, big-city patrons. >> higgins makes most of his money sending paintings from taos to chicago and new york. >> his work becomes even more popular after his death in 1949. back in upstate new york, appraiser david mapes shares the news with don camp. that painting he was ready to toss in a dumpster is a big deal. >> it's an unknown painting. it just popped up, and here it is. i said to him, "this is a very valuable painting," and he said, "how valuable?" i said, "well, it's going to sell for over $100,000." >> i was amazed. >> that's a good number. >> [ chuckles ] yes. >> what did you think would happen? >> i had no idea. i was just glad that they were out of the house. [ both laugh ] >> keep in mind, don and phyllis are busy clearing out their house for the move to denver.

don doesn't think twice about leaving both paintings with his eager new acquaintance. >> he wasn't counting on it being worth anything, so it's gonna be christmas, whatever it brings. >> but before david can put a painting that he hopes is worth six figures on the market, discriminating buyers will need to know a lot more. >> they may be fakes or frauds. that's the first thing as a dealer -- is it real? 'cause often, they're not. >> here's another quiz question for you. what's the name of the desert in southern new mexico? is it the chihuahuan, coyote, or sonoran desert? the answer when we return.

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desert in southern new mexico? it's a, the chihuahuan desert, which extends into west texas. >> in upstate new york, don and phyllis camp learn from their local estate appraiser that one of two paintings inherited from don's mother might be worth 100,000 bucks or more. >> it was good news. >> it's this portrait of an elusive pueblo woman, signed by the prominent taos school artist victor higgins. >> it's a very good field to be selling into, because a lot of collectors love that type of painting. >> first, david mapes has to appraise and authenticate the painting for auction. there are three notations on the back, written in pencil -- the name "ruth," victor higgins, and $600. >> and if you think about it, that was quite a bit of money back then. >> after decades in a dusty basement, mapes has a name and a

purchase price. but he still needs to know how "ruth" got into the hands of don's family. >> david asked me, "what's the story behind this painting?" i talked to my brother. we agreed that it must have come from our great uncle, curtis. >> why do you think he would have been interested in southwestern art? >> well, uncle curtis was a corporate attorney, as i understand, and he was on the board of the chicago art institute. >> where victor higgins studied. the appraiser concludes the painting is authentic and was likely painted in the 1920s. he knows he's about to stun the art world. you're like in the outskirts of new york. you're not in manhattan. you're not in the southwest. this is not your expertise. >> for the most part, we do estates. whenever somebody passes away, we go and take everything out that we can sell. we often find treasures in there, but not like this. it had everything going for it.

>> and when he shares his findings with art experts, he learns there's even more reason to love this painting. it turns out that ruth is a rather special lady. that's because after the 1920s, higgins switched his focus from painting human figures to landscapes. >> higgins quit doing paintings with figures. quite frankly, the pieces that are going to demand the most value in today's market are the ones with figures. >> for example, this higgins landscape sold for $130,000 in 2005. but a higgins similar to "ruth," entitled "four shawled women," sold at sotheby's for more than three times that amount, over 400 grand. that would be quite a payday. but remember, don and phyllis stuck the painting in their dusty basement for years. >> the canvas was a bit saggy, a little bit loose.

there was quite a bit of cracking in the paint. >> i'm thinking, "well, okay, maybe it'll draw $100,000." >> little does he know, mapes gets a far bigger offer for "ruth" even before he advertises the auction. david's on the road when a top dealer reaches him on his cellphone. >> he said, "i want to make you an offer before the auction." i pulled over. i said, "what's your offer?" he said, "$300,000." >> impressive. >> [ chuckles ] exactly what i said. >> even a small auction house in the middle of new york countryside, within a few weeks, it was apparent that everybody knew about it. >> mark sublette isn't surprised that big-city dealers would circle around the small-town auction house. >> generally, a painting like that's gonna go to one of the major auction houses. and as dealers, we hope that we might be able to get a bargain, quite frankly. >> did you call don? >> no, but things are going through my mind. if he wants to pay $300,000,

then other people are going to pay more. i thought about it for a short period of time, and i said, "no." >> that's risky, isn't it? >> it could be, but i was so confident in this picture and the market for it. >> next lot is the higgins. >> so, is the small-town auctioneer in over his head? >> okay. >> will savvy dealers paint him into a corner? or will ruth provide a windfall to a couple in their golden years? >> okay, we have $50,000 to start. who'll do $60,000? >> what's your "strange inheritance" story? we'd love to tell it. send me an e-mail or go to our website, strangeinheritance.com.

>> now back to "strange inheritance." >> a victor higgins painting entitled "ruth" is headed for auction. art dealers are intrigued that a work by the famous taos society artist has turned up out of the blue, or, in this case, out of the basement.

>> as a dealer, we love to get pieces that are one-owner, family. it makes it more special. >> it's don and phyllis camp's strange and rather ironic inheritance. in their own words, they never cared much for ruth. >> what is it you didn't like? >> the lady looked very sad, like she was floundering. it left me with an empty feeling. >> listen, art is in the eye of the beholder. >> that's right. she's very lonely. i'm not a lonely person. >> but the lonely figure of ruth is precisely why an arizona art collector named ray harvey is so excited about the painting. >> the thing about higgins -- the figures are very rare, very hard to come by, and very much in demand. >> you were committed from the minute you saw the image? >> pretty much. >> you could say ray has a special interest in ruth. he purchased that similar higgins, entitled "four shawled women," from a private seller in 2008 for more than half a

million bucks. was there extra intrigue because no one had seen "ruth"? >> definitely. it's just so nice when a painting like that comes up undiscovered. >> ray will be out of the country when ruth goes up on the block. he makes plans to watch the auction online from a hotel in positano, italy, and bid by phone. >> as it happens, don camp and his wife, phyllis, won't be there, either. they're visiting their daughter in taiwan. did you tell your daughter, "oh, by the way, while we're here, we're auctioning these two very ugly paintings we can't wait to unload"? >> [ laughs ] yes. >> we had 10 people on the telephones, fielding bids, and then we had a number of people in the audience. >> others are booting up their computers, like ray harvey in positano, where it's 1:00 a.m. >> you're always nervous about auctions, especially when you're buying something sight unseen. >> are you already logged onto

the internet? >> well, tried to. couldn't get on. the connection was bad, and i'm thinking, "i sure hope they can get through me. >> then, just before the bidding gets under way, ray connects by phone with the auction house in upstate new york. >> what if the phone hadn't gone through? >> it's unfortunate. you would just miss out. guys like myself, i guess the chase is a big part of it. >> the first one is the lot 97, the karl hoerman. >> first, a warm-up -- the other painting that don inherited, entitled "desert landscape." >> margaret buys it at $1,100, 161. >> it sells for a more-than-expected $1,100. is that an omen for "ruth," who don and phyllis considered donating to the salvation army, if they didn't just throw her out? >> everybody on the phones? >> i asked for an opening bid, and it opened at $50,000. >> okay. we have $50,000 to start. who'll do $60,000? >> the dealer who offered david mapes 300k a month before the auction is there and still

eager to bid. so is ray harvey. >> $70,000. we have $80,000 in the back. now $90,000. $90,000. >> they had quite a bit of action on it. >> do you remember your first bid? >> it was $300,000. >> i have $300,000. >> okay, we have $300,000. >> that would have been a good price? >> that would have been a steal. >> can i get $310,000? >> no one's getting a steal today. >> $320,000. $330,000. >> it keeps on climbing, past 400k, $450,000. >> we get up to $500,000. >> anyone drop out at that point? >> oh, yeah, a lot of people did. it was down to ray harvey, plus the floor bidder. >> did you ever consider stopping? >> you know, there is a point we all have to stop. but no. >> $640,000's bid. $650,000. we have $650,000 on the phone from italy. >> going once, going twice... >> is the camera ready for this? [ laughter ] [ crowd cheering ] >> sold to the arizona art lover

ray harvey. >> you want the total number? >> sure, why not? >> $650,000. >> i'm gonna fall off my chair. >> okay. [ both laugh ] that's about what i did. i had no concept, no concept, that it was worth that much. >> holy smokes. >> as of now, that's the third highest price that his paintings have ever sold for. >> victor higgins' enigmatic painting of ruth darn near ended up in a dumpster. >> well, i think the main thing i like about it is the color and the simplicity of the woman. >> ray will soon loan "ruth" to various museums, but today, she lives in his entryway, looking every bit the masterpiece. >> and the condition to this day after so many years in a basement, under a bed sheet. >> it's an amazing story. and i refer a lot to paintings that are collection-makers, you know? this would be considered a collection-maker. >> here's my wedding. >> as for don and phyllis, that unexpected windfall courtesy of

"ruth," gives them a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make a charitable donation bigger than they ever imagined. they fund the completion of a well for a needy community in africa. >> we gave 1/4 of it to a christian mission in kenya so that that well could be completed. >> that's spectacular. what did you buy for yourself? >> we bought a new car. that was all. >> a ferrari? >> no. a honda odyssey. >> you're so sweet, phyllis. >> we were just grateful. >> turns out, don isn't the only one in the camp family who inherited a painting that once belonged to old uncle curtis. his big brother also got one by another prominent taos artist named walter ufer. the difference is don's brother actually liked his, so much so it's been hanging in his home for half a century. i'm jamie colby.

thanks for watching "strange inheritance." and remember -- you can't take it with you. >> a man who can have anything... >> he'd lay awake nights trying to think of a way to make a dollar. >> ...throws nothing away. >> you must have said to grandpa, "this can go, can't it?" >> yes. and we told him that a million times. >> one strange inheritance. >> wow, and it's packed! >> one heavy burden. >> how much do you have? >> oh, about 3 million pounds. >> one heck of a yard sale. >> this has got to be the largest i've ever seen in my life. i said, "if you can organize it, we can inventory it, and we can sell it." >> [ auctioneer calling ] [ door creaks ] [ wind howls ] [ thunder rumbles ] [ bird caws ]

>> i'm jamie colby. and today, i'm in tulsa, oklahoma. i'm here to meet the son of a remarkably successful businessman and epic hoarder. file this under 80 years of grit and true metal and 40 acres of scrap metal. >> my name is john hemphill. in february 2016, my father passed away. he left me a thriving company that's a testament to his business acumen. he also left me a 3 million-pound headache that says a lot about my dad, too. >> i meet john in the lobby of hemphill corporation. and this was your dad. >> yeah, this is dad. he started the business back in the '50s. and i'm running it now. come on. i'll show you. >> as john drives me around the company, i come to understand the "jekyll and hyde" nature of his strange inheritance.

these look like cell towers. >> yeah, these are guide towers for wireless communication. and that's our main business now. >> but his dad built that business while indulging his industrial-strength urge for collecting. big stuff -- iron, scrap metal, machinery... things you can't squirrel away in a closet. take, john says, these assembly-line carts, please. did he really need this many? >> oh, my goodness. no. and he didn't need the ones that are out in the yard. we have dozens and dozens. >> it all starts with this serious little guy, elmer hemphill, born in 1935 on a farm near tryon, oklahoma, to parents elsie and marvel. >> he learned his work ethic from my grandparents because they believed in work. >> the hemphills, like other oklahomans, are hit by drought and dust storms during the great depression.

many of their neighbors flee to california. but they stay put. when elmer is just a kid, a stranger shows up at the farm to buy some hay. and the boy jumps at the chance to make a sale. >> i see you got four bales of hay there. >> my grandma looked outside, and he was talking to a guy that had shown up. >> how much you want for all four? >> for all four? >> she went out and asked if, uh, she could help him. and he said, "this young man's already taken care of it." turns out he did make a fair deal, probably better than grandpa would've made. but, uh... >> how old was he? >> she said he was 5 at the time. >> so he was a pint-sized deal maker. >> yes. >> at age 13, elmer convinces the town banker to give him a business loan. what is a 13-year-old borrowing money for? >> well, he was gonna use the money to buy registered sheep and raise 'em and sell 'em. and he made some good money. >> he had a mind like a steel trap. >> earl hart grew up with elmer,

and they became friends for life. >> elmer'd lay awake nights trying to think of a way to make a dollar. he was just determined to succeed. >> in 1953, the teenage entrepreneur heads to the big city, tulsa, with 600 bucks and a simple philosophy. >> it was "you never know how far a toad'll jump until you punch it." what it really meant was "you can't just sit back and hope things happen. you gotta go after it." and he was definitely one to punch the toad. >> like when he starts his own drilling company, then goes on to manufacture machine parts for aerospace and military applications. along the way, elmer gets married and starts a family. as soon as he's old enough, son john joins him in the business. signs of his dad's obsession are everywhere. john just doesn't yet see them. >> my first job was cutting weeds. and i remember a lot of the stuff that's still here back

in the '70s. having grown up with all this stuff, i really never thought of it as being as crazy as it was. >> no kidding. after all, business is booming. by the late 1970s, elmer's company has 150 employees. and his family's growing, too. four kids and then a brood of grandkids, including john's daughter, kristen, a chip off the ol' block, who learns about business and life from her papaw. sometimes he failed. >> and sometimes he really succeeded. but either way, he kept a good attitude. >> he also keeps that stubborn dust bowl "waste not, want not" mentality that increasingly baffles john. >> he would keep a piece of pipe that was, you know, 1 foot long. >> bigger stuff, too, like this defunct drilling rig purchased for 25k for a railroad project in west virginia back in 1967.

or this contraption that dates back to the '80s. >> he actually invented this drilling rig for a special project for the tulsa expo to lash on to a pier to help secure the foundation. >> the tulsa exposition center endures as a city symbol. the big rig just gathers dust. but john doesn't complain. no questions asked of dad? >> no questions asked, no. when he looks at something, he doesn't see what a lot of us see. he sees potential. >> in the mid-'80s, when the price of crude oil plummets, elmer punches another one of those toads and ends up in the business of building transmission towers for those newfangled cellphones. >> we started building cell tower sites, and we've been building 'em ever since. probably built about 5,000 of 'em. >> but with each new endeavor, elmer's stockpile of retired equipment gets taller and wider and, john knows,

increasingly irrelevant to the business at hand. what will hemphill ever do with these extra-large hydraulic rigs or thousands of feet of fencing? and is anyone saying at that point, "oh, my god, we gotta unload some of this stuff"? >> no. it was pretty much known that we just needed to put it where he wanted it put [laughs] and live with it. >> but living with it is about to become geometrically harder, for elmer's no longer content with stockpiling scrap and equipment left over from hemphill's own jobs. now he starts actually gobbling up other companies' junk just because. >> i don't care what it was. and if it was cheap enough, he'd buy it. and he said, "someday, it'll be worth something." >> that's next.

>> but first, our "strange inheritance" quiz question. radioshack, samsung or motorola? the answer after the break.

♪(somber piano) ♪you may say i'm a dreamer

♪but i'm not the only one ♪i hope some day you'll join us♪ ♪and the world will live as one♪ >> so, what company made the world's

first mobile phone call in 1973? it's "c," motorola. from a manhattan street corner, exec martin cooper called the headquarters of rival at&t to claim bragging rights. >> oklahoma business mogul elmer hemphill spends decades amassing a ginormous stash of industrial machinery, spare parts, and scrap metal that nobody, least of all his thriving company, really needs. having worked with his dad for years, elmer's son, john, is tiring of watching it all pile up. did he tell you what he was planning to do with it? >> he would always talk about how we could use it to build overhead bridge cranes and build fencing. >> but elmer's just a magnet that never lets anything go. eventually, he's drawn to other companies' scrap, like this plate-rolling system that elmer buys for $75,000, then puts out to pasture.

>> if it was a piece of metal, he'd take it. i don't care what it was. and if it was cheap enough, he'd buy it. and he said, "someday, it'll be worth something." >> "if only it were just metals," says his son, john. >> he used to say that if a, uh, trainload of pencils was cheap enough, he'd buy it. >> that pencil train never arrives. instead, elmer catches the ones full of tractor seats, file cabinets, and office chairs. i assume i've seen it all? >> oh, no. no, there's -- there's a whole bunch more. >> bolts, bricks, drill bits, chains, springs, trucks, trailers, you name it. it all seems so random. >> it definitely is. >> it looks like junk. but, to him, was it treasure? >> oh, it was definitely treasure. >> if there's a day when john realizes his shrewd businessman dad is also, let's just say it,

a hoarder on the industrial scale, it may be when this shipment arrives. what do we have here? >> these are, uh, machining tables from mcdonnell douglas. and they helped win the cold war. >> in what way? >> they were used to build the instruments and the parts for, uh, military aircraft. >> the cold war ends in 1991. but elmer's biggest hoarding years are still ahead of him. he grows his scrap collection to fill multiple warehouses and litter 40 acres of land surrounding his company headquarters. >> so, jamie, here's an interesting piece. and it's been sitting here for over 10 years. >> worth anything? >> it's really just scrap today. >> by this time, elmer's granddaughter, kristen, is trying to coax him to let go. >> something like this, you must've said to grandpa, "this can go, can't it?" >> yes. and we told him that a million times.

>> but that old tulsa drilling rig stays, like everything else, including elmer, into his 80s. he's always been an iron man. but now there's rust on his fenders and creaks in his hinges. >> and, uh, one day, i said, "elmer, why don't you retire?" "oh, i don't wanna retire." he said, "when i die, i wanna be walking across this shop floor." >> in february 2016, elmer l. hemphill passes away surrounded by friends and family at the age of 80. >> it was the night of the super bowl. my stepmom, audrey, was right beside him. but we knew that it was time for him to go. >> son john inherits the business and all that heavy metal his dad hoarded while running it. >> all this steel how much do you have? >> oh, i'd estimate probably about 3 million pounds >> millions? that's amazing. >> it just grew and -- and grew and grew and, you know,

we just need to get rid of it. >> and he's going to leave that job to his heir, daughter kristen. >> my grandfather could be rolling in his grave right now. >> up next, getting on top of this heap. >> i've appraised everything in america that's ethical, moral, or legal. and when i saw hemphill's collection, i was overwhelmed. >> here's another quiz question for you. the st. louis gateway arch, the george washington bridge, or the beijing national stadium? the answer when we return.

>> so which architectural marvel

is the largest steel structure in the world? it's the beijing national stadium. dubbed the bird's nest, it was built for the 2008 olympics with 110,000 tons of steel. >> when elmer hemphill dies, he leaves his son john his oklahoma business empire. but the strange part of this inheritance is a stockpile of cast-off equipment, machine parts, steel, and scrap. it's a 3 million-pound headache. so john figures he'll leave that to his daughter, kristen, and son-in-law, jim. >> i told jim and kristen that if it's a project they wanted to tackle, that i'd love for them to see if they had ideas. >> i'm always interested in taking on new projects. so dad asked us. and we were crazy enough to do it. i really felt like i needed to step up and help my dad out and help the family. >> but you can't just call goodwill to pick it all up.

so, where to begin? did grandpa keep notes on all this stuff? >> he did, actually. in the back room, there is a library full of notes that papaw took about each project. >> so do they give values? were there bills of sale? >> no, there wasn't values. >> thank goodness for ebay. with a couple of mouse clicks, kristen finds out these antique carts, built to roll on railroad tracks, can fetch 1,500 bucks apiece. elmer has hundreds of 'em. and parts of the steel yard that look like scrap could be worth tens of thousands to individual buyers. kristen's thinking, "maybe grandpa elmer was right." and if she finds the right buyer, she'll turn his scrap iron into gold. but her husband, jim, weighs in with a reality check. there's 3 million pounds of this stuff! >> i don't wanna spend two or three years doing this.

>> so he and kristen approach kristen's dad with a proposal. how about a massive auction, on-site at hemphill and across the world on the internet? >> they said, "well, what would you think about auctioning it?" and i thought, "boy, i don't know if dad would want that." and then i went home that night and i'm thinking, "well, i don't know why i didn't think of that earlier." >> so kristen and jim call in various auction houses. the immediate response -- "you're nuts." >> most of the auctioneers that jim and kristen talked to basically said, "we can't handle this. this is way too much for us." >> when i saw hemphill's collection, i was overwhelmed. this has got to be the largest collection that i've ever seen in my life. >> louis dakil of dakil auctions in oklahoma city, however, is up for the challenge. >> i've appraised everything in america that's ethical, moral, or legal. and i said,

"if you can organize it, we can inventory it, and we can sell it." there's one saying we have in our industry -- you can't outlive iron. >> i have told 'em if we make some big money on it, great. and if we don't, it's okay. i think success is it being outta here. >> sounds like it's time to let the bidding begin. >> some things that i thought were, you know, potentially going in the trash are treasures to some people. >> that's next. what's your "strange inheritance" story? we'd love to tell it. send me an e-mail or go to our website, strangeinheritance.com.

>> now back to "strange inheritance." >> in 2016, members of the hemphill family -- john, his daughter, kristen, and her husband, jim -- join forces to auction off 40 acres of cast-off machinery and equipment.

it's a strange inheritance left to john by his dad, an oklahoma businessman with a love for all things iron and steel. louis dakil of dakil auctions says most of the bidding will take place online. and the plan is everything sells, no matter the price. >> this auction is an absolute auction. no minimums. everything that goes on the block will be sold. >> it takes kristen and jim three months to itemize and catalog grandpa's gargantuan inventory of heavy metal. finally, in august 2016, the big moment is here. how many lots are we talking? >> 1,186 lots. >> one of the first items up for bid, this antique trailer, fetches 300 bucks. these 100-foot monopole towers left over from elmer's early days in the cell tower business

go for $230 each. things are selling fast, but cheap. >> i've been watching all morning, since 9:00. some things that i thought were gonna go for more are actually selling for less. >> [ auctioneer calling ] >> like these antique railroad carts, similar to one she saw on ebay for $1,000. hundreds sell, but for only 17 bucks apiece. >> [ auctioneer calling ] >> then there's that old railroad drilling rig, purchased in 1967 for 25k. it sells, but for only $4,000. and the gigantic plate-rolling system elmer bought in an old shipyard in south carolina for 75 grand sells for just 1,000. >> my grandfather could potentially be rolling in his grave right now. >> but kristen's delighted when this hydraulic plate shearer, designed to cut metal and alloy,

goes for $2,025. and that rig elmer designed for the tulsa expo building, it goes for 4k. >> i had no idea how much that was gonna sell for, so that was a surprise. >> over the next 48 hours, the hammer falls on thousands of items. >> we sold some things for $4,000. we sold some things for 50 cents. so the price range was pretty large. >> so are you guys exhilarated or exhausted? >> both. i would say both. [ laughs ] >> the grand total -- 175,000 bucks. not exactly petty cash. but considering the time, effort, and money elmer invested, they have to admit, this was one toad that didn't jump so far. >> they love their grandfather. they love their father. but basically, his perfect storm was buying and storing,

but never getting rid of anything. >> that's why, for john hemphill, the bottom line is all good. his strange inheritance is out the door. >> it's kind of, uh, oh, bittersweet because i know dad would wanna hang on to it. but i know it needs to be released. and ultimately, it's -- it's a good thing. >> back in 2013 when the hemphill corporation was renovating the office, elmer's kids surprised him with a gift befitting a successful entrepreneur -- a fancy desk, a big comfy chair and a flat-screen tv. elmer never touched it. instead, he took his ratty old desk, bought this second-hand trailer, put the desk inside, and drove around in it to every job site so he could be close to the action. and that's where you'd find him till the end of his days. i'm jamie colby. thanks so much for watching

"strange inheritance." and remember -- you can't take it with you. have a great weekend. good night. >> announcer: from fox business headquarters in new york city, the new "wall street week." maria: welcome to "wall street week," the show that analyzes the week that was and helps position you for the week ahead. i'm maria bartiromo. our special guest, former microsoft ceo and the current owners of the los angeles clippers steve ballmer is with us. it was a busy week. a good week for stocks. wall street betting the moderate candidate will win and preserve the european union. the nasdaq composite crossing