https://zengate.org/penny-auctions/

Penny auctions were grassroots protests where local farmers gathered at foreclosure sales and agreed to bid only pennies on repossessed property. The winning bidder – often a trusted neighbour – would then return the land or equipment to the original owner. Outsiders who tried to bid competitively were met with intimidation, and in rare cases, symbolic warnings like nooses hung from barn rafters.

https://therealnews.com/how-farmers-fought-the-banks-and-won-penny-auctions-in-the-great-depression

It was the Great Depression. Early 1930s. United States. More than a thousand mortgages a day were being foreclosed on. Hundreds of thousands of families were losing their homes each year.

Times were hard for everyone. Especially hard for farmers. But neighbors found a way to push back and help their friends in a very creative way. They called it a penny auction.

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But sometimes, neighbors stood up and helped out for their friends in a very creative way. They called it a penny auction, because that’s what it was. See, when the banks put the farmers’ homes and land and belongings up for auction, the neighbors would arrive already committed to keep the price low. They would only bid a penny or two per item. And then they would give it all back to the family. Standing up for their friends in hard times.

And they were serious. In an old black-and-white picture of a penny auction from the 1930s, a noose hangs from the rafters of a barn—a clear threat against those who might come and mess up the plan, and force up the bid to make off with their own bargain deal.

Penny auctions were held across the country, but in particular across the Midwest, during these hard times. Community solidarity in the face of foreclosure. Neighbors standing for each other, standing up to the banks and the powerful, in creative ways. Standing for each other under dark times, against all odds.