Every year on the third weekend in August a week of high end car shows and auctions on the Monterey Peninsula ends with the beyond upscale and world famous Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. On the opposite side of the country a decidedly less upscale collector car event has been held the same weekend in the small seaside town of Owls Head, Me for the past 34 years.

Located at the Owl's Head Transportation Museum, this annual collector car auction has long been a more low key and realistic alternative to the pomp and circumstance for New England car collectors.

The Wall Street Journal posed the question of Pebble Beach or Owls Head in a blog post last Monday. For the past 12 years I have chosen to head north to Owls Head in search of interesting and affordable collector cars for their annual auction, and this year was no different.

In place of six or seven figure cars that have words like provenance and pedigree attached to them, the Owls Head Transportation museum always manages to put together a diverse offering of interesting vehicles which fall, for the most part, in the $3,000-$30,000 range (with a few outliers on both ends). This year's top seller was a beautiful 1909 Overland 30 Roadster which brought $38,000.

Owls Head Transportation Museum director and auctioneer Charles Chiarchiaro jokingly refers the auction as "Gravel Beach" in contrast to the upper crust west coast event. The dress is casual, the food is nothing fancy and the bidding is a little less impulsive. The result is a laid back event where you can purchase an interesting collector car even if you aren't anywhere close to a millionaire.

Making it out to auction week in Monterey is a high priority on my personal automotive to do list, but at least for now I just can't grasp the idea of spending the third Saturday in August anywhere but Owls Head.

Click through the Gallery above for pictures and descriptions from this year's event.

Full auction list with prices realized can be found here.