Legitimacy of Auction Houses

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Posted By: Mark Rios

Why does it seem that every max bid I place at an auction
is ALWAYS "maxed-out" when I wake the following morning.
Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

And could I find a way to verify the supposed bids that where placed? And by whom?

Additionally, how do you really know the classic "15 minute rule" is not really complete. Hmmmmmmmmm.

I will avoid getting into the "juice"....


Comments?

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Posted By: barrysloate

I'll respond to your question the same way I would to my own auction customers: if you have any reason to question the max-bid process, don't use it. Likewise, if it is impossible for you to stay up to the end and you are forced to use it, be prepared to pay the max and occasionally you will be surprised to find you got an item for less. Plenty of board members can attest that they have gotten many things below their max bids. In time you will learn which auction houses you feel most comfortable with.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

in several auctions.

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Posted By: leon

I won a lot last night that was not at my max proxy bid....another obak strip....take care...

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

I have won several items WAY below my "Max Bid" in these auctions:

Leland's
Mastro
Robert Edwards

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Posted By: Anonymous

Especially early in an auction, it is just to easy to keep clicking away until you get the high bid. If you ar going to use Max Bids, they are best used late.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Several years ago, the bidder would type in a bid in the MastroNet auctions. I had the high bid on an lot and, with perhaps seven minutes left, typed a $15,000 max bid instead of the intended $1,500. It was a nervous seven minutes, but my previous high bid was not raised a dollar.

My guess is that there are a lot of financially healthy people who chose to purchase their items from respected auction houses like MastroNet and Robert Edward and have little desire to participate in the eBay flea market. If I had $70,000 to purchase a Yankees jersey for my daughter's sixth birthday present, I'd probably start with the Steiners or a MastroNet catalog rather than the eBay search bar ("But dad, I wanted pony.")

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Posted By: Judge Dred (Fred)

I've won many different lots from several different auction houses (large and small) where my max was not reached. Overall, I trust these auction houses because they pretty much know that once they've lost the trust of the buyers it's difficult to get it back. For example, there's an auction house in Florida that many people shy away from for that reason. I will not name the auction house. Some people might feel that is would be unfair to mention the name of the auction house that includes:



Part of one of Joe Namath's nicknames that describes a wide street and where starletts like to have their names in lights...

and includes Paul Rueschel's brothers first name

and includes the name of a pitch that is between the knees and shoulders and crosses home plate

and whose name also includes part of the name of a wildly famous Rod Serling narrated TV show from many years back, as in Twilight (_ _)



...so I wont mention the name.

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Posted By: Judge Dred (Fred)

Hal,

I would guess that one of the reasons your max bids are probably not topped is because the GNP of small nations is less than your max bids....

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Posted By: Mark Rios

You fellas are being too cavalier about the issue.

Obviously, I know it is my choice to bid or not bid on a item at any auction house.

I have also won items in the past below my max bid.

The point that I made; which is being ignored, is how do
you verify bids placed against you that the auction house claims have been placed............

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Posted By: leon

One of the big things about any auction house is the privacy issue. They will never tell who the winners and underbidders are....it's the nature if their business.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Leon:

Just so you know... I whined about this same issue once after a Mastro auction...

and Doug Allen and Kevin Struss contacted the underbidder and asked him if it was OK to let me talk to him to actually VERIFY that he did bid up to my max and that he had no idea what my bids were.

The underbidder was none other than Patrick Preece, a board member and obviously legitimate bidder...

so I no longer have any reason to doubt or question the legitimacy of these big auction houses.

I agree that they have too much to lose by skirting the ethical boundaries. They proved it to me that day.

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Posted By: leon

I remember that very well....Mastro is a fine auction house and will always try to accommodate customers. I think almost any auction house today needs to give good service to stay in the game. It sometimes seems we get pushed to our max bids too often but I would agree there is too much to lose to do that. Now, if we want to talk about folks bidding in their own auctions then that's another story.....and another thread.....

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Posted By: barrysloate

I've gotten numerous lots from the big auction houses below my max bid, and as an auctioneer myself I have to say that if people leave a max bid roughly equal to the retail value of a lot, why are they surprised if it reaches their max? Why should they expect a bargain in so competitive a market? Also, collectors get suspicious if their max bid is reached, but if they get topped by one increment, they are completely comfortable with that. And that really makes no sense.

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Posted By: scott

I would like to add that i placed 4 very high max bids in the recent Goodwin auction and only 1 lot neared them, I then reraised it and it didn't move. The others never moved a bit, I can say Bill Goodwin has always run a legit auction, as so with the bigger guys Mastro, REA, etc.

Everyone must remember, despite being able to verify every single lot for bidding discrepancies, that it just doesn't happen in most auction houses, big or samll. In this day & age they have WAY to much to loose and not much to gain, an extra couple of points on a $5,000 lot is nothing compared to the potential implosion if they were caught monkeying with the bids.

As Hal pointed out, people often get raised to or above their max, and there is a legit bidder to pay for the lot as he found out.

Scott

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Posted By: warshawlaw

I don't think we are taking the issue too cavalierly, I think we are all just a bit too shell-shocked to be surprised at any card price nowadays, so getting maxed out is not unexpected. Look, I know the boxing card market better than probably anyone in the world and I am even surprised at how fast bidding escalates. I just watched a card jump from $205 to $531 in the last ten seconds of the auction (bet you were sweating bullets, Pete ). Bid pricing moves with "modern" technology at the speed of light and information is available far more readily than ever before. With the thousands of people that all the major auctioneers have as catalog recipients and/or eyeballs on the web, we can only guess at how many thousands of views these auctions get. I just content myself being pleasantly surprised when I win one cheaper than my max.

In a way it is kind of like Vegas. The casinos could hire card sharps as dealers to cheat the customers, but they don't have to do that to make tons of money and they don't want to kill their credibility by getting caught doing something that stupid. It isn't worth the risk to a Mastro, which does $50 mil a year in auction sales, to cheat bidders and lose its reputation.