Posted By:
boxingcardmanBut here goes anyhow:
1. Economy: Personally, I have been reluctant to go with big cash out of pocket lately. A number of other collectors I've spoken to feel the same way. I had some consignments that did pretty well and I applied all of the proceeds towards my bids. On the last lot I was not willing to pitch in that last bid because I would have had to come out of pocket several hundred dollars for it. Not that I would have won anyhow (see #3 below). My generalization from this is that if I am not willing to commit the cash for that last bid, and others follow suit, the final prices quickly erode. The winner may have been willing to pay more but if no one pushes him-her, they won't.
2. I have never seen any evidence of shilling on the lots I've won from Mastro; the last one I won came in several increments below my max bid (and I was pretty high because I really wanted the card).
3. The items I follow were very strong in this auction; all exceeded my estimates. The results on Exhibit cards were record-setting and would have been even better if the lots hadn't been so big. If I was the consignor of the exhibit lots I would have been rather unhappy with the lotting (my pet peeve, as many of you know, w/Mastro).
4. I do agree that the auction was sparser than others have been. There were under 5 boxing card lots, for example.
5. Frankly, I think we may be reaching a saturation point in the auction field. We've had how many auctions over the last six months? I mean Mastro alone had the monster in April (up against REA's annual effort), the crappy stuff auction in June, the epic in your face at the end of July, and this one in August. In between we had several others from other auctioneers. I know I can barely find enough quality toilet time to read each catalog 
Oh, and the National is in there somewhere too...
6. Because of #5 some collectors are waiting for other auctions that promise once in a lifetime materials (you know who you are, you bastards...Iwon't ID it here ).
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