Chatted With Bill Goodwin Today

[oldjudge]

With all due respect, I don't think a two or five minute rule works. The period is too short to allow people with a lot of bids to adjust them and heaven forbid they need to hit the bathroom too. I think the best solution is to close lots individually. Otherwise, if I were running an auction and I wanted all the lots to close at one time I would use a 15 minute rule, but I would say that the auction would end at some point between 1AM and 1:15AM EDT, regardless of the bidding. The end time in this period would be based on a predetermined time that only the auctioneer would know, and would be different for every auction. With this system you would avoid everyone trying to "snipe" at 12:59 because the auction might go to 1:15. However, because the auction would end at a random time between 1:00 and 1:15 it makes all bidders get their final bids in at some time around 1:00. Now, let's say the random end time that only the auctioneer knew was 1:04. At 1:00 and ten seconds bidders would notice that the auction had not ended. They could thus safely assume that they had until at least 1:01 to bid and thus could sneak in an extra bid if they wanted. This would repeat itself at 1:01 and ten seconds, at 1:02 and ten seconds and at 1:03 and ten seconds. However, at 1:04 it would end and anyone trying to be cute by holding off bidding would be closed out.

[Zach Wheat]

Originally Posted by oldjudge

With all due respect, I don't think a two or five minute rule works. The period is too short to allow people with a lot of bids to adjust them and heaven forbid they need to hit the bathroom too. I think the best solution is to close lots individually. Otherwise, if I were running an auction and I wanted all the lots to close at one time I would use a 15 minute rule, but I would say that the auction would end at some point between 1AM and 1:15AM EDT, regardless of the bidding. The end time in this period would be based on a predetermined time that only the auctioneer would know, and would be different for every auction. With this system you would avoid everyone trying to "snipe" at 12:59 because the auction might go to 1:15. However, because the auction would end at a random time between 1:00 and 1:15 it makes all bidders get their final bids in at some time around 1:00. Now, let's say the random end time that only the auctioneer knew was 1:04. At 1:00 and ten seconds bidders would notice that the auction had not ended. They could thus safely assume that they had until at least 1:01 to bid and thus could sneak in an extra bid if they wanted. This would repeat itself at 1:01 and ten seconds, at 1:02 and ten seconds and at 1:03 and ten seconds. However, at 1:04 it would end and anyone trying to be cute by holding off bidding would be closed out.

I have to agree here. I think a 2-5 minute rule would be difficult as would auctions ending individually. I can't imagine bidding on 10 itesm trying to track the ending time of each auction - or even having multiple screens up with the countdown timers showing.

Z Wheat

[nolemmings]

I really don't see how having the lots ending individually, in lot order, is difficult to track or unfair to anyone, especially if there is a good 5 minutes in between. I rarely have bids on more than 10 items I really want. I am not so challenged as to be unable to track or know for weeks in advance when I need to pay attention to those particular auctions ending-- I doubt anyone here is either.

What Goodwin and most other auctions do now is no different than the ebay seller who has several auctions all ending at the same time, only here they keep hidden that ending time. Several such ebay sellers have been criticized as leaving money on the table because unsuccessful bidders do not have time to adjust and bid again on other items. How many here have come up empty or not won as many cards as they would have wanted because of this practice--leaving money in their pockets that they would happily have spent?

[thecatspajamas]

Originally Posted by nolemmings

I really don't see how having the lots ending individually, in lot order, is difficult to track or unfair to anyone, especially if there is a good 5 minutes in between. I rarely have bids on more than 10 items I really want. I am not so challenged as to be unable to track or know for weeks in advance when I need to pay attention to those particular auctions ending-- I doubt anyone here is either.

That might work fine for a small auction, but didn't Goodwin's most recent auction had 959 lots? Let's see, at 5 minutes betwen lots, for 959 lots, you're going to have lots ending every 5 minutes around the clock for over 3 days. Even if you end 1 lot every minute, you're still looking at 16 hours of lots ending, which is more than the complained-about duration that started this thread...

[nolemmings]

I do not necessarily agree. Some auctions already have two separate ending dates with nobody really complaining. So what if it's three. The damn things are listed for three weeks anyway.

[glchen]

I don't think there is a good solution for this. The best that I can think of, which is relatively simple is split the auction so it ends over multiple days. Legendary and Heritage already do this for individual lot endings, but SCP does it for all lots at once. Instead of over 2days, you can do it over 3 or 4, and have it, if no bids for 15 min, all lots close for the ones that end that day. With fewer lots each day, theoretically, the auction should close earlier each day. One way to divide it is prewar baseball, vintage/modern baseball, other sports/nonsports, memorabilia. The big drawback is that if you want lots from multiple days, you may have multiple long nights ahead of you instead of one long night.

[barrysloate]

Interesting how many different opinions we have here, with no real consensus. Bottom line is the auctioneer has to decide how he wants to end it. If 6:00 AM is too late then he has options to end it sooner. His call.

[benjulmag]

The one point I agree with is that whatever rule is put in effect the end result should be to maximize the total dollars the auction grosses, as opposed to maximizing bidder satisfaction. I have never felt closing each lot individually does that because many bidders are interested in more than one lot. If these bidders have limited funds (a situation that applies to the great majority of bidders), a bid on one lot might be contingent on having given up on another lot.

Or, to say it another way, I do not believe ending lots individually maximizes the return to the consignors.

I think it would be worth experimenting with a rule that reduces the 15-minute rule to something less, for example a 10-minute rule that after a certain hour (say, two hours after extended bidding begins) reduces to a five-minute rule. I would also begin the extended bidding at an earlier hour (say, 6PM) and see what happens. Maybe it will be the case the auction will end at a reasonable time and bidders when polled will not be complaining they did not understand the rules or did not have time to get in their bids.