Poll: Auction House Closing Method

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

As an aside, I'm not a fan of "you must have initial bids placed by [insert time here]". Any bid should be accepted at any time before the actual closing time.

[Eric72]

Originally Posted by BillyCoxDodgers3B

As an aside, I'm not a fan of "you must have initial bids placed by [insert time here]". Any bid should be accepted at any time before the actual closing time.

If you think auctions run long now...

[Casey2296]

Originally Posted by BillyCoxDodgers3B

As an aside, I'm not a fan of "you must have initial bids placed by [insert time here]". Any bid should be accepted at any time before the actual closing time.

Yea no, auction night is chaotic enough without free for all rules.

[aljurgela]

i just do not feel like it is fair to "give the last look" to someone up at 3AM.

[jayshum]

Originally Posted by BillyCoxDodgers3B

As an aside, I'm not a fan of "you must have initial bids placed by [insert time here]". Any bid should be accepted at any time before the actual closing time.

Originally Posted by Casey2296

Yea no, auction night is chaotic enough without free for all rules.

Some auctions are already running in a way close to this. Sterling lets you bid on any lot in extended bidding as long as you bid on at least one lot before extended bidding starts.

Clean Sweep lets you bid on any lot in extended bidding if you bid on at least 10 lots before extended bidding.

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

Originally Posted by jayshum

Clean Sweep lets you bid on any lot in extended bidding if you bid on at least 10 lots before extended bidding.

You still have to bid on a ton of lots prior to the initial timer running out. It's rare I can find ten lots of interest in anyone's auction, let alone a minimum of ten before I'm "rewarded" with the "permission" to spend more money.

[Sterling Sports Auctions]

This is always interesting and I love to read the feedback.

To me though the question needs to be asked in two different questions. One as a consignor and one as a buyer. As a buyer most of the time you want to pay as little as possible. As a consignor you want to maximize the value.

Both are necessary to make an auction successful but without consignments you have no auction so that weighs heavy into the rules of an auction.

My personal experience being on both sides have obviously been a factor in the rules of Sterling. One big pet peeve of mine when I was a bidder was not being able to bid on all lots in extended bidding. I always had a limited budget, if I was outbid above my level and look back and find lots that I would have bid on because they were not a priority in regular bidding in case I would win the items I were heavily interested in. That is why Sterling has the WHOLE auction available to bid in extended bidding.

The closing for Sterling changed about 4 or 5 years ago to make sure the auction does not close at 3-4 am set. On closing night At 1am I reserve the right to close the auction at anytime. I send out an email at that time to give them fair warning that it may close at any time not within the 15 minute rule. I will start resetting the timer to around 3 minutes to give bidders that were out bid time to react. Generally the auctions close between 1:20 to 1:30 am set.

Lee Behrens
Sterling Sports Auctions

[jefferyepayne]

I've been beating the drum for B for a decade. And you might notice that more and more auction houses have shifted to lot by lot closing over the past 5 years. There is NO EVIDENCE that closing an auction at 4am EST results in more bids or higher returns for consigners. NONE. ZERO. NADDA. It is ridiculous. Lot by lot closing forces all of those late-night stallers to bid actively and frequently. I don't recall any lot-by-lot auction item I've been interested in taking longer than an hour to close after extended bidding has begun.

The reality is that late-night closings help everybody except those on the East Coast where the majority of collectors still live. PST benefits as it is earlier and easier to stay awake for. And ironically Europe benefits as they are up the next day by the time some of these auctions close!

I made the decision 10 years ago to stop bidding on auctions that don't close lot by lot but make a few exceptions for an item I see that I really really want. But because I just can't stay up that late, I always set a maximum bid and go to bed. I would bet I win items doing that less than 5% of the time while my win rate is much higher when I'm awake at closing. The reality is you don't really know what your max bid is until you are faced with bidding and potentially winning or giving up. When bidding on many items, it is also impossible to set max bids for all the items as you don't expect to win them all so plan to reallocate $$$ once an item goes beyond your limit.

It's time for late night auction closings to stop. Please join me in pushing for this to happen. My football forum has been discussing taking a more proactive role in pushing for lot by lot closings for all auctions. We are still discussing how best to accomplish this but have some ideas I'm happy to share with Net54 if enough members here want to help push for change.

jeff

P.S; I'm find with a double close method as long as the double close is over by midnight EST.

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by Sterling Sports Auctions

One big pet peeve of mine when I was a bidder was not being able to bid on all lots in extended bidding. I always had a limited budget, if I was outbid above my level and look back and find lots that I would have bid on because they were not a priority in regular bidding in case I would win the items I were heavily interested in. That is why Sterling has the WHOLE auction available to bid in extended bidding.

I really, really appreciate this, Lee.

[molenick]

I hope dealers are looking at this because I don't think there has ever been a Net54 poll where there was such overwhelming agreement.

As for making up our own rules (such as, "no one else can bid") I would like the ability to retroactively increase my bids on closed auctions. I will even be reasonable and limit it to "auctions that closed within the last 30 days".

Because recently there were five or six auctions closing within a few weeks of each other where each had items I was interested in. And every time I stopped bidding, in my mind it was because I could allocate that money towards the next auction. Then it came down to LOTG and Heritage and I thought, well, those are the lots I REALLY want, so I'm glad I saved money from the prior auctions.

And when my multi-increment-higher max bid got topped on the LOTG lot I wanted, I thought "I am going to bid whatever it takes to get the Heritage lot". And then I ran into someone else who felt the same way and I just couldn't justify spending three times more than I originally thought the lot would go for.

So now that I have extra cash on hand, I want to go back to LOTG, REA, Sterling, Brockelman, Mile High, etc. and keep bidding on closed lots!

[parkplace33]

Originally Posted by Sterling Sports Auctions

This is always interesting and I love to read the feedback.

To me though the question needs to be asked in two different questions. One as a consignor and one as a buyer. As a buyer most of the time you want to pay as little as possible. As a consignor you want to maximize the value.

Both are necessary to make an auction successful but without consignments you have no auction so that weighs heavy into the rules of an auction.

My personal experience being on both sides have obviously been a factor in the rules of Sterling. One big pet peeve of mine when I was a bidder was not being able to bid on all lots in extended bidding. I always had a limited budget, if I was outbid above my level and look back and find lots that I would have bid on because they were not a priority in regular bidding in case I would win the items I were heavily interested in. That is why Sterling has the WHOLE auction available to bid in extended bidding.

The closing for Sterling changed about 4 or 5 years ago to make sure the auction does not close at 3-4 am set. On closing night At 1am I reserve the right to close the auction at anytime. I send out an email at that time to give them fair warning that it may close at any time not within the 15 minute rule. I will start resetting the timer to around 3 minutes to give bidders that were out bid time to react. Generally the auctions close between 1:20 to 1:30 am set.

Lee Behrens
Sterling Sports Auctions

Lee, love the way your auction runs.