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MattDave followed up on his word with an email. He edited yesterday's post to add in his corrections, so while it seems like I'm the one talking, many of the words are his. The bottom line is that he agrees with this version of statements regarding Hunt's policies. What we can all agree on, is that him being pro-active volunteering to clarify what Hunt's true policies are is a positive.
"First and foremost, he wanted to clarify that, with a scant few exceptions over its nearly 20 year history, Hunt's has not offered "absolute auctions" if they did then whoever is willing to pay the most at the time would come away with the lot. They don't claim to do so and their TOS does not say that they do.
Hunt's auctions have reserves amounts that are not disclosed that are almost always below or sometimes at the "low estimate" price published in their catalogs. I suggested that the reserve amount be made public and he said that they made a business decision not to do as in the case of a live auction venue that practice tends to cause more confusion then clarity. The fact that the DNS items are almost immediately posted online provides bidders and consignors alike with the opportunity to clearly see which lots did or did not sell and avoids the confusion associated with the aforementioned; he followed that he's had very few complaints that their reserves aren't disclosed so they don't view it as an issue. If there are 2 or 3 more auctions where a larger percentage of the lots don't sell then they will re-investigate the issue, but he feels that because the reserves are at or below the lower estimate, that enough disclosure is already being made for someone to decide if they want to bid on the lot.
Those who attend the live auction would be interested to learn that if your bid does not meet the reserve, they DO bid you up with a house account to meet the undisclosed reserve (as SCP used to do). This practice has been utilized by Hunt in every one of their auctions for the past 18 years and is always announced as such before the beginning of the sale with David Hunt personally conducting the bidding so as to eliminate any doubt as to the auction procedure. Although not all lots have reserve prices, when they do they are bid upon by Hunt Auctions on behalf of the consignor in a completely competitive fashion against other absentee, live, and telephone bidders. It is Hunt Auctions opinion that this system allows that all bidders are given a completely fair chance to win the lot without any one party having an advantage over another.
He felt the reasons that there were a large amount of card lots in this offering that did not meet reserve were several, the main one being the specific venue for the live auction, which apparently caused the auction to be poorly attended with respect to card collectors and dealers. He said live bidders are usually responsible for winning about 40% of the lots. Furthermore, on occasion such off site unique venues such as Louisville can be a challenge to garner the in person attendance typically in place when card prices tend to be higher. Additionally, there is no question that the economy certainly has had an effect on the card prices most notably in the mid to lower grade examples which were not coincidentally primarily the categories that went unsold.
He also wanted to stress that Hunt holds itself to the highest standards of honesty of any major auction house and feels that it would be difficult for any major auction house to truly claim more then 90% of lots sold.
He was absolutely gracious and took the time to answer all of my questions and he deserves praise for that as well as his honesty in making some of the above statements."
11-19-2008, 12:30 PM
Hunt Auctions "Est. Price Range"
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