Heritage Auctions - Boston Garters

[mrreality68]

Great pickup.

They are beautiful cards

[Aaron Seefeldt]

Thanks Leon & Jeff. I’m hoping some other members snagged some and they’ll show and/or tell.

[Rhotchkiss]

Congrats Aaron. Those are amazing looking pieces and Baker is a great one to own

[Powell]

I bid for the set in extended hours. The bid said I was winning. I waited 30 minutes and no bids. The website said I won the set, same this morning and later that morning it said I lost. I understood that the bid on the set had to be higher than the total of individual lots. I didn’t understand I had to add up all the individual lots myself in the middle of the night. Other auction houses tell you if the individual lots are ahead. I would have bid higher had I known. If it got too high there were individual cards I would have gone for. I felt misled and deserved better treatment after bidding more than 600K for the entire set and not learning until late morning that I “lost.”. The consignor lost too. It’s a bad day for me, for Heritage and the consignor — but a good one for the good people who ended up being deemed high bidder on the individual lots as I had no warning I needed to bid again and the website said otherwise.

[Lucas00]

Originally Posted by Powell

I bid for the set in extended hours. The bid said I was winning. I waited 30 minutes and no bids. The website said I won the set, same this morning and later that morning it said I lost. I understood that the bid on the set had to be higher than the total of individual lots. I didn’t understand I had to add up all the individual lots myself in the middle of the night. Other auction houses tell you if the individual lots are ahead. I would have bid higher had I known. If it got too high there were individual cards I would have gone for. I felt misled and deserved better treatment after bidding more than 600K for the entire set and not learning until late morning that I “lost.”. The consignor lost too. It’s a bad day for me, for Heritage and the consignor — but a good one for the good people who ended up being deemed high bidder on the individual lots as I had no warning I needed to bid again and the website said otherwise.

They didn't call you? That sucks big time. Would've been on the phone to make sure, but hindsight is always just that.

[Jay Wolt]

Aaron that's a fantastic looking Baker, Congrats!

[Casey2296]

Originally Posted by Powell

I bid for the set in extended hours. The bid said I was winning. I waited 30 minutes and no bids. The website said I won the set, same this morning and later that morning it said I lost. I understood that the bid on the set had to be higher than the total of individual lots. I didn’t understand I had to add up all the individual lots myself in the middle of the night. Other auction houses tell you if the individual lots are ahead. I would have bid higher had I known. If it got too high there were individual cards I would have gone for. I felt misled and deserved better treatment after bidding more than 600K for the entire set and not learning until late morning that I “lost.”. The consignor lost too. It’s a bad day for me, for Heritage and the consignor — but a good one for the good people who ended up being deemed high bidder on the individual lots as I had no warning I needed to bid again and the website said otherwise.

That's tragic. I was curious how that was going to work, obviously it didn't and that's unfortunate for such a historical offering and you as a bidder. Not only were you willing to buy the whole set but because of the format you don't even walk away with one. Hindsight, but an explanation on the process either on the website or in private with high dollar bidders like yourself would have been helpful.

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by Powell

I bid for the set in extended hours. The bid said I was winning. I waited 30 minutes and no bids. The website said I won the set, same this morning and later that morning it said I lost. I understood that the bid on the set had to be higher than the total of individual lots. I didn’t understand I had to add up all the individual lots myself in the middle of the night. Other auction houses tell you if the individual lots are ahead. I would have bid higher had I known. If it got too high there were individual cards I would have gone for. I felt misled and deserved better treatment after bidding more than 600K for the entire set and not learning until late morning that I “lost.”. The consignor lost too. It’s a bad day for me, for Heritage and the consignor — but a good one for the good people who ended up being deemed high bidder on the individual lots as I had no warning I needed to bid again and the website said otherwise.

I watched this unfold last night and was cringing for the high bidder on the entire set lot. Heritage screwed this up so badly it was impossible to believe. Not only, as Powell said, could you not tell from bidding on the various BG lots as to whether the individual lots or the full set was ahead in the bidding, but the full set high bidder couldn't bid any more once no one bid for 30 mins on the full set lot -- the lot was closed. So Powell had to watch as the individual lots were still allowed to take more bids, making it impossible for him to raise his full set bid and defeat the cumulative total of the 12 individual lots. If I was the leader on the Cobb card, but because the cumulative total of the 12 lots was 10K less than the full set bid -- which was now closed -- I would have just bid up the remaining open individual lots in order for the total of the 12 lots to surpass the amount of the full set high bid. Which is exactly what happened: the Rabbit Maranville card received late action solely to allow the individual lots to surpass the full set bid. I'm astounded that Heritage could have screwed this up so badly.

[MVSNYC]

Congrats Aaron!

I owned one of the Tris Speakers many years ago.

Sorry Powell…beyond frustrating how heritage doesn’t tell bidders real time which is winning, set or individual. Other AH’s do…I texted someone I know at heritage yesterday, and they told me the bidder has to check on their own. Great AH, but that was an unusually rare fail for them.

[Powell]

They did not call me. I went to bed with my account saying I won. No one called
me. I consigned my “Wall of Cards” T206 set to Heritage and have bought countless treasures from Heritage. In the morning my account said I won. I learned from this board that I “lost” and I checked again on my Heritage account it changed from won to lost. No one called me. Now I learn after I was locked out on the set and went to sleep with the web saying I won they let individual lots bid to beat me with no chance to compete. I’m disgusted with the shabby way I was treated and the consignor should be livid.

[Powell]

They did not call me. I went to bed with my account saying I won. No one called
me. I consigned my “Wall of Cards” T206 set to Heritage and have bought countless treasures from Heritage. In the morning my account said I won. I learned from this board that I “lost” and I checked again on my Heritage account it changed from won to lost. No one called me. Now I learn after I was locked out on the set and went to sleep with the web saying I won they let individual lots bid to beat me with no chance to compete. I’m disgusted with the shabby way I was treated and the consignor should be livid.

[Lucas00]

Originally Posted by Powell

They did not call me. I went to bed with my account saying I won. No one called
me. I consigned my “Wall of Cards” T206 set to Heritage and have bought countless treasures from Heritage. In the morning my account said I won. I learned from this board that I “lost” and I checked again on my Heritage account it changed from won to lost. No one called me. Now I learn after I was locked out on the set and went to sleep with the web saying I won they let individual lots bid to beat me with no chance to compete. I’m disgusted with the shabby way I was treated and the consignor should be livid.

I thought it was kind of an auction house etiquette to call and confirm a bidder is "out" on a lot of this magnitude. But maybe that isn't the reality, just what I figured.
Sorry this happened to you.

[Powell]

I am the rightful winner of the set. The set closed ahead of the individual lots and I was declared the winner. There was no basis to permit bids on the individual lots after the set was sold to me and I could no longer bid on the set.
We’ll see if Heritage makes this right.

[molenick]

That is horrible. I was trying to figure out a way to make this work for both the set and the individual cards where there is lot-by-lot closing.

The only way I can think of is that the timer for the set and all the cards in the set has to be the same.

If a bid is placed on the set or any card, the timer resets for every card in the set and the full set.

It sounds annoying but I think that is the only way it is fair to both the set bidder (as we have seen) and the individual card bidders (because they could bid after their lot would have normally closed if they could now "beat" the set based on later bids on other cards).

Also, each lot involved needs to clearly state if the set or the individual cards are winning and what the aggregate individual total is vs. the full set bid.

I may not be explaining this well, and there may be a better way, but that's the only one I could come up with.

[Powell]

I have consigned millions of dollars worth of cards to Heritage and purchased millions in cards and other memorabilia from Heritage. I have found Chris and Derek to be extremely professional and have recommended them to many. As I now understand that the individual lots remained open after the set was sold to me those bids are legally a nullity. The set was sold to me clear and simple and fair and square. This is now fair to the consignor because the lot closed. I believe that Heritage is the best auction house in the world and will do the right thing.

Thanks,

Powell

[calvindog]

They needed to keep all the lots open — the individual lots and the full set lot — until there were no bids on ANY of the lots for 30 mins. Such a moronic handling of such an expensive set of cards.

[molenick]

My suggestion (which calvindog summarized more clearly than me) was meant to try to avoid this happening in the future. I am very interested to see what happens now. It is a terrible situation for all parties involved.

[Aaron Seefeldt]

Thanks Ryan, Jay, & Mike…

I haven’t seen a set vs. individual lots auction since the Mastro days. He did it in his auctions BUT there was no lot by lot basis for closing (no timer), those auctions went into the next morning. It is a terrible idea for a set vs. individuals to go with any kind of lot by lot closing. There’s no way for the set bidder to up his bid later (Powell’s case). It’s just a terrible format.

Today I was confirmed as the “winner” of the Baker, see below.

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by Powell

I have consigned millions of dollars worth of cards to Heritage and purchased millions in cards and other memorabilia from Heritage. I have found Chris and Derek to be extremely professional and have recommended them to many. As I now understand that the individual lots remained open after the set was sold to me those bids are legally a nullity. The set was sold to me clear and simple and fair and square. This is now fair to the consignor because the lot closed. I believe that Heritage is the best auction house in the world and will do the right thing.

Thanks,

Powell

I agree. As I was watching your lead slip away last night I thought that they should have closed the individual lots at the same time as the full set lot was closed. In my mind you won the set (and I’m begging the usual Net 54 lawyers who will surely flood this thread with 5000 posts about the various legal angles to do so on another thread). My experience with Heritage is that they very well may do the right thing here. However, by doing so they will cost their consigner money by canceling numerous single lot bids. They should make that difference up to the consigner and declare Powell the set winner. That’s really the only fair way to resolve this.

Edited to add: the single lot winners should also be compensated somehow as they would be harmed as well by this resolution.

[Casey2296]

Originally Posted by molenick

That is horrible. I was trying to figure out a way to make this work for both the set and the individual cards where there is lot-by-lot closing.

The only way I can think of is that the timer for the set and all the cards in the set has to be the same.

If a bid is placed on the set or any card, the timer resets for every card in the set and the full set.

It sounds annoying but I think that is the only way it is fair to both the set bidder (as we have seen) and the individual card bidders (because they could bid after their lot would have normally closed if they could now "beat" the set based on later bids on other cards).

Also, each lot involved needs to clearly state if the set or the individual cards are winning and what the aggregate individual total is vs. the full set bid.

I may not be explaining this well, and there may be a better way, but that's the only one I could come up with.

Yes. Much like the fine art world HA should have had a direct line to Powell and other set bidders keeping them updated as the auction progressed and allowed them to spend more money. Common sense says once the AH sets the terms it's their responsibility to manage it. There should have been a proxy representative for any interested set bidders who were communicating every minute in the last half hour and managing the difference between the set/individual delta.
Furchrisakes, the guy is willing to spend 600k plus with your AH you'd think a little personal service would be in order.
I think Powell has a case as the winner, fortunately this is Lichtmans wheelhouse. Unfortunately if he wins folks like Aaron lose through no fault of their own, nice pick up Aaron btw.
Now it's a mess, losers would be Powell, single bidders, consigners, etc.

[Powell]

I feel terrible for the individual lot “winners” but it’s actually very simple. The
set lot closed and I was declared the winner. The hammer fell. The post sale bids are a nullity. I have an authentic Joe Jackson Boston Garter, a 1914 Herzog and a 2012 Boston Garter. I am happy to work out sales to the bidders on those two and even sell my 1912 BG if those bidders are interested to mitigate this problem.
I feel strongly that I didn’t do anything wrong and once the set sold it sold. There was offer and acceptance. I was told by the web the auction closed I went to sleep. Thank you everyone for informing me as to what happened.

[Aaron Seefeldt]

.

[molenick]

Well, they better figure it out soon because it is a two-day auction that closes tonight. Once the invoices go out and people start paying, it's going to make things much more complicated.

[Powell]

Its says “not sold” now but that’s not what it said last night and this morning. My account identified the set in my win column and then changed it later Saturday morning

[gabrinus]

Maybe all the people who had high bids should pay and then Heritage can charge them some sort of a penalty as well so they do better than the consignor...as long they come out ok...Jerry

[nolemmings]

Really an awful outcome for many. It will be interesting to see what Heritage deems is the correct path to take. In years gone by this forum probably would have had a helluva chat exchange going on while the clock was ticking on these Boston Garter lots. Not griping Leon, just waxing nostalgic.

[brunswickreeves]

According to HA Web Tips (linked below at end):

Heritage Live FAQ:
‘How do I know if I won the lot?

When the lot closes a message in green indicating you won will be displayed (see example below). In addition, you can check the item status in the "Realized Prices" tab.

You Won!’

HOWEVER, further down this reference page under Bidding Guidelines it states:

‘If you are the successful high bidder when the auction closes, you will receive an Email confirmation immediately following the auction followed by an E-mail invoice in the next few days for your winnings.‘

https://sports.ha.com/c/ref/web-tips...nes-incrementsAttachment 591429Attachment 591429

Do these conflict in this scenario??

Perhaps the most equitable thing HA can do is refund any money paid so far, declare no true winner given conflicting communications to the individual and lot buyers, and reset the individual and lot auction, which will give everyone a fair and fully informed chance at bidding again.

[calvindog]

Three things are true here: this is entirely Heritage’s fault by not knowing how to run this particular type of auction (individual lots/full set competing simultaneously), Powell is a huge consigner and customer, and the consigner of the BGs lost money due to Heritage’s error. At the very least, Heritage has to re-do the auction, although at the time Powell was prevented from bidding anymore he was the rightful winner. If I was in charge, I’d give the cards to Powell and compensate all the other parties greatly, although it pains me to say that as Aaron is a great dude and an innocent party here.

If Leland’s was capable of doing the right thing by not trying to force payment from the winner (and my client) of the Tom Brady “final TD pass football” which wasn’t his final TD pass when he announced his comeback the day after the auction end, somehow I think Heritage is capable of being fair here as well.

[Aaron Seefeldt]

I received the invoice/email at 3 a.m. this morning for the Baker.

[Rhotchkiss]

Powell, I got your voicemail. I will call you back later today. This really sucks. That’s a serious f-up that the set auction closed while the individual lots stayed open. I agree, if you were the winner when the set lot closed, you should be the winner- it closed and you won. Plain and simple

[calvindog]

What’s astonishing to me is that they had a month to fix the software to at the very least make it clear who was winning with each bid: the individual lots or the whole set lot. And didn’t do a thing.

[Rhotchkiss]

Originally Posted by calvindog

What’s astonishing to me is that they had a month to fix the software to at the very least make it clear who was winning with each bid: the individual lots or the whole set lot. And didn’t do a thing.

If the auction was the higher of the set or the aggregate of the lots, and the set closed as the winner, then it’s the winner. Period, full stop. Especially without disclosure that one option could stay open while another closed. Not only is the set the winner of it ended as the winner, but it’s fundamentally unfair to allow one of the two competing items to stay open longer than the other.

This is a big mess up. Of course Heritage did not mean or anticipate this. I expect they will do the right thing, which in my opinion is sell the set to Powell at the closing price and pay the consignor the difference between the individual lots and the final price. The winners of the individual lots will be left with nothing, which sucks, but is the correct result bc they rightfully lost the minute the entire auction closed as the high bidder

[Powell]

Thank you Ryan. I believed at the time that the set beat the individual lots or it would not have closed the lot with me as the winner. I did not think I had to do the math myself in the middle of the night and add up the 12 individual lots to confirm that I won. Thanks to astute folks on this board I now see that not only did the lot close with me as the winner the set was higher than the individual lots at the time the set closed. This is a clear case that I won the lot when the hammer went down by the rules. I went to sleep happy and excited. It was wrong to then allow continuing bids on the individual lots after the set lot closed.

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by Rhotchkiss

If the auction was the higher of the set or the aggregate of the lots, and the set closed as the winner, then it’s the winner. Period, full stop. Especially without disclosure that one option could stay open while another closed. Not only is the set the winner of it ended as the winner, but it’s fundamentally unfair to allow one of the two competing items to stay open longer than the other.

This is a big mess up. Of course Heritage did not mean or anticipate this. I expect they will do the right thing, which in my opinion is sell the set to Powell at the closing price and pay the consignor the difference between the individual lots and the final price. The winners of the individual lots will be left with nothing, which sucks, but is the correct result bc they rightfully lost the minute the entire auction closed as the high bidder

No question. Re-doing the auction is a recipe for disaster. Heritage legally can make this result happen and I suspect they will.

[puckpaul]

They should either declare you the winner of the whole set, or re open the bidding with new rules and let it finish on its own.

I HATE the dual bidding process, it’s a terrible way to auction these sets. This should be the last one.

[t206fanatic]

i also agree Powell won the lots, but Heritage really needs to step in with substantial compensation for the individual lot winners. It's a huge screwup on a marquee set, and the pain should be commiserate.

[jayshum]

I know other auction houses have had the same type of auctions (full set vs individual lots). How have they handled closing the individual lots vs the full set lot and providing information to bidders about which is leading? Did they do the same as Heritage and just got lucky that something like this didn't happen or does other auction software handle this better than Heritage's site did?

[insidethewrapper]

How could the full set be bid any higher if Powell was the only bidder at the end ? Can you bid against yourself ? I think bids only increase against another bidder.

He should have been advised about the running total of the individual lots and then given the option to bid higher on the set or pursue some individual cards .

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by jayshum

I know other auction houses have had the same type of auctions (full set vs individual lots). How have they handled closing the individual lots vs the full set lot and providing information to bidders about which is leading? Did they do the same as Heritage and just got lucky that something like this didn't happen or does other auction software handle this better than Heritage's site did?

Mile High has done it as well. Every time you bid on either the individual lots or the full set, you get an alert on the totals of the individual lots vs. full set. And no auction has ever allowed the full set lot to end while the individual lots continued to run. Just bad software/programming.

[molenick]

I don't have a solution but I am just curious.

Do we (mostly) think the set is the winner because it closed first? What if all the individual lots had closed first but the set was still open? And the individual lots were higher than the set when they all closed, but then the continued set bidding took it over the individual total? Then we would have had multiple people going to sleep thinking they had won, only to be told the next day they had lost because the set topped them.

It is a truly a horrible situation for all involved and a major mistake by Heritage. And I really don't know what the answer is. Except in retrospect saying that all the lots should have stayed open until there was no bidding on any lot for 30 minutes.

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by molenick

I don't have a solution but I am just curious. Do we (mostly) think the set is the winner because it closed first? What if all the individual lots had closed first but the set was still open? And the individual lots were higher than the set when they all closed, but then the set bidding went over the individual total? Then we would have had multiple people going to sleep thinking they had won, only to be told the next day they had lost because the set topped them.

I think if all the individual lots had closed first, and total value was higher than the full set lot price at the time, we'd have the same issue here but in reverse. And then those lot winners would be in the right. But obviously that's not what happened here.

[jayshum]

Originally Posted by calvindog

Mile High has done it as well. Every time you bid on either the individual lots or the full set, you get an alert on the totals of the individual lots vs. full set. And no auction has ever allowed the full set lot to end while the individual lots continued to run. Just bad software/programming.

Thanks for answering my question. It sounds like the only way for something like this to work is for everything to close at the same time to avoid this type of problem. However, as I think others have mentioned, you can't usually bid against yourself and increase the high bid so the AH would have to be involved to increase bids if only one person was still bidding on the full set or wanted to increase an individual lot so the total would be above the full set. I don't know if Heritage has ever run an auction like this before, but it sounds like they haven't and didn't think through all of the issues that can arise compared to a normal auction.

[molenick]

Okay....just wondering what people thought about the reverse situation. Clearly this was going to be an issue no matter what happened.

[Powell]

Originally Posted by Aaron Seefeldt

.

My position is that since the set lot closed and they involved every card and I could not bid again if I wanted to the cards were sold to me and the subsequent bids on individual lots were a nullity. The virtual hammer went down and the lots were sold. This is a strong case by itself.

Astute members of the board observed that the set price was higher than the sum of the individual lots when the set closed. This clinches it as there is no reasonable counter-position.

I have confidence that Chris, Derek and Dan whom I have worked with on many occasions will do the right thing and declare the set the winner, which I have no intention of selling and will display them publicly for the world to see and keep this great story alive for many years.

I have a 14 BG Jackson and Herzog, which I had no plans of selling but will sell them to the individual bidders with a discount for the Jackson as it’s not as nice if they wish and do my part to make lemonade out of lemons.

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by jayshum

It sounds like the only way for something like this to work is for everything to close at the same time to avoid this type of problem. However, as I think others have mentioned, you can't usually bid against yourself and increase the high bid so the AH would have to be involved to increase bids if only one person was still bidding on the full set or wanted to increase an individual lot so the total would be above the full set.

This is a good point. The full set bidder who leads would otherwise be unable to manually up his bid.

[Aaron Seefeldt]

Originally Posted by Rhotchkiss

If the auction was the higher of the set or the aggregate of the lots, and the set closed as the winner, then it’s the winner. Period, full stop. Especially without disclosure that one option could stay open while another closed. Not only is the set the winner of it ended as the winner, but it’s fundamentally unfair to allow one of the two competing items to stay open longer than the other.

This is a big mess up. Of course Heritage did not mean or anticipate this. I expect they will do the right thing, which in my opinion is sell the set to Powell at the closing price and pay the consignor the difference between the individual lots and the final price. The winners of the individual lots will be left with nothing, which sucks, but is the correct result bc they rightfully lost the minute the entire auction closed as the high bidder

I respectfully disagree. Powell could have upped his bid in the extended half hour to anticipate and protect the complete set from getting outbid. The complete set received 0 bids in extended bidding similar to 6 or 7 of the individual lots which closed at the same time, including the Baker which I was high bidder on. Several of the individual lots received bids in the extended half hour which, of course, resets their timer. Most notably the Tinker & Maranville continued much later.

Heritage’s rules were listed (and still are) not once but twice in each lot. Seems pretty cut and dry to me. Here is what each lot said twice:

“ Please note that this auction will list each card as an individual lot along with another listing for the complete set. If the aggregate winning bids of the twelve individual lots exceeds the high bid on the complete set, the cards will be sold to each individual winner. If the price of the set exceeds the sum of the twelve individual cards, the victory will be awarded to the high bidder for the complete set.”

[calvindog]

Aaron, the problem is as noted above. He couldn’t raise his bid on the full set lot with a ceiling bid and have it register unless someone else bid after him (but below the ceiling he had set).

[Rhotchkiss]

Originally Posted by calvindog

Aaron, the problem is as noted above. He couldn’t raise his bid on the full set lot with a ceiling bid and have it register unless someone else bid after him (but below the ceiling he had set).

+1.

Aaron, it’s a real shitty situation all around. But the fact that the full set closed and could not increase /add another bid, when the other lots were open and the set only wins if it’s price exceeds the aggregate, to me, is determinative.

Of course, all the lots should have stayed open until no garters lot got a bid for 30 minutes, bc Aaron could have easily been in Powell’s boat had his lot closed and he could not bid but the whole set stayed open

[calvindog]

That’s it in a nutshell. Powell was prevented from competing while the individual lots were still open.

[Aaron Seefeldt]

At least we all agree that the format was a mess to begin with.

But let’s not forget it has now advanced to the point that the individual lots have been invoiced. Also, none of HA’s rules were broken or changed… so far.

I expect they will stand by their rules as any seller with integrity would. I also sincerely hope this is a learning lesson for all auction houses/sellers in the future.