Rea
 

Should be a frantic weekend of bidding. If everyone isn’t already tapped out.

I’m not crazy about the revised format. Better? I guess so. I’m not staying up to 5 am or midnight for that matter. Why can’t the hard stop be at 5pm or 9pm. Still forces east coasters to stay up late. I still don’t understand a business model where you voluntarily lose a percentage of your bidders due to sleep. It’s like a car dealership that has no hours past 5, or a barber shop that closes on the weekend. Or a stupid Sunday night baseball game that starts at 8pm.

I am doing stuff during the day. I wouldn't want an auction ending at 5pm on Saturday or Sunday or any midday for that matter. Could they hard close at 12am, sure, that would be great. But as it is, it isn't as bad as it used to be. Now most bidders don't go to sleep at extended bidding and get up in the morning to keep bidding. Now that is crazy. (have to throw a card in)

http://luckeycards.com/pr321goudeyruth.jpg

Rea
 

There’s no perfect solution that will make everyone happy. A hard close eliminates extended bidding which is not good for consignors or bidders. I like the format and like Sunday ending.

REA will have a hard close a little later anyway.....and I am fine with how it ends now too.

agreed! It's much better than it used to be.

They are trying and I give them great credit for that. And they are a top notch operation through and through. But if 98% of your intended audience is awake at 9pm and only 70% are awake at midnight [just pulling numbers out of my . .pocket . . . for argument's sake], I still don't understand the logic. Yes, there is a max bid etc., but if you did a hard stop at 9pm EST seems to me there would be a feeding frenzy in the last hour with a lot more potential bidders (who are wide awake).

Except your west coast bidders are all out eating dinner/enjoying time with their families at 6pm local time (9pm EST) on a Sunday evening.

Maybe I'm missing something but the best solution in my opinion is to let each lot independently close if no bid is received after 10 minutes.

Future developments in neuroscience will allow the auction houses to determine how much each bidder is willing to pay for each lot and automatically award the cards to the appropriate "bidders" without the need for actually running the auction. It's possible there are some drawbacks to this future, but I for one welcome the end of the how-best-to-end-an-auction discussion.

Or even three minutes as Christie's does.

By the way is REA a hard close at Sunday midnight?

I find these discussions fascinating. Truly. I should have studied economics. I wish Harvard Business School did a study on it. 100% serious. Maybe it's a puzzle with no great answer.

I'm sick of the same threads about how terrible certain eBay sellers are. if you hate a seller don't do business with them.

As a buyer, I like the individual lot closing format. However, I believe that for the auction houses that use a closing for the entire auction at once there is logic behind it. If you have two whales competing at the end of the auction and one taps out, this closing format would give him an opportunity to bid on several more lots (assuming he put in an initial bid) whereas if they closed individually it would already be over.

Everyone has their own thought but I am not a fan AT ALL of the hard stop as a bidder at any time. I think it hurts the bidder and consigner. If you are looking at 10 plus lots, it puts you at a huge disadvantage. PARTICULARLY, IF THERE IS NO COUNTDOWN. Seems like not everyone is on the EXACT same clock...
Personally, I think the best format is lot by lot and at a reasonable time.

Then you get outbid on one you are going for, won't go higher, and your second choice just closed. I agree I like lot by lot ending the best but there is no perfect ending.

I have my reasonable bids in for 3 items. Probably overbid on one - oh, well, its REA, lets fork out little extra dough. Going to bed regular time, get a good night sleep, wake up and see how it played out. However, I am not looking to fill that long time hole in my collection with a card that comes along once every few years. Good luck to all !

REA closes twice a year, and their auctions are beast. I think those truly interested in REA auctions can stay up until midnight. Sure as hell beats trying to stay up to 5am (I too am on the East Coast). Although having a hard stop (at midnight, or otherwise), kinda make it like Ebay, no? Put in your snipe....

Personally, as a buyer, I think Heritage's per-lot extended bidding is great/best, although I think it probably is not ideal for sellers.

Regardless, Sunday will be very very fun (and most definitely frustrating)

Seems to me that in last couple of years most auction houses see light to moderate action in the weeks leading up to the close and then many people who wait to the last 48 hours to get serious. If that holds true with REA prices will be sky high and consignors will be mighty pleased.

Maybe you should take your own advice....
If you have a problem with the auction closing process of any particular auction company, don't bid.
Done and done.
It's simple...

Trust me, no one has analyzed our intended market more than us. We are comfortable the way the auction currently ends, and we're glad that it's effected positive change by bringing at least five other auction houses to change their timings with the goal of eliminating 4 AM and 5 AM closings. When we switched the ending method in 2016, it was a revolutionary move, and it had to be done in a way that accomplished what we wanted (more bidders awake) and what the bidders wanted (a reasonable hour).

Last year's Super Bowl ended at 10:14 PM EST. Last year's World Series Game 7 ended at 11:58 PM EST. We view REA as the Super Bowl or Game 7 of auctions, and I know a lot of collectors feel the same way. Many people are happy to stay up to watch these events to their conclusion, and those that aren't just read about them in the morning. If there's a "have-to-have" item, we offer numerous options to ensure that a bidder does not need to be glued to his computer or even awake to pursue it. The auction can be accessed from almost anywhere thanks to modern technology. There's no need to plug into a landline or boot up a PC just to place a bid.

I see Heritage cited a lot--the earliest you can win an item in their catalog auctions is 11:30 PM EST--and that's if there are no bids during extended bidding. If there's competition dragging out the 30 minute clock, it could go several hours.

In last fall auction, we processed more than 800 bids in the final 30 minutes...that's more than 26 bids a minute, or an average of one bid every two seconds approximately.

To date in this auction, we've processed 25,589 bids in the three weeks we've been open. That's about 51 bids an hour, day and night, all day, every day, for three weeks. Those are real, concrete, not made up "frenzy" statistics.

There are other auction houses dragging auctions out until 4 AM with bids coming in every 13 minutes. Those are the auctions that should be looked at and made to consider serious change to modernize things.

This auction we have collectors from the US, Canada, Australia, UK, France, Spain, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Hong Kong, South Korea, China, Malaysia, and Singapore involved in the bidding. That's a lot of time zones, each of which presents a different perceived advantage or disadvantage. We have farmers who are up at 3 AM and prefer the old method better, and we have factory workers who will getting off the line at 10 PM and love the new method. There will never be a perfect time for everyone.

I want to be sure that there is no misinformation spread or misunderstandings about how this auction will close. It is the same way that all of our auctions since October 2016 have closed.

The deadline for initial bids is Noon EST Sunday.

The auction will continue for several hours beyond that. We utilize a 15 minute rule, but the truth is that it never even gets remotely close to running out on our auction.

After 6 PM EST, we can close it at any time.

There will be at least one Fair Warning email sent out in advance of the close with specific timing information based on the activity we are monitoring. Beyond that, there will be no notice.

The auctions utilizing this method have closed between 11:30 PM EST and 11:58 PM EST. There is no guarantee this will be the case this auction but those are data points to consider.

In the event that we cannot or do not shut it down manually, the auction will close automatically at Midnight EST. That has never happened.

Good luck to everyone participating this weekend, whether you're awake at the end or not. ;)

Brian

Hey Brian,

Is there a way to get a fair warning text sent to my phone like the outbid alerts? Im sure I'm in the minority for people that do not have their emails go to their phone.

Jc

Great email Brian. REA is no question the super bowl of auctions and I would gladly stay up until 4am+ for your auctions- a midnight ending is simply the cherry on top of an amazing event. I am one who mentioned I like the way Heritage closes, and I do, but who cares - your auctions are second to none and I am just happy to participate. Sunday can’t get here soon enough

Ryan Hotchkiss

The one point that no one has brought up is how my wife and mother are both going to hate me because REA decided to host the last day of bidding on MOTHERS DAY!!! Thanks Brian, I'll start prepping the couch now... :D

REA ends on the 6th
Mothers Day is on the 13th

+1
 

+1

I thought it was this weekend too! Until a fellow member set me straight haha. I'm a bad husband/son!

REA Close
 

Hi Leon it’s JoeT. Personally, I hate “lot by lot” closing. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve fallen short in a huge bidding war, with it too late to revisit the remaining lots I was also interested in because they closed. True, the auction ends earlier, but I rather trade a single night of good sleep for a great memorabilia piece any day of the week! Also, from a Consignors perspective, I can only imagine the number of bids the lot by lot closing format costs the Consignors. I always felt it is the auction house’s #1 responsibility to do whatever it can to maximize bids via marketing, presentation, bidding process, etc. Simply stated, no consignments = no auction business.

I 100% agree with this.

With the sense of advertising urgency created across all forms of media, who can blame anybody?

Joe T.

I could not disagree more, the lots ending one by one with a hard close see much more spirited bidding(unless it's a somewhat commodity type of lot) and usually result in higher price than the ones that close at 5am with only 1 or 2 bids past the initial closing. The lot by lot forces competition, which many bidders want to avoid and stay up all night to try and bid at the last second.

Having ran and more importantly bid in 100's of auctions, it almost always costs me more on an item when I confront another bidder and we get into a bidding war for 30 minutes to an hour when the lot is closing with 10 or 15 or 30 minute bid windows, instead of one of us "sniping" the item at 5:00 am when the other was probably the high bidder and went to bed. The last scenario is what costs consignor's money.

Invariably auctions that close lot by lot, see the items get to their market value much quicker than one that last all night, as the bidders know that they have to get their bids in and compete to win, which in turn results in higher prices to the consignor.

Scott

For me it is simple, I always go to bed early, since I don't want to catch late night auction madness and bid more than I am comfortable with. My final bids are locked and loaded, so let the chips fall where they may.

Brian - what are your thoughts on offering a sniping service?

Not sure you can set a snipe without a definite ending time.

There's no perfect solution but it'd be nice if they just close the lots that have no bids in the extended bidding for 15 minutes. Then continue to close the lots following the 15 minute rule for EACH individual lot. I hate that time clocks restart for EVERYTHING if a bid is placed on an item. You know there will be bids placed for hours after the official initial closing time. :(

Another marriage saved. What would have been funny/sad is if the weekend passed and he didn't look at the auction and found out it closed a week earlier than he thought....:p

Rea
 

Scott,

While I certainly respect your viewpoint, my experience has been somewhat different. I enjoy jumping to other lots when I’ve bern bested on others and the lot by lot closing basically eliminates a majority of that option. Also, if you closely watch REA’s recent bids option, you will certainly notice the flood of bids that pour in every minute the final 2/3 hours, that easily exceed “lot by lot” bidding in virtually any auction after the deadline for initial bids. For example, I bid on nearly 100 lots in Heritage’s last auction and 80%+ of those lots NEVER got another hit after the 11:00 30-minute countdown. Thus, I could not go back on any of them after losing out on several key lots by 11:45/12:00. Lots of potential bids Consignors never got to realize.

To each his own I guess...everyone will have their own perspective. As BIGFISH so eloquently stated, there is no perfect auction close formula to choose. Hope all is well my good friend, and I’ll see you in Cleveland!

Best Regards,
Joe T.

Exactly. Why not just have a hard close with a sniping service?

I hear ya
 

If I get outbid on something late I want to come back and spread that money around to other items. The scenario above restricts that option for me. I believe REA has limited the “unpleasant “ variables as much as they can to balance happy bidders and happy consignors.

+1. Does no one trust the "Honest Autobid" (max bid) function?

Best to all,

Larry

PS: Ok, I got it. You get outbid on one lot, and you have several others you can spend those $$$ on!

I think there is a different right answer for different bidders. If you have qualifying bids in on thirty lots but can only afford five, then the “everything closes at once” format works better because you can move the money around. If you have only one or two lots you really want, then the “lot by lot” closing method works better since you can have your war, be done, and go to sleep.

Every auction house will tell you how great their system is. Yet I can’t think of a another line of business out there that functions in a way where auctions close at midnight or after. Christie’s sells 500M paintings. Silly I guess that they don’t close these sales at modnogjt.

Rea
 

We are all alittle nuts about buying this stuff. Steve, if you really want something in the auction i suggest you do this Sunday so you’re ready to bid.

1. Go to church
2. Walk the dog
3. Polish the pewter

Then stay up and win the item you’re interested in. You can sleep in on Monday.

This is so true. I generally fall into the latter category, which makes sense that I prefer the lot-by-lot close -- to me, nothing is worse than staying up until 2+pm, sleepily thinking I am in good shape since my bid has held for 3-4 hours of extended bidding, going to bed and then waking up to find out someone outbid me in the wee hours. I guess like someone else said, REA is a happy medium -- its an earlier all close at once.

Joe,

Your experience with Heritage is what I was talking about in terms of lots getting to retail quicker than the all-night bidding, the vast majority of those that never got another hit after the 11:00 hour were probably already full priced or the next increment would have placed them over market.

On the one lot that I won in Heritage(two auctions ago), Myself and another bidder began battling at the start of the extended bidding when I came in to place what I would hope would be the winning bid at 10:59 and played ping-pong for nearly an hour, more than doubling the price of the item from when we started, I am sure you can guess what it was :)

If that would have been a 4-5am auction, I would not have bid until I got the final notice or warning and chances are he was not around to bid as there would not have been one bid since he was the high bid before the extended bidding, thus no reason for him to even think he might get outbid. The premise of an auction and especially a successful one for the consignor is to create a bidding war and that can only be done when all of the qualified and interested bidders are front and center and battling it out. Thus a higher sales price, the more bids the higher the price.

As others have said, there is no 100% answer and you just have to plan each auction around the bidding parameters.

maybe you should just collect art, which apparently is easier. talk about worrying about the deck chairs on the titanic.

Yeah, but I’m not sure the fine art world has chatboards on which you can complain about auction rules and shipping speed.

"I can't believe that buyers premium and shipping charges on that giacometti...reeeeee-diculous!"

I’m sure they do.

Rea
 

Scott - sound reasoning but remember one minor fact. Who’s to say if cards are AT or NEAR retail, someone won’t place another bid? I’m sure both you and I have surpsssrd retail cost many times to capture a lot we really wanted. Thus, more bids/$$$$ for the Consignor and an opportunity to win another lot.

Me 2!

Ricky Y