It's just unfortunate for the consignors who are the ones ultimately losing money.
I imagine an empty auction house with one person awake at 2:00am sniping all the lots he wants. Imagine if this was a physical auction.. Would you leave the auction open until 2:00am? No.
It prevents "bidding wars" from occurring - that's a fact.
Every AH owner, bidder and consignor will agree that back to back bidding wars bring in the most money. I bid, you bid, I bid, you bid, I bid, you bid. That's what brings in the most money. It needs to be back to back, you can't have an hour, two hours or five hours in between the bids.
With auctions ending at 2:00 AM it's I bid, (you wait until 2:00AM) you bid. There were a lot of bargains last night because of it.
Edited to add:
I know auction houses can't disclose this, but it would be interesting to see who is bidding at 2:00am. If it's all West Coast collectors then it's an issue between time zones, if it is all dealers and notable resellers, then those bidders are just taking advantage of a broken system.
Last edited by jhs5120; 11-02-2014 at 01:00 PM.
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