Maybe this has been explained before and I'm just tired, but I am curious to know why an AH doesn't just skip the buyer's premium altogether and take their 1/6 share from the final hammer price. If buyers are already aware of BPs and adjust their max bids accordingly, presumably their max bids would increase once free of BPs. If the ultimate price with BP is the same as without it, and buyers don't care who gets what split of their money, then it should make no difference, right? On the other hand, if, for whatever reason and in spite of logic buyers don't like BPs and withhold participation for that strange (IMO) reason, then they will bid more and the hammer price would be higher without them.
IOW, if the BP doesn't make any difference and bidders ultimately pay the same max price with or without it, then why won't an AH try it the other way and charge no BP, agreeing instead to take its cut from the consignor's share?
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If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon's but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other. - Ulysses S. Grant, military commander, 18th US President.
Last edited by nolemmings; 08-19-2015 at 10:14 PM.
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