Quote:
Originally Posted by Rhotchkiss
Agree - there were actual bids that took the Cobb/Cobb to at least over $1.07mm before I tapped out and went to bed. I guess the all-in reserve was greater than that. So, we know that FMV for the highest graded Cobb/Cobb is $1.1mm+/-, which apparently is not enough for the current owner
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I'm not saying you are incorrect but how do we know this? Here is the rule regarding the right of the AH to bid up to the undisclosed reserve.
Minimum Bids- Each and every lot within the auction does have a minimum bid designated in both the catalog as well as online. A very few of the lots in the auction have a reserve price (please note the vast majority of the lots within the auction do not have a reserve price) A reserve price is the confidential minimum price that a consignor will accept before they will sell the material, this means that a bid of equal or greater than the confidential reserve must be placed for a successful bid to be accepted on that lot. MHCC may implement this reserve by bidding on behalf of the consignor and may place a bid up to the amount of the reserve, by placing successive bids if necessary. In the limited instances where MHCC has a financial interest in a lot beyond our commission, we may place a bid to protect our financial interest. Reserves when in place will be pre-determined and set within the auction software prior to the start of the auction. Again, please note the vast majority of the lots in every auction will be offered without a confidential reserve in place. For all items in the auction (unless an item is withdrawn during the auction)without a reserve, they will be sold to the highest bidder at or above the minimum bid.
The AH explicitly reserves the right to place secret bids on behalf of the consignor (or on its behalf if it has a financial interest in the item). So what information was disclosed as the bidding progressed to indicate how high the "real" bids went? And even if a "real" bid was put in at say, $750k, the bid it could have been topping might have been a house bid.
Again, I am not saying this is what happened, but it seems to me we have no idea how high the "real" bidding went, nor whether the bids that were topped to get to that last "real" bid were house bids. In the typical instance that I am familiar with, an AH will put an estimated price range for the item, and the rules will say the secret reserve cannot be higher than the low-end estimate. So that way at least a bidder can know that once bidding reaches a certain level, the bids that are being placed are not house bids.