10:15 and Goodwin is all but over :)

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Posted By: scott brockelman

What a smooth and painless way to run an auction. I won 5 lots and bailed on 1 other, no need to stay up all night. I knew right where I stood every step of the way and it was very easy to decide whether to bid or not.

The 30 minute invidual lot rule RULES!

Scott

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Agreed. Not sure if anyone was bidding in last night's CS Auction but the difference in endings between the two was palpable. Last night was hideous; tonight a breeze.

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Posted By: Cat

Jeff:

You sure bid in a lot of auctions. When are you going to show us your collection?

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Posted By: ockday

I won 2 lots myself and also just got the invoice emailed to me..boy that was fast!
Alan

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Posted By: Lee

Finally won a vg red hindu!

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Posted By: Andrew

Goodwin's format is my favorite. What makes its so good is that I trust Bill with my max bids. I won the '33 WWG Ruth and the 1909 Obak.

"Take your life in your own hands and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame." -- Erica Jong

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Bidding and winning are two different things.

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Posted By: quan

which auction house(s) officially does not allow consignors to bid? i know there are ways around it etc...

i almost missed the end of goodwin driving home from work...his auction closes so fast!

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Posted By: barrysloate

I am using SimpleAuctionSite also, as Goodwin used last night, but I wasn't following the auction. Could you explain why it was over at 10:15? Didn't he have close to 1000 lots?

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Barry, it wasn't over at 10:15 eastern time. The auction closed at 10 pm and then the 30 minute rule for each lot kicked in. I think the whole auction was over by 11 or so (or at least all the lots I was watching). Much more customer-friendly in my mind and the way to go.

Cat, I'm scanning some of my stuff and am putting it on a very rudimentary website that I've got my Ivy League grad secretary setting up for me. I have heard him mutter on at least one occasion "I can't believe my parents paid for Columbia for this..." I'll have it up soon though I can't bear to scan all the Registry sets.

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Posted By: Bob

My name is Bob and I am the owner of SimpleSite. Our software allows you to choose the way you want to close your auction. Bill chose to close his auction using the 30 minute rule that extends each lot individually. Other sites choose to extend the entire auction when there is a single bid placed on just one lot. Its a matter of preference for each company. Our software is very flexible in this and many other ways. Thanks

Bob Freedman

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Posted By: leon

Welcome to our board. You might have a few customers on here ....and get a few more......thanks for letting us know the flexibility you have with your s/w. We have a way of voicing our opinions to help our causes ie....closing times etc.....

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Posted By: Bob

Thanks, glad to be here.

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Posted By: Bill Stone

This was a great auction. I won two items -got to bed early and woke up to find my invoice --I am on my way to the post office this morning to mail in payment --I couldn't be happier!!.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Just wanted to say I am one of Bob's customers and he and I have been working closely over the past week. We both discussed whether to use the 15 minute rule on each lot or 15 minute rule for the whole auction, and I chose the latter. But it is not too late to make the switch. Any thoughts from others?

Also want to say it has been a pleasure dealing with Bob and that he has been working very hard to get my site up. I've already gotten some nice compliments so I know it's going to be a success.

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Posted By: ockday

Barry..I absolutely positively vote for the 15 minute for each lot method. This way I can watch the clock countdown and make the necessary bids to insure winning the lots I want. I believe this actually increases the bidding as I find myself getting into a "live" bidding war over some lots.
With the 15 minute overall method, I put in a bid , go to sleep and hope that I won when I wake up in the morning.
Alan

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Posted By: leon

I also vote for the 15 minute rule on each lot....I hate staying up all night....Hopefully there will be a 100% consensus on this way of doing it and it will be a very easy decision for you....good luck....looking forward to it..regards

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Posted By: Rob Dewolf

No question about it: 15-minute rule on each lot.

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Posted By: Paul

I won three lots, & was also pleased with the auction. I didn't get an invoive yet, but was surprised to read that some have you have gotten an invoice that fast.

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Posted By: barrysloate

It seems to me if bidders all want the 15 minute rule on each lot, then it's not good for the consignors. Since I represent the consignors (can't represent both sides, that's a conflict of interest) I think I will try the usual 15 minute for the whole auction format. It's my first online venture and if I decide it doesn't work I will change it in the future. If Bill Goodwin had a thousand lots and his ended that early, it seems to me he left money on the table. I can't finish one of my 80 lot auctions before 11:00 PM.

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Posted By: JK

Goodwin is so fast, Ive received two invoices already (the shipping was different on each).

Barry, I would vote for ending each lot individually as well.

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Posted By: Cat

Barry:

I know this is the unpopular position, but I think for YOUR auction the 15-minute rule for the whole auction may be the best.

The 15-minute rule for the whole auction format is a problem when there are two or three thousand lots AND the auction house uses a 30 minute rule. It can drag on and on. Since you have 100 or so lots I think it will sort itself out very quickly.

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Posted By: leon

Good point.....and I know Barry won't mind staying up until 1am-2am if it doesn't work out .....I would guess it will be fine either way with the amount of lots being auctioned.....

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Posted By: Joe D.

I say individual closings... but a 30 minute rule not a 15 minute rule.

15 minutes is too much time pressure for the guy who is bidding on multiple lots.

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Posted By: Cat

Jeff:

My files were all scanned by my English As a Second Language Girlfriend. That is why on my photobucket site my T206 Lajoie has the file name of Keeler. I handed her the stack of slabbed cards and a spreadsheet and she got a little crossways. "Baby, you gotta make sure the file name is the same as the name on the slab/card." Oh well, you get what you pay for.

No, I haven't called the INS yet.

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Posted By: barrysloate

I still think keeping all the lots open is a better system. I don't want anybody to be shut out on one because it closed while he was focusing on another. I don't think the auction will go all night to resolve 96 lots. My guess is it will end before midnight. And Leon knows how much I love staying up until 2:00 AM. The auction can take care of itself but there will be at least one guy who calls at 2:00 AM to ask a basic question. Hey, if I'm not snoring too loudly I'll hear the phone and answer it.

There's also such a thing as ceiling bids. There are so many people who are afraid to call an auction house before they go to bed and say "I'll bid $600 with a ceiling of $1000." But that same person will stay up all night and end up placing that same $1000 bid himself at 3:00 in the morning. Somehow they feel better about being in control but I do find it funny.

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Posted By: Eric Brehm

I was interested in five or six lots in the Goodwin auction and the 30-minute rule for each lot worked okay for me. If I had been bidding on twenty lots though I might have felt a bit pressed to track all the individual lot clocks simultaneously, and to figure out how to re-allocate my resources when certain lots went out of my price range; in that situation I probably would prefer for the clock to be re-set for the whole auction each time a bid is placed.

I did notice that many of the lots I bid on or won sold for quite a bit less than 'book' value; Barry you may well be right that some money was left on the table. However I have no way of knowing how much the individual lot closings and the short extended bidding period actually affected the final sales prices.

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Posted By: Wesley

Sounds like I am in the minority, but I like the 15 minute rule and all lots closing at the same time. That format just gives a bidder additional options in the event he is outbid on his primary lots. When each lots close individually, like in Mastro and Goodwin, I find that I get shut out of many lots that I intended to continue to bid on but already closed.

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Posted By: barrysloate

I agree there is no way of knowing one way or the other but this is my first venture with this format and I will pick one and go with it. I can't imagine it won't work out. I just don't want a situation where I have someone who wants to place a bid on a lot after his primary one got too high, and he's shut out because his second choice closed. Good for the winning bidder, but very bad for my consignor.

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Posted By: Jason L

Tell your Ivy League grad secretary to shut up and instead of bitch and moan, he should be happy he didn't pay for that education his own damn self!!!

He doesn't know pain (school loans)

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Posted By: Al C.risafulli

For what it's worth, while I can understand the 15-minute rule on individual lots, I prefer it for the whole auction.

This way, if a lot I'm interested in goes above what I'm willing to pay, the fact that I won't win the lot creates "found money" for me - and I can go bid on something else if I like.

I won a '52 Mantle in REA last month for that very reason. There was a lot I was looking at, and at about 1:30 the bidding went too high for my tastes. So I dropped in a 2AM bid on the Mantle and won it - and couldn't be happier. Had the auction had a 15-minute rule for each lot, the Mantle would have been closed.

-Al

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Posted By: Steve Murray

30 minutes each lot.

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Posted By: barrysloate

As with most hobby issues, there are many different opinions. But you have to pick one. That's the way it goes.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Barry, you are better off going with the 30 or 15 minutes on the whole auction route. If that many people want individual closings then you can be sure you are leaving money on the table. The only reason people want the lots to close is so someone can't come in late and up their bid. I bid every month in an online auction that runs their auctions with the individual closing time and I personally love it because I get a lot of bargains that way.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Dan- you read my mind!

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Posted By: scott brockelman

and here's why.

After observing and participating in over 100 auctions of all types over the last 10 years I see bidding patterns based on the type of auction format.

We all remember what it was like when the old format of the 30 minute rule was used in early auctions, the larger the auction got the longer it lasted, many into the early morning of the following day. It required many strategies based on where one lived, either stay up, set the alarm and get up or request callbacks, either way the person who could hold out the longest won. MANY lots sold for less than they should have, as competing bidders tired and fell asleep or just said the hell with it and went to bed. Normally these auction lots saw very little action until the last 2 hours of the auction and laid at very low prices for most of the auction. As ebay items many times do and then the bidding got a bit furious and whoever last the longest into the wee hours of the morning won. Again many people woke up to believing they were winners and found out they had lost at 4:30 a.m. and kick themselves knowing they would have paid more but thought they had the lot won. Bottom line the consignor lost out as well as the auction house.

Now fastforward to the Goodwin/REA(Mastro has also used it at times) auction of closing each lot after 30 minutes of no activity, the lots see quite a bit of spritied bidding early in the auction and right before the closing. Each bidder has essentially bid up to or near his max knowing that the end is near. Then the 30 minutes begin and said bidders either win or rebid in an effort to be the new "high bidder" not the "hold out for 2 more hours guy". Underbidders can then decide to reup the bid or go to another lot they have previously placed an intial bid on and become competitive on it. When the smoke all clears I firmly believe the highest bid had been reached, as their was an absolute deadline to declare your bid or pass. In this scenario I beleive the consignor and the auction house both are better off. I know that due to this format last night I paid MORE than I would have in the old format as I became involved on a heads up battle on 2 lots and would not let myself be outbid.

In the old format all of this would have taken hours and hours and I would not have kept getting up and checking and rebidding. The winner would have wore me down and gotten a better deal on the item.

Scott

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

The last REA auction turned me off to the 30 minute rule on the whole auction. It seemed that 90% of the money spent on many lots was spent after 2 am the morning after the auction 'closed.' Too insane and unfair for me. If you want the damn lot, bid for the damn lot when you have a gun to your head. End of story.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Scott- as someone who runs auctions and sees how they work from the inside, there is no system that is perfect for both bidder and seller. It also depends upon the nature of the lot. Remember, for example, the square Ramly of Anderson I had a few auctions back? No matter what format I used, there was no way that lot wasn't going to get every last bump the bidders had in them. That's different than a Matty black cap graded VG-EX, where bidders will exert only so much effort and then if it becomes too much of a hassle they will quit and wait for another one.

Every lot, every auction, and every auction house will have a different set of dynamics depending upon what they are selling. I agree nobody wants to stay up all night, I think it's a bad system, but you can't leave money on the table either. No auction house has yet developed the perfect system. It's still a work in progress.

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Posted By: ockday

Scott B is right on the money IMHO...Thanks for spelling it out.
also in the "all lots close after 15 minutes" method,if I leave a max bid and get outbid at 3am in the morning I'll be asleep and won't be able to move those dollars into another lot...that also is "leaving money on the table".
Alan

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Posted By: barrysloate

Alan- no system is perfect. That's why the rules keep changing. If there were a perfect system everyone would use the same one. I agree auctions going all night are a complete nuisance. I suggested having a last call where bidders have one final hour to get all their bids in, but that would cause so much internet traffic the whole system would crash.

Anyway, my auction won't go to 3:00 AM. My guess is midnight or earlier. It's relatively small and manageable.

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Posted By: James Feagin

Whoever got the T213-3 Cobb in a 9 holder for under 30K got an absolute, complete and total steal. If I was the consignor of that card, I would be pulling out my hair at this moment. As for auction policies, I believe the 30 minute each lot method is the "more" perfect of the two.

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Posted By: Peter Thomas

I agree with James. The 52 Topps with a black star (what ever that is) went for more than the Cobb. That Cobb is beautiful. Did anyone on the board get it?

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Posted By: scott brockelman

That is far and above what I thought it "should" bring. Coupon type 3 are in far less demand than T206 and the HOF Coupon never bring near what a T206 in the same grade would bring. Also there are quite a few high grade type 3 coupons in the market, perhaps from some type of find in the last 10 years. Had this been a T206 Cobb it would have been stratospheric, as it was it brought all the money in my opinion.

Scott

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Posted By: Frank Evanov

I vote for the individual lot close.....either 15 or 30 mins. I have to get up early in the morning!

Frank

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Posted By: Anthony

30 minute per individual lot. I think in time everyone will adopt that format.
Hopefully, in time, auction house will also reject the "individual vs. set" bidding that Mastro has been using on certain consignments. Pure greed, and I know of an increasing amount of bidders that refuse to participate, myself included.

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Posted By: Dylan

Scott, I understand your arguement on the Coupon Cobb, but it all depends on how we assess value. I've wrote about this in detail on the other forum before. The supply of T213-3 Cobb coupons is very low, and the PSA 9 is an obvious 1 of 1 at that grade, however T206's have much greater demand, a demand that surpasses the relative rarity of the T213-3. T213-2 is collected more, and had the card been a T213-2 i think it would have fetched more money. But I still think all of the T213 sets are undervalued and in time I think this Cobb pickup and many other T213 pickups will look like smart buys. They will never be in the demand T206's are, but the hobby as a whole has seen the greatest spikes in prices in the rarer issues, not the mainstream ones. And while the T213 set may be the easiest as far as the Louisiana issues go, its still tougher then all mainstream tobacco trust card issues. In time collectors may place more weight in this and value it more then most of their counterpart T206's.