You know a lot, Leon. But if the bidder didn't feel comfortable doing the maximum bid thing, and they couldn't stay awake, who's to blame here? The Auction House? No. How many more options can a bidder be given? If the auction close is moved back, then you start getting bidders on the west coast, and in Hawaii that are adversely affected.

Spirited bidding is good.

Not having auctions end at 5:00 am is also good.

A fixed end time is a bad idea because those who like to bid one increment at a time instead of using a max bid may lose the item to snipers (and the auction house and consigner then lose those extra bids).

I see the solution as being a combination of several of the things mentioned by others:

1) 5-minute extended-bidding intervals because 15-minute intervals draw out the auction too much,

2) the entire auction closes at the same time to allow people to shift limited funds when they reach their absolute limit on an item(s), and

3) following 1-hour of extended bidding, only bids over a set amount ($500? $1000?) will extend the entire auction (bids on ALL items will be allowed as long as the auction remains open but only bids on items over the set amount will cause an extension).

This would make a faster auction that ends earlier, allows back-and-forth bidding thanks to the shorter extended periods, doesn't keep anyone from getting an additional bid in when outbid thanks to a fixed end time, and of course still allows for the use of max bids.

Not to mention Guam.

Our Guam and Ethiopian contingencies haven't weighed in yet. Just wait till they see this thread. All hell is going to break loose.

To sum it up, to me, the most level bidding field is the best one. That is making it where staying up the latest isn't an advantage. Why should it be? I am old and need my sleep. :) Nuf said.....

Leon, if you are at liberty to comment, which group of bidders is larger in B&L? East coast or west coast bidders?

Ex-girlfriends, Ronald - get it right! :D

The college football rankings are also hopelessly flawed.

Chalk me up as another who thinks the current format of 3 to 4 am bidding is absolutely absurd!

And this coming from a west coaster.

Hail State!

That's great, guys. Thanks a lot. I appreciate being mocked.

I'm done with this conversation.

Come on Bill get over yourself and have a sense of humor.

I like the idea of
 

I like the idea of item's prebidding ends at a certain time then each lot goes off like a live auction one item at a time. Maybe Have to have bid in prebidding to place final bids in live like format.

Glyn how are you going to do that with hundreds of lots it might take days because you can't possibly do each lot as fast over the internet as live.

I'm one of the 99.5% here. I happened to wake up around 3-4am EST on Sunday morning to go to the bathroom and checked my phone to see if the LOTG auction was still going on. I was tempted to place another bid on a card that I thought was undervalued, which I had originally placed a bid on a few weeks ago, and was mildly interested in obtaining. I didn't place a bid, but I was tempted. My max bids had been topped in three or four other lots, so I had money to spend. I wouldn't have know this if I hadn't woken up.

A few things occurred to me during this:

1. anyone who can stay up that late (or happen to need to wee-wee in the wee hours of the morning) has an advantage -- I had an advantage!
2. sleep deprivation and/or drunkenness can be very advantageous to an AH - I was thiiiiiis close to pulling the trigger!

In my opionion, if the auction had a soft stop around 1 or 2 am EST, which I believe most East Coasters can manage (10-11 pm for West Coasters, which should work as well), I think there would be more spirited bidding, especially for items where there is perceived value. I wouldn't have noticed the underpriced item and I wouldn't have known that I had money still to spend (after having been outbid on my other max bids) if I had slept through the night.

The few times that I have been able to stay awake for an auction close, the message "this auction will end at any time" has been enough for me to start bidding like crazy!! This could happen much earlier in the night (vs 3-4am), in my opinion.

*********************************************

**One last thought to remedy our situation**: allow the immediate underbidder to contact (via the AH) the winning bidder to see if (s)he would accept an offer on the card that (s)he won.

Perhaps after the dust has settled (and the East Coasters wake up to having been shut-out by the West Coasters), the underbidders could send a best and final offer to see if the West Coast winner would be up for making a quick profit. It hurts the consignor (a little), but the bidders might like the idea of someone wanting the card just a little more than they did...and perhaps they were looking to flip the card anyway!

This has happened for me in the past w/ a Huggins & Scott auction where I won a large lot and somebody wanted only a subset of that lot. H&S did not get anything from me in this case, but they were nice enough to play matchmaker. I think the AH could win in a situation where there is a 24 hour period to make offers to lot winners who can either accept or decline the offers - only from people who had pre-bid and/or the immediate underbidder of that particular lot.

**Example**:

I consign a '51 Bowman Mantle, it sells for $1,200 with the juice (20% buyer's premium) to Buyer A. However, the underbidder (Buyer B) who fell asleep would have been willing to pay $1,500.

In the current format, the consignor would get $1k, the AH would get $200, Buyer A would pay $1,200, and Buyer B would complain on Net54 about late auctions.

Under my proposed solution, Buyer A accepts an offer for $1,500 from Buyer B. The consignor still only gets $1k, but the AH gets $250 (vs. $200), Buyer A makes a $250 profit ($1500-$1000-$250), and Buyer B gets the card he wanted without complaining too much on Net54. A variation of this would be to give the consignor a piece of the AH take so that everyone wins.

I never had a successful auction without the heavy hitters from Guam.

To answer your question, the largest number of bidders I had were from California. No other state came close.

Peter- It would shorten the total auction time frame even if the live auction took a few days. Many auctions are on line close to a month with a lot of dead time using current formats.

As for the bidders from Hawaii, I say screw them because, well, they live in Hawaii and not Cleveland.

Auctions
 

I think every lot should be stopped individually ,after the shut off time.
If the auction ends at 9pm,and a lot has no more bids after 15--30 minutes,
then that lot should be closed.
I am certain that a computer can be set up to do this?

Peter
 

It's kind of how the auctionzip live auctions do it. But not exactly. And you may need smaller auctions and the first lots would start earlier.

Glyn, then you have a problem of people not being available at the however many minute interval their particular lots of interest go live. I don't see this as workable in an internet format for a major auction. Especially with three hour differences between the coasts (or more if you count Guam).

+1

Sleep
 

In my case it doesn't have anything to do with being able to stay awake. I have to get up at 5:00 every day, including many Saturdays, so I can be at work at 6. So, if I want to be productive at work I cannot stay up much past 11:00. I don't know how someone can hold down a job and still stay up to bid on these auctions. My best option is to place a max bid and see what happens.

Rick

The objective for the AH is to get as much money in bids as possible, not to have an auction drag on.

That said, the 15 minute rule (in my opinion) does not promote more bidding. In fact, it may slow it down. It can be as few as four bids in an hour.

I can't figure out why a 5 minute rule isn't in place for those auctions that close at once. 12 bids an hour sounds better than 4. In fact, I think that over time, that 'rule' should narrow, say 5 minutes until 11pm, then down to 2 minutes until midnight and then every 60 seconds thereafter.

I've been reading this thread and thinking about all of the options. I do think decreasing the 15 minute period makes sense. 10 probably good. 5 may be too little, especially for folks dealing with multiple items in an auction (almost never the case for me).

max bids
 

if you cant trust an auction to shill you then you really shouldnt bid at the auction

the bidding slots really allow you to place a max bid..on the expensive items you can usually bid in a bidding slot..where the next bidding slot would clearly put the card over teh average past sale by hundreds or even a thousand dollars on big value cards....its not like ebay where you can lose an item by 40 bucks with a last second bid or even lose by a dollar etc...the next bidder really has to poney up for the next bidding slot..

your perceived value of a card shouldnt change just becasue someone else bid on a card making you want to bid higher than your preceived value...if you just place a max bid then you dont have to worry about the impulse bids....

Impulse bids. The bain of my existence. Both when I do it and when others do it to me.

Tom C

I still say whoever bids last has the advantage.

Yes I could just leave a max bid and go to sleep but sometimes I change my mind and might bid higher than my previous max and this format takes away that option from me.

Yes like someone said I could just stay awake all night and wait to be outbid but that is just not realistic, and why should only east coast guys have to do that, it results in an unfair playing field if the west guys don't have to do that too.

And yes I could just stop whining and suck it up but I like to whine.

impulse
 

right the changing of your mind last second would seem to be an impulse buy...especially if it means going over perceived market price

there is buyers remorse as well so not buying something is good too


if it was ebay style and you can lose by a dollar thats one thing..but i've gone to sleep knowing the next guy's next bidding slot was an additional 300 or more over market price plus buyer premium..he can have it!..

For auctions that go all night, why not get to bed at a reasonable time and set your alarm for say 3:30 AM. You'll be a little tired but at least you get most of a night's sleep. If you stay up all night it is not productive. If you don't bid between 10:00 PM and the wee hours you've stayed up for nothing.

If the auctions refuse to implement a better system, then the bidder has to find something that works best for him.

Anyone who wakes up at 330 AM to bid on a baseball card should reassess his life, in my opinion. :D

Just place a max bid, what's the WORST that can happen, you get the card for what you were willing to pay.

Agreed, but you know the level of obsession out there. It's about getting the stuff.

How about this idea: Extend the auctions to around 8 am EST, then all the east guys can wake up fresh in the morning and add more final bids, and the west guys can stay up til 5 am PST if they want to, or put in their max bids earlier and go to sleep.

The only problem with that is instead of making the auctions shorter, you're making them a lot longer. But getting a good night's sleep and waking up early to bid is, IMO, an excellent strategy.

Most are too late for me most of the time! good post and discussion

Jimmy

It seems like a lot of people are proposing obscure solutions for the bidder to make the inconvenient auction endings more doable. Yes, there are solutions, but wouldn't be easier to just solve the problem?

Baseball card auctions have turned into silent auctions. We write down a bid and leave for hours (or days) and someone comes and writes a higher bid down. Now imagine the silent auction stayed open until 3AM and only one person was left in the auction house picking and choosing the best deals of the lot. It's a disservice to the consignor, the other bidders and the auction house.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change...

I have been reading all of these convoluted solutions and have been shaking my head. They are good solutions but would never, ever work with our audience. I could point to a fire exit, marked as a fire exit, and some people wouldn't understand what kind of exit it is. You absolutely HAVE to use the Keep it Simple method with large audiences (as auctions have).