I see the Plank as normally an under 10k card with the last couple in REA (before last night) being pushed by a few overly aggressive bidders. To me, Plank should not be more expensive than say Waddell (which was more the bargain considering how nice it was).

But agreed, Lajoie price was extremely strong no doubt, think that gap was too wide as well. They don't come up often and someone really went for it.

As a bidder, I can't stand the "Lot by Lot" closing method. If you are in on multiple items, and get outbid late on your first choices, there is no ability to return to an alternative lot (because it has already closed separately). It's actually infuriating, and I think most of us who have a limited budget can relate...

As a consignor, I hate "Lot by Lot" even more, because I KNOW money was left on the table (for the same reason as stated above).

So I think REA's closing format is better, while still perhaps flawed given the hard close at midnight. I think they're leaving some money on the table, but it's far better than the Lot by Lot method. True, people will complain regardless of the closing method.... But I think LOTG really does it best. Their method feels like the best balance between the Consignor and Bidder (who wants to get at least some sleep).

As for last night…
A great auction on the memorabilia side especially. Really strong prices across the board. I felt fortunate to barely squeak out one win.

Steven and Cory, I agree 100% with you both. Well said.

Interesting perspective Mark and that makes sense too. I just think a lot of what you are suggesting could go against you just as easily if the lots close all at once. For example, you’re winning your favorite lot and at 11:59 40 seconds you get sniped. If they all close at once you are pretty much finished. If they close lot by lot you can still potentially bid on something else. So I’m not sure ending them all at once necessarily solves that problem and it becomes just luck either way if you get outbid whether they all close at once or lot by lot.

To me closing them individually gives you a truer picture of interest and willing expenditure on an item. And if you lose an item you can then look at the rest that are open.

Perhaps there is no perfect system, but as I’m sitting by a computer at midnight last night and saying wtf just happened, I think a positive feeling becomes negative very quickly. At least in Heritage I have 30 minutes to regroup and decide if I want to bid on.

Different people give the exact same reason for disliking both methods. This is what I meant before -- there's just no consensus and no possibility of a consensus.

Hey Jeff! I hope you picked up some nice items.

As for closing method, my favorite is a live auction format. Start with Lot 1, fight it out, move on to Lot 2. Every on line closing method has issues. If I were running an auction house I would use a variation of LOTG’s closing. All lots with no bids in the last half hour close at 11PM EDT. All remaining lots close individually with a 5 minute rule. This eliminates the traffic jam at the end and has virtually everyone to bed by midnight.

Why doesn't the method suggested in post #69 offer the best of both worlds? With a steadily declining time interval after which the entire auction closes, the auction would both end at a reasonable hour and at the same time give bidders the option to switch to other lots if outbid on another lot. Sniping would not exist, and a bidder would know that if he got outbid on a lot, it was because he/she made the conscious choice not to go higher.

To my knowledge, this method has not been tried and if the software, as Barry says, exists, why not give it a shot? The only down side I suppose is that it will force bidders to literally sit by their computers/devices at the very end. But at least by doing so they will have full control over what happens.

And that’s how big auction houses like Sotheby’s and Christie’s do it. One by one and on the Internet you can tunnel in to the room where the auction is being held and bid live.

I’m still struggling with understanding why closing the items all at once helps someone on a limited budget. It seems as if you run the same good or bad luck depending on when you get outbid on the item as you’re screwed if you get outbid right at the end and have nowhere to turn if they close all at once. Perhaps I’m missing something.

It has been tried, I used it. And it worked very well.

Brian is one of the very honorable guys in an industry I am understanding more and more to be a little more corrupt than one would like. I would be very surprised if he did not carefully think through all of these various issues and come up with a more equitable solution going forward. And whatever that may be, I would like to think that the winner of the auction will be determined by the person willing to pay the most at the time that particular lot is closing and not by someone sniping at the last second.

Here's how (and this what actually happened). I have a budget of X. There are 7 lots I have qualifying bids in on. One of them is literally a unique item which perfectly fits my collection and, by definition, being unique this is my one shot to get it. So I save my entire budget of X for that item. At 3:45 AM I got outbid once again, and this time I was at my budget. So I went back to those other 6 lots that I had qualifying bids in on and THAT WERE STILL OPEN BECAUSE ALL THE LOTS CLOSED AT THE SAME TIME, and started bidding on them. I ended up winning I think 4 of them, none of which I would have won had they had individual closing times.

Had the extended bidding period begun at an early enough hour and the bidding interval as midnight approached been steadily reduced to one minute, this entire scenario would have played out hours earlier.

How many auctions are really won by last second snipes?

But Corey, you could have just as easily gotten outbid with 15 seconds to go before all of the lots ended and you would have gotten nothing. It just happened to be in your case that you were outbid with plenty of time to place other bids.

Plenty last night.

OK. It doesn't seem to happen much at my pedestrian level.:eek:

Steve, I got outbid at 3:45 in the morning. For all I know the other six lots I had qualifying bids in on had been inactive since 10 PM (and if so would have closed). When I got outbid that last time, by the method I described (the ENTIRE auction remains open until NO lot has received a bid for 60 seconds), I would have had 60 seconds to regroup and place bids on these other six lots. With the bidding interval remaining at 60 seconds, I would always have that time to decide what to do. If all this starts playing out at, say, 11 pm (when the interval reduces to 60 seconds), all bidders will be at their computers/devices and constantly monitoring what is happening. I suspect 95% of the lots by that 11 pm hour will have reached their limit, so for the 5% left and the interval only 60 seconds, I bet the remaining active lots are all over within minutes.

Corey, I thought that even the auctions that remain open well into the morning have a hard close time that is not dependent on the amount of time a last bid was placed on an item in the auction. But it’s an arbitrary time determined by the auction house themselves. Perhaps what I’m saying is incorrect and they do just continue until there is no bid for a certain amount of time. If that’s the case then you will always have time to bid on something else but perhaps someone else can chime in whether even in that circumstance does the auction continue for as long as there is a bid being placed on any item?

My experience is when the items close lot by lot, that most of the auctions close at the same time or close to it anyways. Generally you know that the lot is past your limit before OT and you can shift to other items and you get to bed at an earlier time.

I like your idea of 1 minute intervals. I would have like to seen all the items that got sniped, get reset at 1 minute giving those that got outbid at the last second a chance to respond. I won my 2nd item ever in REA last night because cards just aren't worth staying up all night to bid on, but if I got sniped, I would have been out of luck with money sitting in my pocket and I had backup items that I wouldn't be able to bid on because the whole auction closed. So, closing all items at once, at midnight or the wee hours of the morning, can still leave you missing out.

You have the option of setting a higher bid so you don't get sniped. If you didn't do that, isn't it on you? Why aren't we just calling that "lazy" instead of a problem? The snipe WAS the highest bid at closing time.

I don't necessarily love the hard stop the way it happened, but I knew it was possible and even likely. As a matter of fact, I was about to bid on two other items because I'd gotten outbid on the most expensive item I was chasing around 11:40P. But I got lazy, hit bid about 8 seconds too late. Oh well.

And, NO I do not think the auction house has responsibility to get the highest price for every item - that's a totally false premise that they can't control. The "market" is much larger than the bidder IDs at REA - frequently the person willing to pay the most isn't even bidding in some of these auctions. Time, resources, awareness, all of those things factor in. REA got good exposure, they normally do solid but not overly flowerly write-ups and they run a fair auction process. I think they did their job.

Last night.... a number of them were.

Cory, the 3:45am thing is different than the 12am thing in two ways (i) in the 3:45 one, the auction house does not give warning that its going to end and it ends at a firm time -- they tell you its almost over at some point and eventually they let the last 15 minutes run and don't restart -- in other words, the auction ends without true warning, so people have their bids in earlier out of caution and can't snipe, and (ii) by 3:45am, almost everyone has put in their best bid and gone to bed, so there would be very little last minute-sniping, even if sniping were possible.

"In my opinion, the steal of the auction was the E107 Plank for under $10k."

That Plank was mine, so this consigner isn't thrilled...

In the auction this happened to me at, the AH basically said that at 4 AM the auction would close without notice. At that hour very few lots were still active, and for those (high ticket) ones that were, the AH would upon request email/call you that they were about to close and to immediately make any final bids. So that is how that AH handled it. By the time it ended, I at least knew that I had my full shot on everything I had an interest in, and that I had full control over everything that happened. The flip side is I got to bed shortly before dawn and was not particularly productive that day. I would have very much preferred all this to have played out hours earlier, which I believe is what would have happened with steadily reduced bidding intervals (coupled with an earlier start time for extended bidding).

"almost everyone has put in their best bid and gone to bed"

If you know an auction is going to end at midnight and you are the current high bidder, why not put in your best bid at 11:58 or 11:59? Then if you get "sniped" you will know the sniper beat your best bid? It seems like people who got beat late last night are lamenting they didn't place their highest bid but are blaming how the auction ended. I would much rather place my absolute best bid when I know it's going to be "out there" only for 1 or 2 minutes as opposed to some unknown or unstated auction closing time.

Agree. I was on it and then bailed at the very end because I already have several autos from the Great Pittsburgh Find. The legit ones out there are still undervalued but real pieces of history.

Fair, but I would argue that being human some of us don't know what their absolute best bid is until we know that unless we make it, we will be outbid. To say it another way, and this often happens to me, I cannot answer in the hypothetical (which is what a top bid is when it is the high bid when made) how high am I willing to go.

Because if I have say 10 items I’m looking at and put high ceiling bids on each of them, what’s to say I don’t get run up on all of them and then I have 10 items at the max I was willing to spend on each, not thinking I could end up with all of them? I wouldn’t call not doing that lazy, but actually financially prudent.

I'm sorry Ricky. That is a great looking card. I have had my bad luck on consignments too. It happens. I am sorry it happened to you. On the flip side, your buyer is likely thrilled....

So maybe the best solution is for any item that gets bid on in the last 60 seconds gets reset to a 60 second clock so that the item won’t close until there are no bids for 60 seconds. This might actually meet everyone’s needs.

+100. This is the point. Not that you get outbid, or outbid at the last minute. Rather, its you are afraid to put your best in on numerous things (say 10) bc you may stuck holding the bag on all of them for an aggregate amount far in excess of what you wanted/expected to spend.

And to be honest Ricky, if I wasn’t dealing with a few items closing at the same time on REA plus the same time at Heritage, I’m sure I would have bid on it again. It’s too much for an old guy like me to be doing at midnight on a Sunday in the summer.

Thanks guys. It happens. I can't cry about what it sold for but I also can't honestly say that I'm not disappointed. Whoever got it will be able to flip it for a nice profit in a year or two, if they want. On the bright side, I bought it for only $30 back in the late '80s, so how much can I complain? :)

Can't believe what that E107 Lajoie went for, though!

Where the hell was I in the 80s???

Ryan - not really.

Peter - here's your answer.

Sort the auctions results by recent bids, pretty sure I did it correctly.
# of items with bids AFTER 11:58PM - 93 = 3.2% (2907 total lots)
# of items with bids AFTER 11:59PM - 72 = 2.5%

Of those 93 lots, 14 were top 100 items in prices, at $473k. The rest of the 93 were $212k. I'm sure some would get reallocated, but not all as the majority of that money was chasing very specific cards/lots. If you were after an E107 Lajoie, you weren't about to just pivot into eight T206 Ty Cobbs. Maybe another 5% of the auction would have been exposed to reallocation of funds? It's doubtful it's even that high, meaning well more than 90% of this auction was DONE well before "snipe" time.

There is no best way to end, otherwise everyone would do it like that and it would just be called "the way". "This way" works just fine.

I agree. Putting my best foot forward on several items means that I could get "run up" on each. Taken on an individual basis not so bad, but on an aggregate basis potentially financially imprudent. I have an order of priority on certain items that involves both a qualitative and quantitative analysis, much of which is dependent on relative pricing. That means that I have to stay involved over the entire auction in some instances. My wife already thinks I am nuts, but if I did what you is suggested, she would go ballistic. And I wouldn't blame her.

David, I respectfully disagree with you and don’t like “this way”. It is what it is, and reasonable people can disagree.

Somehow I don’t know many people complaining about how Heritage ends theirs. But perhaps I’m mistaken. And for me if it doesn’t change I’ll have to make a decision whether or not I choose to engage any longer. And I suspect I won’t be the only one.

not that many people are complaining about REA, and it's all basically "what if" scenarios. 97% is a pretty high bar. maybe i'll go back and look at some previous auctions and see how well that holds up.

I'm happy to complain about Heritage, but for a different reason. i live in texas, so sales tax makes them basically a non-event. i didn't even bother bidding this time, although i did create a watch list.

I think Heritage's lot by lot works well for the higher end stuff (to get max value) but it's not great for the lower tier items.

Real example from yesterday... I was bidding on 5 photos and had them ranked in terms of desirability. My top one the early bidding was pretty strong so I decided to focus my entire budget to winning it and let the other ones close. By the time I realized I was clearly bidding against someone who seemed like they were going to win it at any price and my total budget had been surpassed, the other 4 photo lots were of course closed. I 100% would have bid on them if I knew I wasn't going to get my #1.

So again, great for the best items, not great for the secondary stuff.

I'm in the camp that there's no true best way and will adapt to each auction, with the exception of the 4am... 5am... 6am closes that are ridiculous.

Yes Jeff...

The scenario you laid out is exactly why I dislike the Heritage format. Nothing against Heritage, as many others are now using the "Lot by Lot" format as well. I just prefer the closing formats of Lelands, Grey Flannel, and especially LOTG, as they allow for more flexibility, as you so adeptly pointed out.

If I lived on the East Coast... then perhaps not as much. Perhaps this is our small compensation for never having the National nearby. ;)

The one thing that Heritage offers is certainty. If you really want an item or items you can bid till you win or are tapped out. In REA, you can be sniped at the end. That uncertainty bothers me a little, but the uncertainty also forces more up to bids, which is good for consignors.

I like the 6pm EST extended bidding time and I like the 5 minutes limit. But I think it should be 5 minutes for each individual item, no bids in 5 minutes then that item closes and the rest remain open until no bids for 5 minutes. This would keep me at the computer for hours and leave probably early when all the items I was interested in ended.

But Jeff, if they all closed at once and you realized at 11:59 you weren’t going to get your first choice how would it be any different? I think all sides can make feasible arguments as to why a certain way works better and then the other side can show otherwise. So as not to change the basics of how REA ends their auction, why not just add a 1-2 minute extension for every item with bids after say 11:58 and more than likely it will all be ending shortly thereafter anyway. This way the format stays the same and the best and highest bid wins the item and not the best sniper. I understand why eBay with their thousands of auctions needs to end that way but for the 92 lots or whatever someone said that would still be going they will then end more fairly. More money to the consignor and fairer to the bidders as well I think.

In a funny way it would also eliminate the need for sniping since if you will be forced to fight it out, why not do it before midnight.

Oh I wasn't saying a midnight hard close was any better, just wanted to illustrate Heritage's lot by lot isn't perfect either.

Your hard close with a 2 min add-on for lots receiving a late bid sounds interesting, but agreed it should start earlier than midnight Eastern time.

I also like the "Christie's" format the best. Saco River and I believe Hunt's uses it sometimes. I want to be pitted with my rival. Hit me with your best shot, then on to the next lot. REA should not announce a deadline. It should close at a random time after a set time. just my .02. Rob