Correct, Heritage could claim "Technical Issues" with the close of the auction and re-open the auction for those lots if they wanted to. Heritage, as well as most other auction houses, reserve the right to re-open lots, cancel sales, cancel bids, etc for just about any reason.

it would not be the first time by any means that an online auction was re-opened for bidding after "ending" due to technical reasons - it happens more often than most realize.

And just to reiterate, an emailed notice of a winning bid is not a guarantee of actually "winning" the item. Emails / Notices can be sent in error for a number of reasons. Especially with all of the ways to bid these days, clerical errors can and will be made by auction personnel when executing bids. And just about all Auction Terms & Conditions protect the auction house from these "errors". In this case, the bidding system just was not set up properly for that type of auction and sent a winning bid notice in error.

Obviously a frustrating situation for all involved with no real way to make everyone happy, but hopefully a big learning experience for Heritage.

I got what I would describe as a “blow off” email from Heritage.
Not even the courtesy of a phone call.

And hopefully a lesson for all of us!

In the cold light of day on Monday morning, it seems like the only way to make sure that you win the whole set is to bid like a drunken sailor on all of the individual lots, plus on the lot for the full set.

Because otherwise you're leaving yourself open to a potential that you win the lot for the set, but lose overall.

I do wish Powell the best of luck with his approach and process. Maybe Heritage will decide to attempt to declare that the bidding should be re-opened. But I wouldn't bet on it.

I agree and raised this as an equitable solution under these circumstances early on in this discussion. Nothing can be done to reverse what’s happened in the past. And, choosing a legitimate winner at this point directly screws someone or many someones. Whereas reopening the auction gives everyone a fighting chance and only indirectly screws someone or many someones by virtue of their own underbidding.

Good faith solution is good for business, HA and the consignor make more money, cards go to fully informed and highest bidder.

Jesus. After all those years and all those dealings, that is truly appalling.

Just absolutely astounding negligence from the largest sports auction house in the world. Powel should have been awarded the win, but I'm assuming at this point since invoices went out that cards may be on their way to individual lot winners already.

I think I would have questioned how things were going to go once I realized that you had to add up the individual lots yourself. How annoying would that be if they were doing this same type of setup with 524 T206 cards? Or a complete 1952 Topps set?

I read this thread last night and was wondering how it would be addressed.
Very surprised.

While I hoped you would have gotten a different response, this was to be expected. It seems like we are numbers to them, not people.

1- Powell bidded on the SET lot and ended just like a normal lot would end.
2. The other single lots kept going as normal and ended like normal.
As reffered by others as 2 separate Heat Races.
3. When the races end, the highest WINS.
OK. so, Powell loses then.

I can see the other aspect, have the lots joined together and closed at 1 time, but it was never disclosed that way. Just that the highest lot(s) won. Right?
(i did not look at the site, just basing on what i read here)

HOWEVER- the case with the winning bidder invoices??
thats the part figuring out, was it a payment due type invoice?
Thinking this invoices/winner should never been sent out,
most people think it says you won the lot, then you won.
Thats why i question, if it asked for payment??

Either way, hate to see the set split up, so beautiful. Be nice to see it displayed too.

Wow, I would have thought a phone call would be warranted with as much business as you have done with them. Also, an explanation of how exactly the process worked as there is a bit of conjecture on that subject.

Did they even speak to the details here?

Or was it just like, "Thanks for bidding, and thanks for your email. Our next auction opens 11/4. Best of luck!"

Consignments accepted.

At the end of the day, Heritage is a behemoth auction house which doesn’t need Powell and is arrogant enough not to care what he thinks. They may pay some lip service but they really aren’t concerned. REA wouldn’t handle it this way, I assure you all. Spend 5 mins with Heritage’s owners and Brian Dwyer and you’ll quickly understand.

Is it possible they're contacting each of the single card winners and cutting a deal with them to back out of their "wins"? Seems reasonable they are doing background before contacting you. Not saying it is the correct course of action for a long-time client, but I would be willing to guess Heritage would extend substantial incentives to the single card high bidders to get you the set. I think this solution would make everyone happy. The Baker will be challenging though, and certainly of no fault to Aaron, but like they say: "everything is for sale at a certain price"...bummer for all on what should have been an exciting evening!

What did the “blow off” email say?
 

I assume multiple calls were made to Heritage to try to put a stop on the cards going out, what has come of that? They’ve had days now to plan what they are going to do about it. It’s 2:30 TX time now, they can’t just sweep this under the rug I don’t imagine.

Jeff,

Sadly, I think you are exactly right. Arrogance.

That would definitely be awesome for Powell.

But even in my wildest dreams, I have a hard time imagining this alternative universe.

Not only that, but sometimes there is a price, but the price is 10x or 100x the hammer price actually paid.

The words from Brian might have been a little different but at the end of the day my sense is that the result would have been the same. And by the way, I think Chris is one of the good guys in the hobby.

Hard to believe they would be doing something like this without letting Powell know they were trying to satisfy him because of how poorly they ran the auction for these cards. If he hasn't heard anything by now then it likely means the results will remain as they are.

It appears that Heritage is going to take the view that the auction was conducted in accordance with the rules. Avoiding discussion regarding why they allowed this particular auction to proceed in accordance with rules that seem to be designed without consideration of these circumstances. Confusing at best and misleading in practice and apparently suboptimal for the consignor (although whether Powell would have persevered under better rules is unknown). No doubt Heritage will perform any similar auctions different in the future, benefiting from Powell's illumination of the likely scenarios.

While it is sad to see anybody (in this case, Powell) misled into ecstasy only to be kicked to the curb despite earnest efforts to win at all costs, I don't see the presumption that because he was "declared the winner" of the Set Lot he achieves any primacy over the higher bidder(s), who were declared winner with bids that were more beneficial to the consigner. Under the (sloppy) rules in effect being Set Lot winner was not the same as winning the cards, because they could go to the Individual Lot winners. And they did.

I disagree vehemently.

that's shocking. sorry to hear it.

LOL, if you had just disagreed I would have been OK, but since you have vehemently disagreed I will give my position some extra thought. I hope you were just disagreeing with the first part. All my interactions with Chris have been great. Stay well my friend!

What an absolute cluster that they could have and should have prevented from happening prior to the start of the auction. The ONLY fair approach for ALL parties is to open the auction back up from where it left off and let only those bidders who had placed existing bids allowed to proceed. To take it one step further, Heritage should waive all buyer fees for this set/items since both the consignor and bidders were negatively effected by their lack of awareness of how this could take place. It gives each bidder a fighting chance to spend more money with no buyers fees and puts more money in the consignors pocket since Heritage ultimately caused the consignor money with how this ended and took place. They shouldn’t be rewarded with the commission from this fiasco that they caused. If you really think about it, this fiasco caused more consignors money because the bids that the “Winners” of the set and individual lots probably would have bid on other auction items but didn’t because each had thought they were the winners of their lots.


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HA discussed this live during the extended bidding, individual lots were less than 4k from the full set price with less than 30 minute to go.

Seems inevitable it would exceed the high bid on the full set

https://youtu.be/_tkRi0UHgZg?t=7351

which begs the question, if the singles were they bid up to over the current $525k and became the higher of the two, HOW was the high bidder of the group bid supposed to be able to top it? In a nutshell he could not have, even if he hit the bid button repeatedly, it would only raise his max bid and not his current high bid. He was handcuffed by the system.

lolol

Of Powell, the individual lot winners and the consigner, who is Heritage most concerned about from its fiasco (in order)?

1. Heritage
2. Heritage
3. Heritage
4. Heritage.

sb1: He could have bid on the Individual Lots. He assumed it wasn't necessary under rules that weren't in place.

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He had no reason to think he needed to outbid himself.

Re: BGs in Heritage
 

As do I.

He could have called--that's why people are in the office during the auction

Why would I call? My account said I won. And the set lot was blocked so there was nothing I could do anyway. It was a fiasco

Have you tried to call since?

You can die on the “it said I won” hill but it might do some good to talk to someone at Heritage.

I also hope that if I ever get to the level of buying half a million dollar items, I’d have a direct line to someone to address my concerns before, during and after an auction.

Not to mention, if he was going to bid on the individual lots, he would've had to win all 12 of them to accomplish what he was trying to do by bidding on the set.

I don't understand the argument that he should've been bidding on the individual lots. As Peter says, it would've been bidding against himself and accomplishing nothing.

I am surprised that HA is not on the phone with all involved trying to come to a resolution.
I am sure they are having internal discussions how to resolve.

Covid
 

If Heritage could have gotten a little more Covid money I think all of this could have been avoided...Jerry

I took post 252 to mean they've already made that determination.

Misread that part.
Thanks for clarifying

Not what I expected at all.

This sounds more like a recent election rather than an actual auction… go to sleep thinking you won and then you wake up and…

Feel bad for Powell who I don’t know but it sucks…


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Let's not forget the consignor, let's assume Powell was willing to go 750k on the set, The Heritage set up never allowed him to go all in. Bad set up all around and really poor management after the fact by Heritage.

But the next time they have a card someone wants, that someone will bid anyway. Bad behavior never gets punished in this hobby.

After this shitshow I would assume REA just secured a new consignor.

If the consigner was well-versed in the auction process he would have complained to Heritage during the month the lots were up about the software not providing a comparison of the full set lot price vs. the individual lots total at each bid. Anyone actually think the consigner, unless he reads this board, actually was told what fully went down by Heritage? How much money was left on the table due to Heritage’s incompetence?

No disrespect at all to Powell, but Heritage Auctions is not going to miss one consignor.

https://www.ha.com/heritage-auctions...chedule-111815

From all that I have seen and read about this here, Powell is the winner in my opinion and is getting screwed. I see a lawsuit coming.

What are his damages, assuming for argument's sake he has a cause of action? He's out nothing (I assume Heritage has returned or will return the wire transfer) and he has stated he had no intent to resell.

Often a claim that someone done you wrong does not translate well into a lawsuit.

Powell.... So they wouldn't talk to you? Did they at least refund the wire transfer you sent?

That’s for a judge and jury to decide what his damages are. I’m just an average Joe.

They will refund my money. I’m hopeful they will restart the auction at the point the set lot closed. Otherwise, my binding on the set lot was illusory. It was impossible to win. That’s the antithesis of an auction.

I thank Leon for his warm and supportive call.

I thank everyone on this board most of whom agreed with me. I respect the ones who disagree with me too except the one who called me a “sore loser” as that was uncalled for.

It’s not looking good but “it’s not over until the far left sings.”. Heritage can still make this a fair competition. I’m hopeful the will.