David Hall T206 Part IV – Auction Ends April 16, 2020!
 

Hey Everyone,

Heritage understands these are unique and serious times and we hope our auctions can offer you some happier moments away from thoughts of viruses and quarantines. Above all else, stay safe!

There are just 24 hours left to get in your initial bids. Part IV of the Davis Hall T206 Collection ends tomorrow – Thursday, April 16, 2020! The ending of the auction is the same format it has been for years with open bidding ending at 10pm central time then an extended period where each lot ends on an individual basis based on a 30-minute clock rule. You have to have placed a bid on a lot before 10pm central time to be able to bid during the 30-minute extended period. The home page for the auction is HERE


There are 209 single card lots. The focus of this auction is Hall of Famers, Hall of Famers and more Hall of Famers. Every card features a member of Cooperstown, almost all featured on multiple cards. Tobacco brands from Piedmont & Sweet Caporal to the super rare are all represented:

Drum – You have four cards to choose from, two are the only PSA-graded examples;

Uzit – You have five cards to choose from, two are the only PSA-graded examples;

Lenox-Black – There are five cards representing this rare brand, two are the only PSA-graded examples;

Lenox-Brown – Certainly the rarest of the rare. There is a Vic Willis (With Bat) card that is possibly the only one known;

Ty Cobb – There are eight cards to bid on including a rare “Bat On Shoulder” with an Old Mill back and a “Portrait-Red” card with a factory 42 reverse;

Registration is free!

Catalogs – If you would like a free catalog please email all of your mailing information to: peterc@ha.com and we will send one out. To keep getting free catalogs we ask (okay, require) that you participate by placing a min. of $1,000 in bids in each and every catalog (including Platinum) auction. Monthly auctions do not count. If there is no activity for even one auction they may not send out a catalog. I know this may sound harsh but catalogs are large and expensive as we are sending out more and more with each auction.

Good Luck and Thank You for Bidding,

Peter

Peter, thanks for helping with questions via email about this auction.

Send email

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

Did it hard close at 10 cst? I'm confused...Rob

Yeah??
 

I’m confused too.

INVOICE ME NOW! Hahahahah

yes seems like auction just hard closed?

something isn't right...

What happened? I can't continue bidding.

Looks like a major problem with heritage site. No extended bidding... but in the auction rules it states the lots will close after 30 minutes of no activity starting 10pm CST.

I hope Pete can update us. Is it going to restart tonight or tomorrow? Is it over?

My Bids tab still says "Signature Internet Extended Bid" with no way to actually do it. Let's see where this is in 5 minutes

It has begun

ok it's back up - please don't bid anymore on the ones I'm interested in

:)

I just bid, and the clock did not reset to 30 minutes...it's still counting down. hard close at 11 it looks like. C'mon.

looks like reset till manana. Goodnight, y'all

now it just reset to 24 hours?

c'mon - wow

and with that I'm out - good luck folks

Curious - did anyone just throw in bids in the "extended overtime" that they wouldn't have placed if they had known another 24 hours were left? I know I did. What a cluster.

Nightmare scenario for the bidders.

I placed a ton of bids thinking I was in extended bidding. Heritage fucked up badly here. No email, no message on website. I called, no message on phone. Then it starts up and I am bidding like a crazy man thinking I am in extended bidding, I would not have placed any of those bids had I known they were extended by a day.

I am fine with Heritage extending 24 hours -- stuff happens. But zero notice to the bidders is no bueno.

I bid up cards that I wouldn’t have bid with a day to go. Completely nuts. I have screen shots showing 23 minutes left, so I have to give my high bids, then 23 hours left. Throws off any bidding strategy. Completely unethical by Heritage.

Cory Weiser

Anyone think it’s possible to get a Heritage rep to give me a call about this?

Heritage Reply
 

I received an email stating that due to a technical error the auction has been extended 24hrs and extended bidding will begin tomorrow at 10. I’m a bit disappointed.

I received that email as well at 11:58 EST. This is well after they changed the closing time on the auction and most of us put in our max bids.

I was excited for some wins, then I find out this. Not happy.

No, I was only going one more increment. I wonder if there will be a double standard when it comes to potential disputes regarding your point. I’m sure HA would point to terms of service if any of us screwed up...

Buyers Premium!!!
 

Do we have any recourse in reducing the buyers premium if we win tonight?

i'm sure there's fine print somewhere that says they can do this

glad i'm not the only one who thinks it's pretty poor form

a quick replay of the action -
auction appeared to hard close at 10pm
within about 8-10 minutes it was back up, every auction had a clock with 30 minutes to go and bids could be placed
sometime around 10:20pm it extended for 24 hours

if they're going to reset to a 24 hour clock, i think they should have considered setting all the bids back to where and who they were as of 10pm last night, told everyone they had an issue and how they were going to handle before doing all the clock messing around above

it created massive confusion, and some people like me, made some decisions in that interim thinking the countdown clock was back on

as others have mentioned, any bidding strategy has now been totally shot to hell and many, like me, i suspect are just done with this auction

Terms and Conditions
 

I was looking over Heritage’s terms and conditions. Their outage policy allows the auctioneer to extend an auction up to 24hrs. The problem is that an outage did not occur. A technical difficulty to my knowledge is not an outage, just an auction house error. Extended bidding did occur, just not on time. There was no outage.

I am done with Heritage Auctions. I will most likely file a BBB complaint for unethical business practices. I suggest everyone else do the same and spread the word on social media. Disappointing.

Agree with everything you just said.

No, that's the exact definition of 'outage'. Some failure of the auction platform caused the site to be unavailable.


And it's not unethical, it's incompetent. There's a difference. Some of us may remember that the HA site was completely off-line for 3 days last fall except for a homepage that mentioned "malware".

The problem is we can’t determine if the cause was from incompetence or a deliberate decision by someone without investigation. Seems like a simple software programming for extended bidding not working is rare and least culpable. This raises a huge red flag.

"Simple" is an easy word to use, but there are many explanations how this could happen. You're voting for malice; I bet that's not it.



In the last year, we saw REA have to extend their auction by a day after the site froze up for hours on the final Sunday, we saw Heritage go off-line for 3 full days, and we saw Goodwin shut down his auction at the last minute (okay, that doesn't count since it's Bumbling Bill).

The biggest issue here is lack of timely communication
 

I think most would understand a glitch or problem and the need for an auction house to address it. Not clearly and rapidly communicating with your clientele about it is really poor business practice. I think the idea of rolling bids back to what they were at 10PM is a good one albeit a little too little a little too late. Sorry to all those affected by this - I placed a single bid and let it go at that - so wasn't affected personally, but I feel your pain and frustration.

I disagree that it was an outage. The site was not “down” - I was able to still login and out and look at my account, etc etc.. It simply stopped accepting bids for this auction, and was showing all lots “closed”.

Within minutes, it was back to accepting bids in the extended format with a 30 minute countdown clock on all items - I and others know this because we bid in that period - I’m calling that period of time as the “interim”.

It was during that “interim”, when the clock went from counting down from 30 minutes to suddenly counting down from 24 hours.

All of this occurred PRIOR to receiving any communication from them, which came in the email others noted they received, and I also received.

Ultimately, I have nothing to gain by arguing “legality” of their decision, blah blah blah. The Vice President of Common Sense at my house says they fell short, so for now at least I’m voting with my feet and choosing not to participate any further.

Totally agree. Outage is defined, in rule 20 of their terms and conditions, as an internet or server service outage. Right above rule 21 which stipulates that employees may bid on auctions...

I’m not an IT guy and neither are our contacts at Heritage. I asked that they convey the details of the IT issue from thier IT department. I get the feeling that explanation will not be coming. Will it happen again? How do we know if it wasn’t addressed? If it was addressed, it’s easy to explain to give comfort for those bidding.

Cory Weiser

Agree

I was logged in on Chrome and watched a bid-on lot of mine countdown to zero at 10PM CDT. My plan was to fire one final barrel in the extended. I got a sick feeling when, after a few minutes, it appeared there was no way to make that happen on a once in a lifetime card. The auction had closed. I'm set for OT text messages-never once did I receive one.

I continued to toggle between the lot and the 'my heritage' tab for quite awhile. At exactly 10:30 CDT the bid dialog box reappeared in my bidded lot on Chrome. You can find me announcing that early in this thread. I made my bid and closed Chrome, then took a long walk through Wrigleyville without my phone. So I have no knowledge of how the extended session ended. I checked my phone around 11:45 CDT and, not finding an outbid text, assumed I had won the lot. I checked my email and found that the auction was in fact not closed.

I agree with this, it's tough to look at such a high-end auction house such as Heritage and see they have literally no one answering phones or emails at such a critical time. Both of these things can easily be done remotely and in fact should be during the pandemic.

We will likely never know what really happened-technical glitch, hacking, etc.-but we can ask the question as to why no one from Heritage was working from home in a support capacity at the close of one of its auctions. I am reserving judgement, but this hobby has been rocked by fraud so many times it's easy to see why some go there first. The fact that some of these cards are so rare they may never be sold again only compounds the agony of those who got screwed by the timing.

It's really "interesting" how Mr. Calderon comes onto this forum regularly to hype and promote Heritage's upcoming auctions and events. But when you really need a clarification or explanation, he is nowhere to be found.

Very poor customer service, by not returning to this thread for purposes of clarification, or to address their valued customers' concerns.

Same thing happened when Heritage was repeatedly asked about the trimmed/altered Lou Gehrig and Bobby Hull Cards which ran their full courses at auction. Nothing but silence after the initial hype. Hopefully (at a minimum) they reported the consignor to the FBI, but we will never know the truth about what really happened or what parties were behind it.

Isn't silence the typical damage-control method used by large organizations, with the expectation/realization that customer furor will soon die down and then pretty much disappear?

Possibly Val, but I can think of instances where companies, even huge ones, stepped up and took their lumps, and followed up with meaningful change. That always impressed me.

All too often, I suppose it is.

PSA is of this same mindset, and it has worked well for them (so far, anyway...)

I haven't communicated with Heritage but there is always a chance the sole consignor had a say in what to do.

I spoke to 3 representatives from HA including Chris Ivey. None of them knew what the technical issue was. I framed that it had to be known so it could be resolved. It would give confidence to the bidders if we knew what the glitch was. No one had any idea about it.

I also asked if they would issue a statement that their employees would not bid during this extra day. They were clear that they would not do that either even though the extra day gives thier employees an extra advantage.

It did not give me confidence as they don’t know much and not addressing the issue. I’ve been consigning cards lately...they were on my list, not anymore.

Cory Weiser

If they don't know what the glitch is, can they say with any confidence that it will not happen again in any other auction? And I am talking wine, art, comics...

lot 50107
 

can anybody tell me the hammer price on lot 50107?

1909-11 T206 American Beauty 350-No Frame Hughie Jennings (Both Hands Showing) PSA EX 5. ...
Auction 50027 | Lot: 50107 | Apr 17, 2020
Sold For: $720.00 includes Buyer's Premium (BP)

Any further response from the company? Did people get their invoices? How did your bidding strategy change for the second closing night?

I won one crummy card (a $300+ Chance portrait polar bear)- probably best bc it gives me max bandwidth for REA.

The prices were nuts in my opinion (Cobb bat off OM notwithstanding). I was underbidder on most of the Drums and BL 460s, and gave up on the brown Lenox after it crested $30k (holy crap!). And $18k was insufficient to take down the chance red Hindu. I suspect there was one big fish hellbent on picking up most of the super rare backs last night. I don’t know this for a fact, but I highly suspect it.

Regarding Heritage, I went to bed last night at 1:30 eastern after I was finally outbid on the Chance Red Hindu. I woke up to an email sent at 4:24am with my invoice. Seems like there are no glitches in their invoicing system.

Anyway, the rare backs brought super high prices last night. I am sure Mr Hall was happy with the results.

Invoiced