SCP Bats
 

In the recent SCP auction that ended Saturday night, a lot of items went unsold, including almost all the game-used bats: Mantle, Berra, Cobb, Grove, Musial, Mays. Any thoughts?

Reserve price strikes again!
 

I didn't follow these items closely, so this is just my post-action guess: while there were multiple bids on each item, it looks like all of these items had reserve prices, so obviously they didn't meet the reserve.

I think part of the fun is that when an item has a reserve, you need people to keep bidding to get to the reserve. And often once people realize that there is a reserve, they give up and stop bidding. A lot of it just seems to be psychological - why waste your time and effort bidding on something that's not going to sell when you could focus on other stuff?

Others will make this case more stridently than I do, but my experience is that a reserve can really hold an item back. Often a reserve will kick in a few days to a week before the auction ends. At that point, a lot of people will drop out from bidding, and so it never meets the reserve.

A lot of auctions (especially in the current market) see most of their action in the last few days, often even in the last day or the last hour or two. Prices will double, and then double again. Often the reserve process kicks in and shuts down that action entirely. Even if one bidder wants to keep going, they need another bidder to bid against them on a lot of sites to keep the bidding going.

So I'm guessing that's the biggest moral of the story here. Reserves (like snow goons) are bad news.

very surprising the SCP sale had alot of strong prices especially the photos

I don't disagree about reserves in general, though I don't know exactly how SCP goes about it (when do they post them? I know Heritage does it about 3 days before the end). But still, it seems like a higher percentage of the bats went unsold than other items, though a lot of those presumably also had reserves. Any bat-specific theories?

I honestly don't collect bats (got to draw the line somewhere).

Based on my general pejorative experience with reserves, I suspect they might be the major and/or only reason here.

If you're interested in the SCP reserve policy, it's on their website:

RESERVES A Reserve price is a minimum bid below which the lot will not be sold. Accordingly, if the reserve price is not met at the conclusion of the auction, the lot will not be sold. Reserve bid prices are not publicly available and will not be published. Any item with an unmet reserve will be annotated with "Reserve Not Met" in its online listing 48 hours before extended bidding begins in the auction. SCP may implement this reserve by executing bids on behalf of the consigner and may place a bid up to the amount one increment below the reserve, by placing successive bids if necessary. No reserve bids placed by SCP will be executed at a level greater than one bid below the actual reserve. Any lot that had an unmet reserve at the conclusion of the auction will show as a "PASS" in the online catalog. Reserves when in place will be pre-determined and set within the auction software prior to the start of the auction. Maximum bids will be treated as straight bids on items with reserves until the reserve price is met. If you place a maximum bid in excess of a reserve amount that has not yet been met, your bid will automatically be placed at the reserve price. All bids placed after a reserve has been met will continue with normal bidding increments unless straight bids are placed by a bidder.

I was bidding on one item that ended up having a reserve. Several people kept bidding on it after the reserve was posted but I think the consignor had high expectations.

I wonder if someone just posts up front there will be a reserve on an item when the auction starts it wouldn’t be so off putting. You get annoyed having invested time thinking you might win an item and then get slapped 3 days before the end. I think I wouldn’t mind as much if I knew up front there wasn’t going to be a “deal”.