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:
- 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!
- 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.
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**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.