[molenick]

As a consignor, I am glad there is an opportunity for everyone who wants to bid on my lots to get a bid in. As a bidder, I wish that the lot I was winning at 11:59 PM, and which did not receive more bids before 12:10 AM, had closed at that price and I had won it. But also as a bidder, I am glad that the other lots that I was bidding on, which I was not high bidder at 11:59 PM, and which I couldn't get a bid on before 12:10 AM, are still open.

It will cost me more to win these lots...but only if I decide to keep bidding. No one is making me bid. I would not be happy if I had a ceiling bid that kept getting pushed up today. But as someone said, that could have happened last night if the auction ended as intended and everyone had a chance to bid. But in terms of submitting new bids, I don't have to if I don't want to.

REA can do whatever they want, but I don't think waiving the buyer's premium will help. Say you are bidding on a lot at $5K ($6K with premium). They waive the premium, so if you win you pay $5K. But the premium is now waived for everybody....so someone who is willing to go to $6K will just bid the card back up again (knowing they won't have to pay a premium). If anything it will just extend the bidding because now every lot has been reset 16.67% lower (if I did the math correctly).

The other option would have been to start the 10 minute clock at, say 1:00. But that would have been unfair to the people that had to go to sleep.

I do have one suggestion. The entire 9:00-midnight period is useless. There will never be an REA auction where there is no bid on ANY lot for 10 minutes in that time period. It should go straight to a lot-by-lot close at a designated time (and I think 15 or 30 minutes would be better than 10).

Edited to add: I had not thought of Mark's idea of re-starting the auction at where it was when the problems began. I guess now it is too late because so many more bids have come in...but if feasible, that would have been a good option.