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Aaron M.I was up until 3:30 and 4:00 AM, respectively, on the nights of the auction, but ended up getting both items I really wanted: the Lou Gehrig Memorial full ticket and the 1944 Cubs home jersey.
The Gehrig ticket was mistakenly labeled as a proof in the catalog, before Mastro corrected it as authentic on their website and bidding never really recovered. Too bad for the consigner, good for me. An example of the full ticket, in not as good condition (but without the VOID across its front) sold for more than $3,500 in last month's Leland all-star auction and another was priced at $5,000 by a notable dealer at the National. I feel like I got that rare Mastro occurance--a true steal.
The Cubs jersey was also mistakenly labeled as a salesman sample in the catalog, but was corrected as game worn on the website and this time the bidding followed suit. I probably went a few hundred dollars higher than I would have liked--but this item was my top priority for the Mastro/Hunt auctions, so I went for it.
My bidding strategy worked pretty well. (I don't think anyone around here bids on the things I'm interested in and I know I don't bid on the things most are interested in--besides it's not others aren't doing this as well.)
I bid (only once) on about 15-20 items I had even a passing interest in within the first day or two of the auction when the prices were all still ridiculously low as my "marker" bids so I could track in the "my bids" section and be eligible for extended time bidding if I was still interested when the auction was closing. Those items are then marked as "watched" items for easy organization and tracking.
I then bid on the final night of the auctions only once per item (on the two I won and a lot of press pins which I felt were another big bargain--but I was outbid and elected not to big again), well into the AM hours (when I figured I'd be safe from being outbid by more rational people who were long asleep by then). I then stayed up until the auction closed to make sure I wasn't outbid--for east coasters, it's better to just wake up the following morning around 5:30 AM or so.
It takes some nerve to wait 6 or 7 hours past the auction's initial closing time to bid on an item you want desperately, aren't currently leading for, and knowing the auction might end at any moment, but I think it's the only way to avoid getting into an all-night back and forth bidding war when dealing with some of these higher end items--there are always going to be many people with deeper pockets than you.