Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt
The point of the market comments is not to base the value on what similair cards have sold for in the past, but rather, what the market bore out for this exact card as it was offered in auction. The amount it hammered for is exactly what the current market will bear for the card - if two folks out there there were willing to pay any more, they would have bid higher. Hence, we know the value of the card in the current market.
|
I disagree. The hammer price in an auction is a reflection of what the bidders in that particular auction were willing to bid at that time. There are many reasons why prices differ across auctions that have nothing to do with the items themselves:
--By the time the last of the major auctions ends in the spring it is not unusual for me to be tapped out financially for a few months. I will not bid on a card in a later auction if I don't have the cash to pay for it (extreme rarities excepted, of course).
--There are some auctioneers I do not trust and will not patronize. I know others feel the same way.
--With thousands of pages of catalogs (Heritage and REA alone totaled over 1300 pages this spring) I will inevitably miss some things that I would like to have bid on.
--The better an auction from a material perspective the more likely it is that I will run out of money during that auction and will have to pass on some items that I'd have otherwise bid on. Happened to me several times in recent auctions.
--Differences in lot closing rules affect outcomes. For example, Heritage closes lots individually. I won several lots in a HA auction last year and could not take a flyer on some other lots that I'd have otherwise bid on.
--Differences in costs and vig. I factor in the vig and the auctioneer's characteristic shipping behavior. A 10% BP is going to draw a correspondingly higher bid than a 20% BP, and an auctioneer who is known for gouging on shipping will draw a slightly smaller bid from me. Same with sales tax--it all has to factor into the bidding equation. With some auctions I have to add 30%-35% to the actual hammer price to figure my real cost. Those numbers are reflected but not accounted for in the supposed "market" price established by the auction.
--Shilling. Some auctioneers have a rep for shilling and that makes some bidders cautious or reluctant to bid at all.
I'm sure there are other issues that are not intrinsic to the cards themselves that affect the outcomes in a specific auction but I can't think of them right now. My point is that the card 'market' is far less 'perfect' than even the stock market and I think it is a mistake to read too much into one auction result taken out of context.