Closing Tonight: Love of the Game Auctions

[Al C.risafulli]

Hi everyone:

First, thank you all for participating in our Fifth Anniversary auction. As always, I'm incredibly thankful for all the support that my company receives from this community. It's not lost on me that five years ago, I was terrified that our first auction would close without ANY extended bidding, and today we're talking about how it goes on for too long!

Second, there are a lot of great opinions in this thread from a lot of people I respect, and one thing is for sure - we can have this conversation from now until the end of time. Trust me, I've had this discussion many times, and I recognize that there are a variety of methods to close auctions, and none are perfect. To that end, I'm going to try and make this response short and sweet, because I, too, am still recovering from the 6AM closing time!

I agree with everyone who says that 6AM is way too late (early) for an auction to close. My last auction closed at 6AM, which I attributed to the large number of lots. This time around, one reason why I deliberately kept the lot count at about half what is usually is was to determine whether a lower number of lots would result in an earlier close. Clearly, that didn't happen.

For those who are wondering, please believe me that I regularly analyze how each LOTG auction closes, and whether or not it would make sense to adopt a new method of ending things. In the Fifth Anniversary auction, fewer than 1% of the items in the auction received bids after 3AM. But in the case of those items, bidding was spirited well into the wee hours. A hard close would have severely hurt the consignors of those pieces. Tens of thousands of dollars were bid on those items in late bidding. Shutting them down before bidding was truly over would have done those consignors a serious disservice.

The only things I'm sure of are that A) there are lots of different opinions on the best way to close auctions, and B) whatever the best way is, it hasn't been invented yet. I do pledge to you all that we'll continue to work to find a solution that works for as many people as possible.

It's very important to me to address an idea raised earlier in this thread that might inadvertently conflate auction closing time with trusting the integrity of the auction. Please do not confuse the two. My pledge continues: if you are bidding in my auction, you can trust that you are bidding with an auction that does not shill, does not permit consignors to bid on their own material, does not have hidden reserves, does not have a house bidding account, and does not place bids in the auction. As collectors, you may have varying opinions on the closing method we use (or any new closing method we may use in the future), but it should not shake your trust in the integrity of my company.

I'll be taking a hard look - as I always do - at ways to make LOTG more bidder-friendly. For now, you can trust that the "max bid" feature is safe from auction house shilling, you can sign up to receive outbid messages by text, and you can place your bids right from your cellphone on our mobile-friendly website.

Since the weekend, I've already had numerous discussions about ways we might change the closing method for our November auction. I'll bow out of this thread now, so it doesn't degenerate into a host of back-and-forth about various closing methods - I just wanted to make sure everyone understands that I'm constantly evaluating ways to improve the company, including its closing methods, and when I find something that makes sense, you can bet I'll adopt it.

Thanks again,
-Al