Heritage Auctions - Boston Garters

[Snowman]

Hot take... And I apologize if this comes off harshly, because it almost certainly will. Please don't take this personally. But I feel this needs to be said.

First off, what a tran wreck! But this was all very predictable from the moment this auction was posted. The warning provided in each listing was clear as day:

“Please note that this auction will list each card as an individual lot along with another listing for the complete set. If the aggregate winning bids of the twelve individual lots exceeds the high bid on the complete set, the cards will be sold to each individual winner. If the price of the set exceeds the sum of the twelve individual cards, the victory will be awarded to the high bidder for the complete set.”

To bid on the set and not on the individual lots as well was taking a huge gamble, if you wanted to win. You're taking a gamble that not only would you be willing to outbid the sum of the individual lots, but that someone else would too. If you read the listing, then you knew you'd lose if the individual lots outbid you. You backed the wrong horse. You should have been bidding on the individual lots, or on both, if you wanted to ensure a win. To only bid on the set was to back one horse in a two horse race.

Powell keeps declaring by fiat that him being the high bidder on the set at the time that lot closed somehow just magically nullifies the other individual auctions. This is of course ridiculous. He is just invoking this magical rule because it's the only way he wins. Nowhere is it stated that if the set stops receiving action that it will end the bidding for the individual lots as well. That is an assumption made by Powell, and we all know what they say about assumptions. The listing clearly states that the winner of the set listing will only be the true winner if the individual lot sums do not exceed the set hammer price. But they did. So Powell loses. It's pretty clear to anyone reading the listing. There is no scenario whatsoever that Heritage is going to award this lot to Powell. I'm sorry, but that's just not happening. And I'd be happy to place a side bet on that prediction, in case any of you hot shot lawyers want to put some money where your mouth is.

What if there were two bidders who really wanted the Joe Jackson and who were prepared to go to war over that card? The two of them battling it out all throughout the night, eventually bidding it up to $2 million. But at the time that the full set stopped receiving action, it was only at $50k. What then? Heritage is just supposed to cut in on their battle in the top of the 2nd inning and declare it over because the full set lot stopped getting action? Lol. I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous. This is just wishful thinking. Anyone who read that listing should have read the disclaimer at the bottom and should have known they would lose if the individual lots received sufficient bids to overcome their set hammer price by the end of the night.

That said, this was a TERRIBLE strategy by Heritage to begin with, given their software is not capable of handling a dual auction in a fair manner to all bidders on both sides. All lots should be tied together, and the set bidders should be allowed to continue placing bids (even against themselves) if the individual lots exceed the set lot. But that's not how it was set up, so what they *should have done* isn't really relevant.

Heritage has two options. They can either allow the results to stand with the individual winners being awarded the cards, as they are the clear and rightful winners per the rules stated in the auctions, or they can recognize that the way they set up the dual format was stupid and resulted in Powell not being able to continue bidding even though he had been effectively "outbid", and they can extend the auction to allow all bidders to continue placing bids on all 13 lots. But they can't just award the set to Powell. That's not an option. He didn't win. Not according to the rules clearly stated in the auction. All he won was part A of a two part bidding process. But he lost part B, so he didn't win. He should have fallen asleep crossing his fingers that night. How he could have possibly assumed he had already won is beyond me. I certainly would have known better, were I in his shoes.