Heritage Auctions - Boston Garters

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Bidding on the set only gives you the opportunity to win the set for less than you might otherwise have to pay were you to bid on all lots, but it also places you at risk of losing altogether since in this format, you get shut out without another set bidder to compete against. So it is optimal in the sense that it is the most likely route to the cheapest win, but it is non optimal if the goal is to guarantee a win, which it cannot do. The only way to guarantee a win is to bid on all lots on both sides like playing a game of Whack-a-Mole.

Which is why, as I said in my initial post, "The aggregate total of the single lots should have been treated as another bidder in the full set auction, with the time on the full set auction not ending until no bids had been placed for 30 minutes on any of the individual or full auctions."