Auction Houses and blind bidding

Originally Posted by HasselhoffsCheeseburger

This?


bobbyw8469
Master Collector

Posts: 5333
Joined: Nov 2007
Wednesday January 23, 2013 12:30 PM (NEW!)



I am going to play Devil's advocate here. I recently consigned my entire 1933 Sports Kings graded set with PWCC. After I consigned it, I immediately had regrets. I paid $1,000 for the Babe Didrickson card less than 2 months before the auctions. I see the card at $600 with 30 seconds to go before the auction ends. I would absolutely love to have it back - I paid $1,000 just last month, SURELY I would pay $750 and think I was getting a steal. Is that wrong to bid on that card?

Or how about this scenario. I consign a card, and don't realize that All Star Cards is paying $850 for a particular card in a particular grade. I see the card in question for $300 less than what ASC is paying. Is that wrong to try to win the card to ship it off to ASC for a profit, even though it is my card?

Just wanted some thoughts and ideas.......



bobbyw8469
Master Collector

Posts: 5333
Joined: Nov 2007
Wednesday January 23, 2013 5:47 PM (NEW!)





<< You did bid it UP. You can't bid on your own item, and it makes no difference whether you originally bought it for $1 or $1000. >>




If I paid $1,000 for a card one month ago, do you think I am going to absolutely hate it at $500??? I bid on alot of cards. I use ONE CLICK BID. Alot of times I don't even look at the seller. I accidentally bid on the card. I see a card that I think is an absolute steal, and I bid on it. I am a VCP member and I see what the current average is on the card. The winning bidder got it for darn near $150 under the average selling price. It was an accident. I would have LOVED to have that card for $600. At $710 the winning bidder absolute stole the card.

And he got caught because of semi-transparent bidding. It's a deterrent.

Others have been caught and blocked as a result. Yes there are always workarounds but the point is to keep evolving ways to keep things fair.

I don't expect people who run AHs (known or unknown) or those who have their minds made up to change. My POV is to offer some food for thought to those who haven't considered this yet, and who just don't know any better.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by bubblebathgirl

And he got caught because of semi-transparent bidding. It's a deterrent.

Others have been caught and blocked as a result. Yes there are always workarounds but the point is to keep evolving ways to keep things fair.

I don't expect people who run AHs (known or unknown) or those who have their minds made up to change. My POV is to offer some food for thought to those who haven't considered this yet, and who just don't know any better.

Federal Indictments and subpoenas are a deterrent too. Paul, you really epitomize something I repeat quite often. If everyone else is wrong, you might want to look in the mirror.

No one has ever said AH bidding is perfect. No one. Yet you go on and on about thinking people say that. They don't. You are just obstinate and quite wrong and will never ever get it. I bet if you made an F in school you would tell the teacher the test was wrong. (even though everyone else made good grades on it). There is no doubt there are problems with AH bidding but to argue it's worse than ebay is just ignorant, at best, and stupid at worst. Pick one.

[whitehse]

Leon, I think you now see what many of us experienced at the CU boards. It is like arguing with a wall as he just doesnt get it.. This really is a "beating a dead horse" situation but BBG continues to hit the deceased horse with a baseball bat trying to make his/her point.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by whitehse

Leon, I think you now see what many of us experienced at the CU boards. It is like arguing with a wall as he just doesnt get it.. This really is a "beating a dead horse" situation but BBG continues to hit the deceased horse with a baseball bat trying to make his/her point.

I hear ya Andrew. Unless there is something else I can't resist saying I am done with this subject. The poor horse is dead.

[HRBAKER]

Ebay has evolved to a nearly risk free playground for miscreants whether they use a consignment seller or list the items themselves and use a friend or alt ID to run items up. I am distrustful to a much lesser extent of AHs and figure that most less than honest consignors can figure a way to affect the outcome of a lot if they want to. That is more a reflection of the overall hobby I am in engaged in than anything else.

[calvindog]

There's fraud on ebay and there's fraud in auction houses. This is a fact.

If the auction house isn't run by crooks then their consignors will shill up their lots without direct involvement of the auction house. Either way is fraud.

Consider the value of your collections and subtract 20-25% for 'fraud tax.' That's what your collection is worth.

Oh and by the way, make sure you submit a letter on behalf of Bill Mastro for his upcoming sentencing for fraud in connection with his Mastro Auctions -- you may have been defrauded by him but he still considers you a friend.

[Mrvintage]

Paul I am guessing that your 79 topps baseball set registry on psa isn't public because you don't want people seeing what cards you need and then running the price up on you when they become available. How is that any different than if there is a well known collector trying to buy a card from an AH and having the price driven up on them if there name is "transparent" as you want? Pretty much seems like you are for privacy when it benefits you, but against it when it doesn't.

[OTWCards]

Originally Posted by Leon

The poor horse is dead.

The horse has been dead for so long that it looks more like Tito Fuentes tapping his bat on homeplate. There just ain't nothing left of the ol' mule...

[yankeeno7]

The only thing to do from here is that BBG should start her own AH (Im meaning auction house ) with COMPLETE transparency and see how well she does. Dont think that would do well but hey, prove everyone wrong instead of insisting being right and everyone else wrong.

Originally Posted by Leon

Federal Indictments and subpoenas are a deterrent too. Paul, you really epitomize something I repeat quite often. If everyone else is wrong, you might want to look in the mirror.

No one has ever said AH bidding is perfect. No one. Yet you go on and on about thinking people say that. They don't. You are just obstinate and quite wrong and will never ever get it. I bet if you made an F in school you would tell the teacher the test was wrong. (even though everyone else made good grades on it). There is no doubt there are problems with AH bidding but to argue it's worse than ebay is just ignorant, at best, and stupid at worst. Pick one.

Leon, what you seem to say is that AH bidding, which is completely invisible, is better than ebay bidding, which allows people to actually have clues into who does what.

You clearly have a bias here as you run your own auction house that functions in such a "hiding" way. Granted, you are still entitled to your opinion, but the only reason why any auction house would allow blind bidding is because it affords them the opportunity to make more money.

What I say threatens your livelihood, as it does many of those who read these and don't respond, but function auction houses that rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars ... if not more. Because it is a thin sheet of ice that many of you operate upon. Again, this concerns mainly the highly profile/value items.

I understand why you wouldn't even consider what I am saying ... as it is far from in your interest to do so ... and many who have already bought into the AH system (spending already thousands above what the items they purchase are actually worth or would be sold at elsewhere) are set in their ways and won't even consider otherwise.

Like I've said before, what I say is for others who are open-minded, or are new to sportscards, to consider when they bidding in a system that is setup to simply leave them extremely vulnerable to mischievous behavior.

IMO, AHs weaken this industry with their unverifiable hammer prices and questionable bidding practices.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by bubblebathgirl

Leon, what you seem to say is that AH bidding, which is completely invisible, is better than ebay bidding, which allows people to actually have clues into who does what.

There is no shill control whatsoever with ebay, and no accountability to customers. We have no idea who 'the man behind the curtain' is, and ebay intends for it to stay that way.

The fact that Leon runs an auction house does not mean that he isn't entitled to an opinion - on the contrary, I'm sure he has a helluva lot more idea as to how an auction house works than you do.

[drc]

There's no blanket label for auction houses. There are good ones and bad ones.

In my opinion, ebay is worse than the best auction houses, and the reasons are more than because of shilling. A bunch of eBay sellers are dishonest and another bunch are incompetent-- not even considering shilling.

[alanu]

Shill bidding is wrong, unethical, illegal, etc., but my biggest problem is I'm addicted to the auctions and bidding and buying cards, the only way to stop shill bidding is if no one would overbid for cards and let the shillers get stuck for the cards.

[drc]

As a non-card collector, I say authenticity, description of condition and getting the item are more important than lack of shilling to me. The best Auction Houses can far outshine eBay in the first three. And I don't know that there is less shilling on eBay.

And, before someone picks on my ordering of offenses, I note that I think shilling is a bad thing. And often illegal.

Originally Posted by alanu

Shill bidding is wrong, unethical, illegal, etc., but my biggest problem is I'm addicted to the auctions and bidding and buying cards, the only way to stop shill bidding is if no one would overbid for cards and let the shillers get stuck for the cards.

Definitely. And this is really the only current way that things are kept from flying apart at the seems as they currently are.

Only issue is, again for high profile cards, what is an "overbid"?

People get their concept of fair prices from previous sales. But if all of the previous sales came from the same suspicious forum, well then you have a problem. This is precisely why many high profile cards never make it to ebay, because sellers know they would take a dive ... or when they do make it to ebay, they consign the card so that they can bid on it. Now at least on ebay some detective work can be done when this happens.

You're gonna see some people lash out at me personally here, and that's because I'm challenging something that is probably near and dear to their hearts ... something they've based a lot of their collection on and now is being questioned ... and they simply can't handle it. It's just what happens ... and is fine. Thankfully this board has a nice ignore function

It's always clear to me when someone has a weak argument because they result to personal attacks, name calling and general immature behavior. This is the kind of stuff that got a lot of the same bad seeds either kicked off CU or reprimanded there. I'm glad PSA instituted their forum rules and have found posting their a lot more enjoyable since.

But yeah, as for overbidding, thankfully there are a lot of resources to use to come up with a comfortable price ... and it's easy enough to filter out the obvious balloons. A good example is the 1978 Topps #707 Rookie Shortstops PSA 10 card:



You can clearly see how this card took a dive after coming back to reality on ebay after a stint at 2 of the AHs. Now it's reasonable for the card to have a certain increase in value as unopened material has dried up a lot, but this kind of pattern of buy high at AHs and sell low on ebay isn't uncommon for premium cards ... and there's certainly a reason for this.

The unfortunate thing is some online publications will take this latest hammer price and use that as an indicator of the new "value" of the card, when in this case, it's most likely just another balloon waiting to pop.

[whitehse]

Originally Posted by bubblebathgirl

Leon, what you seem to say is that AH bidding, which is completely invisible, is better than ebay bidding, which allows people to actually have clues into who does what.

You clearly have a bias here as you run your own auction house that functions in such a "hiding" way. Granted, you are still entitled to your opinion, but the only reason why any auction house would allow blind bidding is because it affords them the opportunity to make more money.

What I say threatens your livelihood, as it does many of those who read these and don't respond, but function auction houses that rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars ... if not more. Because it is a thin sheet of ice that many of you operate upon. Again, this concerns mainly the highly profile/value items.

I understand why you wouldn't even consider what I am saying ... as it is far from in your interest to do so ... and many who have already bought into the AH system (spending already thousands above what the items they purchase are actually worth or would be sold at elsewhere) are set in their ways and won't even consider otherwise.

Like I've said before, what I say is for others who are open-minded, or are new to sportscards, to consider when they bidding in a system that is setup to simply leave them extremely vulnerable to mischievous behavior.

IMO, AHs weaken this industry with their unverifiable hammer prices and questionable bidding practices.

You m'am, are a dimwit!

So you have beaten this campaign into the ground on other boards and now you are trying to take it here all the while accusing the board moderator of not having an open mind on this subject? Is it because he and many others refuse to believe as you do on this idea? Just freaking give it up and talk about cards and let this thing go. Or perhaps continue beating the drum over on the CU boards where you have the ear of the Mods who can poof any thread you deem to be not in agreement with your position. Go cry to Joe Orlando that the Net54 boards refuse to see it your way.

Geez this crap gets old very fast. Give it up woman!!