REA is open

[Peter_Spaeth]

Different people give the exact same reason for disliking both methods. This is what I meant before -- there's just no consensus and no possibility of a consensus.

[benjulmag]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Different people give the exact same reason for disliking both methods. This is what I meant before -- there's just no consensus and no possibility of a consensus.

Why doesn't the method suggested in post #69 offer the best of both worlds? With a steadily declining time interval after which the entire auction closes, the auction would both end at a reasonable hour and at the same time give bidders the option to switch to other lots if outbid on another lot. Sniping would not exist, and a bidder would know that if he got outbid on a lot, it was because he/she made the conscious choice not to go higher.

To my knowledge, this method has not been tried and if the software, as Barry says, exists, why not give it a shot? The only down side I suppose is that it will force bidders to literally sit by their computers/devices at the very end. But at least by doing so they will have full control over what happens.

[barrysloate]

Originally Posted by benjulmag

Why doesn't the method suggested in post #69 offer the best of both worlds? With a steadily declining time interval after which the entire auction closes, the auction would both end at a reasonable hour and at the same time give bidders the option to switch to other lots if outbid on another lot. Sniping would not exist, and a bidder would know that if he got outbid on a lot, it was because he/she made the conscious choice not to go higher.

To my knowledge, this method has not been tried and if the software, as Barry says, exists, why not give it a shot? The only down side I suppose is that it will force bidders to literally sit by their computers/devices at the very end. But at least by doing so they will have full control over what happens.

It has been tried, I used it. And it worked very well.

[CuriousGeorge]

Brian is one of the very honorable guys in an industry I am understanding more and more to be a little more corrupt than one would like. I would be very surprised if he did not carefully think through all of these various issues and come up with a more equitable solution going forward. And whatever that may be, I would like to think that the winner of the auction will be determined by the person willing to pay the most at the time that particular lot is closing and not by someone sniping at the last second.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by CuriousGeorge

Brian is one of the very honorable guys in an industry I am understanding more and more to be a little more corrupt than one would like. I would be very surprised if he did not carefully think through all of these various issues and come up with a more equitable solution going forward. And whatever that may be, I would like to think that the winner of the auction will be determined by the person willing to pay the most at the time that particular lot is closing and not by someone sniping at the last second.

How many auctions are really won by last second snipes?

[CuriousGeorge]

Plenty last night.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

How many auctions are really won by last second snipes?

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by CuriousGeorge

Plenty last night.

OK. It doesn't seem to happen much at my pedestrian level.

[Rhotchkiss]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

How many auctions are really won by last second snipes?

Last night.... a number of them were.

Cory, the 3:45am thing is different than the 12am thing in two ways (i) in the 3:45 one, the auction house does not give warning that its going to end and it ends at a firm time -- they tell you its almost over at some point and eventually they let the last 15 minutes run and don't restart -- in other words, the auction ends without true warning, so people have their bids in earlier out of caution and can't snipe, and (ii) by 3:45am, almost everyone has put in their best bid and gone to bed, so there would be very little last minute-sniping, even if sniping were possible.

[Ricky]

"In my opinion, the steal of the auction was the E107 Plank for under $10k."

That Plank was mine, so this consigner isn't thrilled...

[JackW]

"almost everyone has put in their best bid and gone to bed"

If you know an auction is going to end at midnight and you are the current high bidder, why not put in your best bid at 11:58 or 11:59? Then if you get "sniped" you will know the sniper beat your best bid? It seems like people who got beat late last night are lamenting they didn't place their highest bid but are blaming how the auction ended. I would much rather place my absolute best bid when I know it's going to be "out there" only for 1 or 2 minutes as opposed to some unknown or unstated auction closing time.

[bounce]

Originally Posted by Rhotchkiss

Last night.... a number of them were.

Ryan - not really.

Peter - here's your answer.

Sort the auctions results by recent bids, pretty sure I did it correctly.
# of items with bids AFTER 11:58PM - 93 = 3.2% (2907 total lots)
# of items with bids AFTER 11:59PM - 72 = 2.5%

Of those 93 lots, 14 were top 100 items in prices, at $473k. The rest of the 93 were $212k. I'm sure some would get reallocated, but not all as the majority of that money was chasing very specific cards/lots. If you were after an E107 Lajoie, you weren't about to just pivot into eight T206 Ty Cobbs. Maybe another 5% of the auction would have been exposed to reallocation of funds? It's doubtful it's even that high, meaning well more than 90% of this auction was DONE well before "snipe" time.

There is no best way to end, otherwise everyone would do it like that and it would just be called "the way". "This way" works just fine.

[bounce]

Originally Posted by CuriousGeorge

I would like to think that the winner of the auction will be determined by the person willing to pay the most at the time that particular lot is closing and not by someone sniping at the last second.

You have the option of setting a higher bid so you don't get sniped. If you didn't do that, isn't it on you? Why aren't we just calling that "lazy" instead of a problem? The snipe WAS the highest bid at closing time.

I don't necessarily love the hard stop the way it happened, but I knew it was possible and even likely. As a matter of fact, I was about to bid on two other items because I'd gotten outbid on the most expensive item I was chasing around 11:40P. But I got lazy, hit bid about 8 seconds too late. Oh well.

And, NO I do not think the auction house has responsibility to get the highest price for every item - that's a totally false premise that they can't control. The "market" is much larger than the bidder IDs at REA - frequently the person willing to pay the most isn't even bidding in some of these auctions. Time, resources, awareness, all of those things factor in. REA got good exposure, they normally do solid but not overly flowerly write-ups and they run a fair auction process. I think they did their job.

[CuriousGeorge]

Because if I have say 10 items I’m looking at and put high ceiling bids on each of them, what’s to say I don’t get run up on all of them and then I have 10 items at the max I was willing to spend on each, not thinking I could end up with all of them? I wouldn’t call not doing that lazy, but actually financially prudent.

Originally Posted by bounce

You have the option of setting a higher bid so you don't get sniped. If you didn't do that, isn't it on you? Why aren't we just calling that "lazy" instead of a problem? The snipe WAS the highest bid at closing time.

I don't necessarily love the hard stop the way it happened, but I knew it was possible and even likely. As a matter of fact, I was about to bid on two other items because I'd gotten outbid on the most expensive item I was chasing around 11:40P. But I got lazy, hit bid about 8 seconds too late. Oh well.

And, NO I do not think the auction house has responsibility to get the highest price for every item - that's a totally false premise that they can't control. The "market" is much larger than the bidder IDs at REA - frequently the person willing to pay the most isn't even bidding in some of these auctions. Time, resources, awareness, all of those things factor in. REA got good exposure, they normally do solid but not overly flowerly write-ups and they run a fair auction process. I think they did their job.

[CuriousGeorge]

So maybe the best solution is for any item that gets bid on in the last 60 seconds gets reset to a 60 second clock so that the item won’t close until there are no bids for 60 seconds. This might actually meet everyone’s needs.

[Rhotchkiss]

Originally Posted by CuriousGeorge

Because if I have say 10 items I’m looking at and put high ceiling bids on each of them, what’s to say I don’t get run up on all of them and then I have 10 items at the max I was willing to spend on each, not thinking I could end up with all of them? I wouldn’t call not doing that lazy, but actually financially prudent.

+100. This is the point. Not that you get outbid, or outbid at the last minute. Rather, its you are afraid to put your best in on numerous things (say 10) bc you may stuck holding the bag on all of them for an aggregate amount far in excess of what you wanted/expected to spend.

[TMKenKen]

Originally Posted by CuriousGeorge

Because if I have say 10 items I’m looking at and put high ceiling bids on each of them, what’s to say I don’t get run up on all of them and then I have 10 items at the max I was willing to spend on each, not thinking I could end up with all of them? I wouldn’t call not doing that lazy, but actually financially prudent.

I agree. Putting my best foot forward on several items means that I could get "run up" on each. Taken on an individual basis not so bad, but on an aggregate basis potentially financially imprudent. I have an order of priority on certain items that involves both a qualitative and quantitative analysis, much of which is dependent on relative pricing. That means that I have to stay involved over the entire auction in some instances. My wife already thinks I am nuts, but if I did what you is suggested, she would go ballistic. And I wouldn't blame her.