REA is open

[CuriousGeorge]

And that’s how big auction houses like Sotheby’s and Christie’s do it. One by one and on the Internet you can tunnel in to the room where the auction is being held and bid live.

I’m still struggling with understanding why closing the items all at once helps someone on a limited budget. It seems as if you run the same good or bad luck depending on when you get outbid on the item as you’re screwed if you get outbid right at the end and have nowhere to turn if they close all at once. Perhaps I’m missing something.

Originally Posted by oldjudge

Hey Jeff! I hope you picked up some nice items.

As for closing method, my favorite is a live auction format. Start with Lot 1, fight it out, move on to Lot 2. Every on line closing method has issues. If I were running an auction house I would use a variation of LOTG’s closing. All lots with no bids in the last half hour close at 11PM EDT. All remaining lots close individually with a 5 minute rule. This eliminates the traffic jam at the end and has virtually everyone to bed by midnight.

[benjulmag]

Originally Posted by CuriousGeorge

I’m still struggling with understanding why closing the items all at once helps someone on a limited budget. It seems as if you run the same good or bad luck depending on when you get outbid on the item as you’re screwed if you get outbid right at the end and have nowhere to turn if they close all at once. Perhaps I’m missing something.

Here's how (and this what actually happened). I have a budget of X. There are 7 lots I have qualifying bids in on. One of them is literally a unique item which perfectly fits my collection and, by definition, being unique this is my one shot to get it. So I save my entire budget of X for that item. At 3:45 AM I got outbid once again, and this time I was at my budget. So I went back to those other 6 lots that I had qualifying bids in on and THAT WERE STILL OPEN BECAUSE ALL THE LOTS CLOSED AT THE SAME TIME, and started bidding on them. I ended up winning I think 4 of them, none of which I would have won had they had individual closing times.

Had the extended bidding period begun at an early enough hour and the bidding interval as midnight approached been steadily reduced to one minute, this entire scenario would have played out hours earlier.

[CuriousGeorge]

But Corey, you could have just as easily gotten outbid with 15 seconds to go before all of the lots ended and you would have gotten nothing. It just happened to be in your case that you were outbid with plenty of time to place other bids.

Originally Posted by benjulmag

Here's how (and this what actually happened). I have a budget of X. There are 7 lots I have qualifying bids in on. One of them is literally a unique item which perfectly fits my collection and, by definition, being unique this is my one shot to get it. So I save my entire budget of X for that item. At 3:45 AM I got outbid once again, and this time I was at my budget. So I went back to those other 6 lots that I had qualifying bids in on and THAT WERE STILL OPEN BECAUSE ALL THE LOTS CLOSED AT THE SAME TIME, and started bidding on them. I ended up winning I think 4 of them, none of which I would have won had they had individual closing times.

Had the extended bidding period begun at an early enough hour and the bidding interval as midnight approached been steadily reduced to one minute, this entire scenario would have played out hours earlier.

[benjulmag]

Originally Posted by CuriousGeorge

But Corey, you could have just as easily gotten outbid with 15 seconds to go before all of the lots ended and you would have gotten nothing. It just happened to be in your case that you were outbid with plenty of time to place other bids.

Steve, I got outbid at 3:45 in the morning. For all I know the other six lots I had qualifying bids in on had been inactive since 10 PM (and if so would have closed). When I got outbid that last time, by the method I described (the ENTIRE auction remains open until NO lot has received a bid for 60 seconds), I would have had 60 seconds to regroup and place bids on these other six lots. With the bidding interval remaining at 60 seconds, I would always have that time to decide what to do. If all this starts playing out at, say, 11 pm (when the interval reduces to 60 seconds), all bidders will be at their computers/devices and constantly monitoring what is happening. I suspect 95% of the lots by that 11 pm hour will have reached their limit, so for the 5% left and the interval only 60 seconds, I bet the remaining active lots are all over within minutes.

[CuriousGeorge]

Corey, I thought that even the auctions that remain open well into the morning have a hard close time that is not dependent on the amount of time a last bid was placed on an item in the auction. But it’s an arbitrary time determined by the auction house themselves. Perhaps what I’m saying is incorrect and they do just continue until there is no bid for a certain amount of time. If that’s the case then you will always have time to bid on something else but perhaps someone else can chime in whether even in that circumstance does the auction continue for as long as there is a bid being placed on any item?

[benjulmag]

Originally Posted by CuriousGeorge

Corey, I thought that even the auctions that remain open well into the morning have a hard close time that is not dependent on the amount of time a last bid was placed on an item in the auction. But it’s an arbitrary time determined by the auction house themselves. Perhaps what I’m saying is incorrect and they do just continue until there is no bid for a certain amount of time. If that’s the case then you will always have time to bid on something else but perhaps someone else can chime in whether even in that circumstance does the auction continue for as long as there is a bid being placed on any item?

In the auction this happened to me at, the AH basically said that at 4 AM the auction would close without notice. At that hour very few lots were still active, and for those (high ticket) ones that were, the AH would upon request email/call you that they were about to close and to immediately make any final bids. So that is how that AH handled it. By the time it ended, I at least knew that I had my full shot on everything I had an interest in, and that I had full control over everything that happened. The flip side is I got to bed shortly before dawn and was not particularly productive that day. I would have very much preferred all this to have played out hours earlier, which I believe is what would have happened with steadily reduced bidding intervals (coupled with an earlier start time for extended bidding).

[rats60]

Originally Posted by benjulmag

Here's how (and this what actually happened). I have a budget of X. There are 7 lots I have qualifying bids in on. One of them is literally a unique item which perfectly fits my collection and, by definition, being unique this is my one shot to get it. So I save my entire budget of X for that item. At 3:45 AM I got outbid once again, and this time I was at my budget. So I went back to those other 6 lots that I had qualifying bids in on and THAT WERE STILL OPEN BECAUSE ALL THE LOTS CLOSED AT THE SAME TIME, and started bidding on them. I ended up winning I think 4 of them, none of which I would have won had they had individual closing times.

Had the extended bidding period begun at an early enough hour and the bidding interval as midnight approached been steadily reduced to one minute, this entire scenario would have played out hours earlier.

My experience is when the items close lot by lot, that most of the auctions close at the same time or close to it anyways. Generally you know that the lot is past your limit before OT and you can shift to other items and you get to bed at an earlier time.

I like your idea of 1 minute intervals. I would have like to seen all the items that got sniped, get reset at 1 minute giving those that got outbid at the last second a chance to respond. I won my 2nd item ever in REA last night because cards just aren't worth staying up all night to bid on, but if I got sniped, I would have been out of luck with money sitting in my pocket and I had backup items that I wouldn't be able to bid on because the whole auction closed. So, closing all items at once, at midnight or the wee hours of the morning, can still leave you missing out.