Why the extended bidding?

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Because a live auction doesn't just cut off bidding at a given time, it runs until there is no bidding on an item. Extended bidding is the way to most closely mimic that without an auction taking several days to end, as it would if you closed thousands of lots in order waiting until you had no bids on a given lot to move on to the next one.

Also if you think there's problems now just wait until you see the server crashes with a fixed time ending. literally EVERYONE will be trying to jam last second snipes down the server's throat. It would be a disaster of epic proportions.

[Republicaninmass]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

Because a live auction doesn't just cut off bidding at a given time, it runs until there is no bidding on an item. Extended bidding is the way to most closely mimic that without an auction taking several days to end, as it would if you closed thousands of lots in order waiting until you had no bids on a given lot to move on to the next one.

Also if you think there's problems now just wait until you see the server crashes with a fixed time ending. literally EVERYONE will be trying to jam last second snipes down the server's throat. It would be a disaster of epic proportions.

Hi Scott, has any live auction you've held or taken part in last several days?

It's to promote the sales price, and having the whole auction open until there arent any bids is the epitome of stupidity. Buyers put up with it, until they dont.

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Originally Posted by Republicaninmass

Hi Scott, has any live auction you've held or taken part in last several days?

It's to promote the sales price, and having the whole auction open until there arent any bids is the epitome of stupidity. Buyers put up with it, until they dont.

To answer your question yes. Also I have been to several auctions with 3 different auctioneers working at the same time. If you have thousands of lots live you have no choice.

Of course these aren't in the sports genre, but I don't think you could get card guys to sit through a 12 hour auction and they would be pissed at missing out on what the other two auctioneers were selling simultaneously in a sale of that nature.

I come from a live auction background. When I was still doing live auctions 500 was our absolute limit as that took about 5 hours from beginning of auction until end of check out, and even then we would start to lose our crowd.

People say "to make the consignors and the auction more money" as if that wasn't the purpose of live auctions in the first place. Again the reason online auctions run the way they do is to mimic a live auction more closely. The purpose of the auction format was always to make consignors and the auction company more money.

Finally I couldn't agree more with the complaint about an entire auction staying open until no item has a bid. THAT is NOT anything to do with how auctions have run pre-internet. I can't imagine being on lot 300 of a live auction and someone yelling out I bid $450 on lot 32!

[jayshum]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

Because a live auction doesn't just cut off bidding at a given time, it runs until there is no bidding on an item. Extended bidding is the way to most closely mimic that without an auction taking several days to end, as it would if you closed thousands of lots in order waiting until you had no bids on a given lot to move on to the next one.

Also if you think there's problems now just wait until you see the server crashes with a fixed time ending. literally EVERYONE will be trying to jam last second snipes down the server's throat. It would be a disaster of epic proportions.

Some of the Hunt Auctions that are live online do close in order by lot without moving to the next lot until the current one has no more bids. They do take quite a while to get through all the lots, but so far, none of the ones that I have followed have taken days.

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Originally Posted by jayshum

Some of the Hunt Auctions that are live online do close in order by lot without moving to the next lot until the current one has no more bids. They do take quite a while to get through all the lots, but so far, none of the ones that I have followed have taken days.

How many lots?

There are a couple of companies that don't specialize in sports that do this as well. I love them because they are usually places to snap up bargains.

[jayshum]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

How many lots?

There are a couple of companies that don't specialize in sports that do this as well. I love them because they are usually places to snap up bargains.

Hunt usually has around 1000 lots. They have pre-bidding for several weeks on their website which ends the night before the live online auction takes place so there are already bids on lots which is where the bidding starts at. The live online auction part that I have done for Hunt is through invaluable.com.

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Originally Posted by jayshum

Hunt usually has around 1000 lots. They have pre-bidding for several weeks on their website which ends the night before the live online auction takes place so there are already bids on lots which is where the bidding starts at. The live online auction part that I have done for Hunt is through invaluable.com.

OK Pre bidding SHOULD tighten things up a little bit, but I bet it ran about 6 hours.

Also that's 1000 lots. Very different than the 3000 plus of a major auction. Live I could've gotten through 1000 lots in roughly 10 hours with no pre-bidding.

[Carter08]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

OK Pre bidding SHOULD tighten things up a little bit, but I bet it ran about 6 hours.

Also that's 1000 lots. Very different than the 3000 plus of a major auction. Live I could've gotten through 1000 lots in roughly 10 hours with no pre-bidding.

The Hunt live auction is a fun way of doing it. It does take a long time though.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Carter08

The Hunt live auction is a fun way of doing it. It does take a long time though.

When Paul Fusco of Fusco Auctions was still with us, used to love going to his combined live/internet auctions in person. People would pre-bid online, and then the live bidding would start at a designated time, just like extended bidding. Paul would then go through, lot by lot, and sell each lot live and in order. His wife, Debbie, sat next to him on his right-hand side and monitored the computer and online bids as they came in, calling them out alongside bids coming from people in the audience. He told me one time he was on 5 different online auction sites all at the same time, and that even people in China could be bidding live against you in attendance.

Paul was very quick and dedicated, and when on a roll could get through 75-100+ lots per hour. Still, you could easily be there a good 4-5-6 hours waiting for the lot(s) you were interested in to come up, and for the auction to finally end. He always used to bring in pizza/sandwiches and pop partway through the auction for those in attendance. One of the nicer things of attending his auctions live was you could come early and have a chance to personally see and examine everything in the auction. Also, as each auction lot closed, his staff would bring you the auction item(s) you had won. He also always had another staffer or two then handling a checkout/cashier's office where you could pay for everything whenever you were ready to go. You didn't have to wait till the entire auction was over to pay and be on your way. They constantly updated people's winning bids in the cashier's office. Also, by being in attendance and paying by cash/check, there was no surcharge the online winners usually got tagged with for paying by credit card. And if you did stay to the end, you were usually rewarded with several late auction entries that were not available to online bidders, only those in attendance. These late, live auction only lots, also generally included what Paul called "balance of one man's collection" lots, which would sometimes literally cover entire tables, or be stuffed into single or multiple boxes. Never knew what you would find, but had fun just looking through them. It was the stuff Paul said he couldn't usually see selling as individu.al items or in small lots, or that he didn't want to have to pack up and pay to have shipped to some online buyer. Aaahhh, those were the days.