Heritage Auctions - Boston Garters

[mrreality68]

Powell

I agree after reading all the posts that you should be the winner and the individual bidders sadly lost out.
I would be clueless how to make it right and it is ugly to all parties. It is amazing any auction house that does an auction this way would not have a set policy and software infrastructure to handle this.
Heritage is a top notch auction and it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
People talk compensation but how do you compensate for losing out on a extremely rare item and the people that lose out thinking they were winning their item potentially did not bid on other items they passed on to get the Boston Store.
So I do not know what compensation/amount makes up for not getting you rare card

I hope for all it works out as best as possible. But sadly I do not think it will or know how it will

[dariushou]

If I were Powell, I'd be livid. In my own personal opinion, he should be the winner and Heritage needs to make it right with the cosigner and the individual bidders....whatever that means. Heritage has over $1Bn in revenues and this is just unacceptable. I don’t want to throw around negligence, but damn, it’s bonkers that a company of their magnitude and presence could make such a disastrous mistake. There’s a good reason they aren’t public… The mistake should never have happened...period. Again, I’d be livid.

With that said, Heritage, of course has crafted their T&C with some outs. The easiest out is the idiotic clause about any disagreement can be settled by Heritage and redoing the auction – someone quoted it earlier…I can’t find it.

Originally Posted by Aaron Seefeldt

“ Please note that this auction will list each card as an individual lot along with another listing for the complete set. If the aggregate winning bids of the twelve individual lots exceeds the high bid on the complete set, the cards will be sold to each individual winner. If the price of the set exceeds the sum of the twelve individual cards, the victory will be awarded to the high bidder for the complete set.”

The above quote, which I presume is from the actual auction, has holes all in it and after reading it a few times I’m kind of at odds to what it exactly says. What is a winning bid? Well, if you read through the rest of the terms, I’m led to believe it means you were the winner of the auction. So, does that mean you take the winners of the set (won the auction—1 winner) and compare it to the winner of the individual lots (12 winners) – So you could have 13 people who think they won the auction when they went to bed and only after someone from heritage wakes up the next day and does the comparison declares the winner? I’ve read a bunch of convoluted docs in my time, but I really don’t know with much certainty what exactly that paragraph says to be honest. If my statement above is correct (comparing the winners after the fact), then I would say no one bidding on that auction thought it worked that way and it shouldn’t. We all know how it should work…why Heritage screwed the pooch so bad is just bizarro world. Seriously. No excuses are acceptable to anyone who participated in those auctions or anyone who uses Heritage or thinking of using them.

In the end, I hope they do the right thing and everyone is made hole in some way. I stated my view which is Powell deserves the win here. just sucks how it was done.

-Darius

[oldjudge]

Powell--Regardless of what your HA page said, how could you ever have won the lot? The auction indicates that the cards will either go to the individual bidders or the aggregate bidder, whichever yields a higher total. These would have to be compared when the auction is closed and if I understand the facts correctly when the auction closed the individual bids exceeded your bid.

[mrreality68]

Originally Posted by oldjudge

Powell--Regardless of what your HA page said, how could you ever have won the lot? The auction indicates that the cards will either go to the individual bidders or the aggregate bidder, whichever yields a higher total. These would have to be compared when the auction is closed and if I understand the facts correctly when the auction closed the individual bids exceeded your bid.

Hi

What you might have missed is that since the total set closed due to no other bidders and thus he could not increase his bids if the individual bids were higher. So his closed at the 30 minute limit with no other bids and some of the individuals stayed open. Those extra times they went up and exceeded his total set bid. And he could not raise his bid above them since the system closed him out

[dariushou]

Originally Posted by oldjudge

Powell--Regardless of what your HA page said, how could you ever have won the lot? The auction indicates that the cards will either go to the individual bidders or the aggregate bidder, whichever yields a higher total. These would have to be compared when the auction is closed and if I understand the facts correctly when the auction closed the individual bids exceeded your bid.

Simple, he won the set. Couldn't bid further...but why would he, he was already declared the winner. When you bid an auction and follow the rules and the result is that you are the winner than you are done. No further obligations on your part as the bidder are necessary.

He was handicapped by Heritage to bid further. He entered a bogus contract if you ask me. Well, Heritage made it bogus. my two cents

[Powell]

Respectfully, you are mistaken on both points.
First, the premise. The Heritage site accepted my bid as the high bidder.
I waited the full 30 minutes and no one out bid me. The Heritage site said I won and no more bids were allowed for the set. It was locked out because the cards were sold too me and the win was reflected on my account Friday night and Saturday morning.

Second, I relied on the Heritage site saying I won the set. There was no reason for me to believe other lots were still open. The set was sold to me as the hammer went down when the timer expired. It would be nonsensical for me to disregard the Heritage site closing the set lot with me as high bidder and put the burden on me to look up 12 other lots and add them up after I won.
That’s Heritage’s job and not mine.

Third, an astute member on this board (check out earlier posts) did add them up and the set was winning at over the individual lots at the time the set was sold to me. He was aghast that (after I went to sleep as the winner) that the individual lots were allowed to bid but not the closed set lot and overtook the set. It’s clear and obvious that I won fair and square.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by oldjudge

Powell--Regardless of what your HA page said, how could you ever have won the lot? The auction indicates that the cards will either go to the individual bidders or the aggregate bidder, whichever yields a higher total. These would have to be compared when the auction is closed and if I understand the facts correctly when the auction closed the individual bids exceeded your bid.

This would be Heritage's position if they want to defend the outcome -- that regardless of whether the mechanics of the close were unfair to Powell and titled the auction to the individual bidders, the auction remained open after the set closed and at the end of the day the individual bids were higher. It's a weak position from a common sense and fairness standpoint, but it's not indefensible hypertechnically.

[Vintageclout]

Originally Posted by oldjudge

Powell--Regardless of what your HA page said, how could you ever have won the lot? The auction indicates that the cards will either go to the individual bidders or the aggregate bidder, whichever yields a higher total. These would have to be compared when the auction is closed and if I understand the facts correctly when the auction closed the individual bids exceeded your bid.

Jay - I agree with you 100% based on the intended philosophy of the set vs. sum of the individual lots format. This whole mess could have been simplified by Heritage changing the rules for ALL the Boston Garter lots whereby all 13 lots (including the set) stay open until there is not a single bid for all 13 in the 30-minute overtime period. This would give all associated bidders an equitable opportunity. Furthermore, this might also be a scenario whereby the software should be tweaked to allow an individual to place a higher straight bid (vs. a ceiling bid) to raise the price of their winning lot. Such a format would have actually initiated a potentially intense bidding war between individual lot bidders (especially for lots such as the Jackson and Cobb) versus the complete set lot - a huge benefit for the consignor, and a fair alternative for all related bidders.

[perezfan]

Originally Posted by Vintageclout

Jay - I agree with you 100% based on the intended philosophy of the set vs. sum of the individual lots format. This whole mess could have been simplified by Heritage changing the rules for ALL the Boston Garter lots whereby all 13 lots (including the set) stay open until there is not a single bid for all 13 in the 30-minute overtime period. This would give all associated bidders an equitable opportunity. Furthermore, this might also be a scenario whereby the software should be tweaked to allow an individual to place a higher straight bid (vs. a ceiling bid) to raise the price of their winning lot. Such a format would have actually initiated a potentially intense bidding war between individual lot bidders (especially for lots such as the Jackson and Cobb) versus the complete set lot - a huge benefit for the consignor, and a fair alternative for all related bidders.

Agree with all of this...

Such a scenario can never work in an "individual lot closing" format and these problems should've been foreseen. This will cost Heritage dearly, not to mention the Consignor (who left A LOT of money on the table).

[jayshum]

Originally Posted by dariushou

If I were Powell, I'd be livid. In my own personal opinion, he should be the winner and Heritage needs to make it right with the cosigner and the individual bidders....whatever that means. Heritage has over $1Bn in revenues and this is just unacceptable. I don’t want to throw around negligence, but damn, it’s bonkers that a company of their magnitude and presence could make such a disastrous mistake. There’s a good reason they aren’t public… The mistake should never have happened...period. Again, I’d be livid.

With that said, Heritage, of course has crafted their T&C with some outs. The easiest out is the idiotic clause about any disagreement can be settled by Heritage and redoing the auction – someone quoted it earlier…I can’t find it.



The above quote, which I presume is from the actual auction, has holes all in it and after reading it a few times I’m kind of at odds to what it exactly says. What is a winning bid? Well, if you read through the rest of the terms, I’m led to believe it means you were the winner of the auction. So, does that mean you take the winners of the set (won the auction—1 winner) and compare it to the winner of the individual lots (12 winners) – So you could have 13 people who think they won the auction when they went to bed and only after someone from heritage wakes up the next day and does the comparison declares the winner? I’ve read a bunch of convoluted docs in my time, but I really don’t know with much certainty what exactly that paragraph says to be honest. If my statement above is correct (comparing the winners after the fact), then I would say no one bidding on that auction thought it worked that way and it shouldn’t. We all know how it should work…why Heritage screwed the pooch so bad is just bizarro world. Seriously. No excuses are acceptable to anyone who participated in those auctions or anyone who uses Heritage or thinking of using them.

In the end, I hope they do the right thing and everyone is made hole in some way. I stated my view which is Powell deserves the win here. just sucks how it was done.

-Darius

I don't think the wording was the problem. The software for their auction platform was not able to handle an auction setup like this. It's hard to believe an AH the size of Heritage wouldn't have tested their platform to make sure it could, but apparently they didn't.

[dariushou]

Originally Posted by jayshum

I don't think the wording was the problem. The software for their auction platform was not able to handle an auction setup like this. It's hard to believe an AH the size of Heritage wouldn't have tested their platform to make sure it could, but apparently they didn't.

The wording wasn't the problem because no one in their right mind thought it would work the way it did. The software wasn't the problem. It was the setup that was the problem (heritage problem). The wording like most of the time was insufficient in my opinion, but not the problem...but will be one of the factors the courts look too...if it gets that far.