So...auction house endings....

[Rob D.]

I've never understood why major auction houses choose to end auctions on weeknights, when they know the closing time will stretch into early morning hours. Heck, even if they think bidders are out doing things on weekends, the auctions end late enough that most people are home in time.

[Abravefan11]

I agree that ending auctions all at one is better for the consignors and also agree Saturday closings make more sense. My question is this.

If REA (and any other house) know there will be on average say 12 hours of extended bidding why not close the auction at noon EST? Is it too much to ask the PST bidders to be up at 9am on a Sat morning? Then it becomes less about attrition and fair for everyone.

I personally think all of these auctions ending in the wee hours of the morning is ridiculous. If someone can make a case for how that is better for the consignor I would love to hear it.

[asphaltman]

Tim-

Well to me it's definitely an advantage for consigners to have the auction end at once like Rob's. I know for me personally, if I'm going strong after one lot and have a max bid in, that if someone tops me at midnight I can then go to option #2 and put a bid in on my second choice if choice #1 has gone out of my price range. If the lots ended individually, then I may not have that option for a second choice after I'm essentially lost my first choice. (yes, barely coherent)

[Abravefan11]

Dave-

If you reread my post you'll see I agree with you completely. My issue is with when the auction closing time not whether it closes all at once.

[asphaltman]

Tim-

I've never understood worrying much about when the auctions finally end. I usually put in my top ceiling bid and let it ride and just wait til morning to see what happened. Now, can I do that with every auction house? Nooooooooo.

[Abravefan11]

Based on your original comment this is less fair to the consignors. If I can't stay up and have to put in an auto bid and ultimately loss the lot, I wasn't able to switch my money to another lot.

I know there has to be a cutoff somewhere, but if we all know the extended bidding is going to be at minimum six hours, why not start it earlier in the day to put your target closing time closer to a reasonable hour for all involved?

[benjulmag]

Interesting question whether starting the extended bidding earlier (say noon) would make a difference. I think people know REA will let it go to 3am-4am and bid accordingly. As best as I could tell, bids were still coming in around every 2 minutes or so when they closed it, but with all the callbacks over I guess Rob decided it was time for it to end.

REA to me, despite the torture of having to stay up so late, is as good an example as any of the advantages of closing all lots at the same time. Over the years I have bid in that auction, what I ended up winning was materially different (and much more to my liking) than what I would have ended up with if lots closed individually. I, like any collector with limited financial resources, prioritize the lots I have interest in. Only when I know the lot that is my first choice has become too expensive will I try to win a less important lot. Or, from the flip perspective, if a less important lot were to close first, by trying to win it I risk not having enough left to give it my best shot to win my first choice.

[Mrc32]

Originally Posted by Abravefan11

If REA (and any other house) know there will be on average say 12 hours of extended bidding why not close the auction at noon EST? Is it too much to ask the PST bidders to be up at 9am on a Sat morning? Then it becomes less about attrition and fair for everyone.

I wasn't a bidder but I did watch closely this auction, and I must say the point made here is the one I most want to see an answer for. End it around noon and the do the extended bidding.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by Mrc32

I wasn't a bidder but I did watch closely this auction, and I must say the point made here is the one I most want to see an answer for. End it around noon and the do the extended bidding.

My guess is that the answer is that starting earlier won't help. People hold their bids and put them in as late as possible which causes a bad perpetuating situation. Last year ended at 3:15 so this year, everyone knew there was no way Rob would end before 3 and the auction was pretty active, even on some major lots at that time pushig the close to 3:45. I expect next year is going to be even worse - the auction ended at 3:45 this year, which means next year people will hold their bids until 3:30 which, if history repeats, will mean that it will end at 4:15 and so on...

This may end up being good for us east-coasters as in a few years, we can just wake up at 6 and put our bids in then.

Edited to Add - Barry said "There is no practical way to offer an incentive to bid early, such as a small discount" I think either 19th Century or Clean Sweep does in fact do this.

[pirateball]

I too prefer the Saturday night close (and I also love the recent bids feature), but after watching the bidding until the bitter end, I wonder if ending the auction earlier in the day would really have any impact on the ultimate closing time at all. The REA bidding was pretty steady throughout the night, and it still seemed like a battle of attrition between the bidders and sleep.

Perhaps a hybrid approach could be used:

1) At 3:00 p.m. a person can continue to bid only on lots that they've already bid on. If bidding stalls for 15 minutes, then the auction can be closed, but that's not likely to happen.
2) At midnight (or whenever) individual lots that haven't had a bid for 15 minutes can start closing.

I understand the arguments about needing to keep all lots open so that people can move from one lot to another if they don't want to keep bidding on their first choice (like what appears to have happened with the GCM lots Saturday night), but this might also encourage more bids on the secondary lots to keep them open, or more aggressive bids on the top lots because the second choice isn't available anymore.

Finally, it would be interesting to know how many different lots were bid on after, say, midnight to know how big of an issue being able to bid on second choice lots really is. For example, if 90% of the lots were set by midnight, then it might not be as big of an issue as we think. I wonder if Rob could comment.

For us bidders, though, best solution in the meantime is probably No Doz and a clear calendar Sunday morning.

[Doug]

Couldn't they just put an end time on the extended bidding? If the auction ends at 4 PM why can't they just say extended bidding ends at midnight or something like that?

[martyogelvie]

Weekends make perfect sense (Saturday preferred). I suppose if there were a item that I had to have, I would stay up as long as need be but to date, no such item has surfaced!!!

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by Doug

Couldn't they just put an end time on the extended bidding? If the auction ends at 4 PM why can't they just say extended bidding ends at midnight or something like that?

The problem is that Rob wants to make money for himself and his consignors. I won an item that hadn't had a bid put in for three weeks -- and I put my bid in at 2:43 am, as last as possible for obvious reasons. And because I saw so many bids still coming in per minute I knew full well that the auction would not close before 3 am. If Rob closed the lots one at at time the problem of the late ending for the auction would disappear -- but so would a lot of money for him and his consignors and no one should expect that. The longest gap between bids during the extended bidding period was only 2 minutes I believe -- and that happened like once or twice at the most. So even changing to a 2 minute clock would still keep us up all night. He can't force people to bid earlier and to penalize late bidding would only harm him and his consignors.

I suppose one way to deal with this is to close all lots valued at say $2000 or less with a real 15 minute clock after midnight or so. Then at least we'd be able to focus on a significantly less amount of lots and perhaps the intense bidding would end more quickly if the "recent bid" information showed slower bidding. I can't blame the guy for making us all stay up late one night a year when you consider that he's running a business to make money and he's got a $10 million auction running.

[Doug]

The "will you make it to the end" poll during the auction was 29-26 for no, so there probably are some bids that aren't being placed by people that don't want to stay up all night. I hope someday there is a solution that works for everyone, but until then I guess I'll just have to keep going to bed with my max bids in place and hope for the best.

[asphaltman]

I haven't seen any good reason yet not to have two extended bidding sessions. Again, end the auction on Friday at 4pm, start extended bidding...stop it at 12 midnight by freezing all lots. Start it back Saturday at noon or 4pm or whatever.