h_yee auctions

[ibuysportsephemera]

Originally Posted by steve B

It's all about reputation and promoting the auction to the right people.

Sothebys and I could sell the exact same Item. Guess who would get the higher price? Of course they would, wether the auction was on Ebay or in the New York office.

On a smaller scale, but a perfect example there's this personal experience.

A friend of mine sells 16mm films. Lots of them. And he sells almost nothing else. He has built a reputation for accuracy in descriptions. Films fade or get worn. Many sellers underestimate how bad something is. He's a very conservative grader.

At one point I was helping him sell some inexpensive films. I sell a wide range of stuff when I'm active, cards, bike parts, small antiques... One film was a short story, and in fantastic condition. Barely used, on mylar film with an emulsion that's not prone to fading. I put a good description, and a picture.
No takers at $25- what we both thought was a good price. Then no takers at $10. I gave it back to him after 3 tries since I didn't think it should go for a price lower than that. The can and reel would sell for $4-5.
He listed it as a buy it now at $25 using my description.
It sold in less than 12 hours.
So there's a case from Ebay with the exact same item and one seller gets at least 2.5x what another could get. And he does little to no promotion of his auctions.

Steve B
PS if anyone collects films and has a want list just let me know and I'll pass it along. But you probably know him already.

I am finally getting back to this thread. I want to make it perfectly clear that I was not in anyway saying that I though Henry was shill bidding.

In the above post Steve says exactly what I was thinking. Thanks.

HOWEVER, I would like to point out is that it really is easy to shill in Henry's auctions. I believe that he takes consignments. If that is the case, what is to stop the consignor from having another eBay user bump up the price. Henry would not even know it.

[Kawika]

Originally Posted by ibuysportsephemera

HOWEVER, I would like to point out is that it really is easy to shill in Henry's auctions. I believe that he takes consignments. If that is the case, what is to stop the consignor from having another eBay user bump up the price. Henry would not even know it.

Case in point. This George Burke Chas. Gehringer photo I won (item #250739037920). Check out bidder a***5(121). 2055 (!) bids on 149 of hyee's auctions, 99% "activity . . with this seller". I e-mailed Henry about this clown and suggested he block him. He replied that he would and I presume that he did. Am not casting aspersions on Henry whatsoever. We all know that eBay lends itself to all kinds of bad faith shenanigans. This joker could have been shilling to his own advantage or could have been doing it just to jack around Henry. Either way it corrupts the bidding process and probably tends to elevate prices. I will not hold my breath waiting for eBay to do anything about anything.

[thekingofclout]

Originally Posted by Kawika

Case in point. This George Burke Chas. Gehringer photo I won (item #250739037920). Check out bidder a***5(121). 2055 (!) bids on 149 of hyee's auctions, 99% "activity . . with this seller". I e-mailed Henry about this clown and suggested he block him. He replied that he would and I presume that he did. Am not casting aspersions on Henry whatsoever. We all know that eBay lends itself to all kinds of bad faith shenanigans. This joker could have been shilling to his own advantage or could have been doing it just to jack around Henry. Either way it corrupts the bidding process and probably tends to elevate prices. I will not hold my breath waiting for eBay to do anything about anything.

Good point Dave. That buyer was a new ebay seller named; sharkbay545

Look him up. A strange guy. Ben and I have bought some photos from him 9he sells photos and books, and has only been selling since this last simmer. A strange fellow to say the least.

I encourage every one to look him up and see what he sells.

If Ben sees this comment, I'm sure he'll chime in...

I must leave to make a Doctors appoint now but will address him in more detail later this evening.

Every thing is not always the way it may appear to be.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by ibuysportsephemera

I am finally getting back to this thread. I want to make it perfectly clear that I was not in anyway saying that I though Henry was shill bidding.

In the above post Steve says exactly what I was thinking. Thanks.

HOWEVER, I would like to point out is that it really is easy to shill in Henry's auctions. I believe that he takes consignments. If that is the case, what is to stop the consignor from having another eBay user bump up the price. Henry would not even know it.

That can be the case for any auction house or Ebay seller that takes consignments. Have a friend bump up the price.

I accept consignments for my Ebay auctions on a regular basis. I would hope I would notice if something fishy is going on. Like the same bidder bumping up a ton of auctions from the same consignor and not paying on the ones he won.

There would be a pattern. Not just the typical NPB here and there.

If I found out a consignor was messing with auctions, I would make a point not to ever deal with them again, no matter the material they were offering.

Of course I don't do anything near the scope of Henry's auctions. I imagine it would be hard to notice something fishy going on when you have 1600 auctions running at one time.

[bobbyw8469]

To play devil's advocate, why would a consignor shill on his own auctions, say to drive up the price $500 when the average selling price is $100?? He knows it will never sell for that price and then he would be stuck having to buy his own item back for quintuple what it is worth. I just don't get it.....

[ibuysportsephemera]

@Bobby...Since I have never shilled, I am not speaking from experience...but as an example, you see lots of activity early in an auction and every time you place the high bid another bidder places a higher bid...if you are not piggish, you could push the price pretty high without worrying about being the high bidder...just sayin.

[T206Collector]

Originally Posted by bobbyw8469

To play devil's advocate, why would a consignor shill on his own auctions, say to drive up the price $500 when the average selling price is $100?? He knows it will never sell for that price and then he would be stuck having to buy his own item back for quintuple what it is worth. I just don't get it.....

I've always thought of shill bidding by a consignor or auction house to be similar to an undisclosed reserve. The consignor maybe only wanted to sell it if it got to a certain price -- and if it doesn't, then you have an artificially high market value the next time you look to sell it.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by bobbyw8469

To play devil's advocate, why would a consignor shill on his own auctions, say to drive up the price $500 when the average selling price is $100?? He knows it will never sell for that price and then he would be stuck having to buy his own item back for quintuple what it is worth. I just don't get it.....

Only way it would work is if the dealer was in on it and gave his blessing that he wouldn't try to collect on the items the consignor won.

I doubt Henry would risk his reputation for that type of arrangement.

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

Only way it would work is if the dealer was in on it and gave his blessing that he wouldn't try to collect on the items the consignor won.

I doubt Henry would risk his reputation for that type of arrangement.

I see shills drive people up to their maximums all the time. If they go too far, they just retract their last bid. I'm not suggesting that happened in these auctions, as I have no idea - but it's certainly not uncommon.

I didn't participate in the Yee auctions, but for the heck of it I just pulled up the eBay history on the top-selling Ruth/Gehrig photo. It appears only 2 bidders bid more than $495. It looks like the winner was top bidder at $500 with a few hours left in the auction, then someone put in 12 consecutive bids in $100-$300 increments in just 8 minutes, driving the winning bidder up to $3750. That could have been someone's perfectly legitimate approach to bidding - they could have kept telling themselves they could afford to go just a couple hundred bucks more, just a couple hundred more, gotta win, gotta win - but it's also what shilling consignors do. Keep bidding in small increments until the other bidder's max or near-max is exposed, then retract if you go past it, or don't pay if you accidently win; or drive the price up to what you're comfortable buying the piece back for and try again later.

Whichever kind of bidder this was, this situation is why I never put in a max bid until seconds before an auction close.

[canjond]

While I have only heard good things about Henry in the past, I do want to address a shill bidding point. Unfortunately, I think using eBay as a medium for the auctions may tend to make shill bidding easier to accomplish. If i'm to bid in REA for example, Rob would know all of my info as i had to register with him before being allowed to bid. In an eBay style auction such as this, I registered with eBay, not Henry. So, Henry doesn't really know who I am - just my eBay ID. Only eBay knows who I am. To me, this would seem to make shill bidding easier. In addition, the remedies to collect unpaid bids are probably fewer. Where Rob can bring NPB to court, Henry, I would imagine, would have a much tougher time accomplishing this.

[bobbyw8469]

With Ebay, you can't retract a bid if there is less than 12 hours to go. That is why I don't think that was a shill bidder. There is someone who bids on my auctions, and bids in 50 cent or $1 increments. He has multiple bids on my items, and to an untrained eye, it guess it could look like a shill bidder. But he always pays....just has a very unorthodox bid style....to each his own I guess......

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by Karl Mattson

this situation is why I never put in a max bid until seconds before an auction close.

I agree 100%.

Speaking purely from the standpoint of a buyer who knows what his maximum purchase price is, the only logical time to bid on any auction is with a few seconds remaining.

On ebay, this means that no one will have a chance to put in a higher bid after seeing mine, it also means that I won't be able to get "auction fever" and rebid if my max bid isn't high enough to top bids that are already entered.

On auctions with a moving end time, the logic is still pretty much the same.

Doug

[GrayGhost]

I used to go to Antique auctions that were shilled, but I know Henry has a great reputation, and don't figure this is happening at all. Basically, people lose out, or get upset something goes too high, in their eyes, move on. There are about 2000 auctions per year it seems, w the big guys, and semi big guys, where you can get almost anything you want. Be patient and stop complaining constantly about losing out.