This looks interesting indeed

[mordecaibrown]

Chris -

I mean no disrespect, but I think you are over simplifying this and not looking at whole picture.

1) Does H&S take a percentage from the consigner? Lets just assume its 10% (as I have no idea if they do and if so, what the percentage would be - simple assumption for illustration purposes).

They bid $600 on it, but it only cost them $540, because they got $60 from consignor. All of a sudden that profit Erick showed earlier just grew from $28 to $88.

2) When HOC bids in a H&S auction, the only possible scenarios is H&S benefits.

Either - they increase the bid amount; therefore, directly increasing the buyers premium. If current bid is $200 (H&S makes $39 - 19.5% buyers premium). If they make a bid of $300 and are outbid by another bidder max bid, the new high bid is $330 (H&S makes $64.35 on buyers premium). They just made $25 by simply making a bid. Do you make $25 (or any money) by making a bid in the auction? This profit amount increases with the value of the item.

OR - they win the item at a discount versus other bidders. If they win an item at $200 and pay the 19.5% buyers premium and receive a consignors fee of 10%, then total cost = $239 - $20 = $219. Also, this assumes that they do pay the buyers premium, if you dont think they do because the two places are owned by the same person - then the savings increase!

When a bidder can only benefit from bidding in an auction thats a conflict of interest.

Any.y K.enne.dy