Paul I can really relate to that! 20 years ago I was at a Camden House auction, and I was called away for an hour, so I left 11 written bids in case I came back too late. All the bids I left were over the high estimate, and the people there assured me "they would take good care of me".
My business only took a half hour, and I got back in time to see those items auctioned, and in each case, the auctioneer STARTED the bidding at my maximum bid! They really "took care of me", just not the way I thought they meant it. Yes, this kind of thing has been around forever, but that doesn't mean this isn't a great time to clean it up. A few months ago, a long time buyer e-mailed me that he had bid $1,500 each (with left bids) on three items in my auctions, and that he ended up winning ALL THREE for under $1,500 TOTAL! He said he had been buying in auctions for many years with written bids, and he could not remember EVER getting a really good buy, much less for one third of his bid prices. Of course, my consignors can have friends enter shill bids in my auctions, but they CAN'T know the high bidder's maximum (as so many other auctions can) and they have to pay the full commissions, so that reduces the amount of such bids down to a tiny number. Shill bidding is only profitable when you KNOW what the bidders are bidding, or when you pay no commissions when you get stuck with something, as is true when the shill bidder owns the auction house. Bruce On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 5:16 AM, Paul Gerrard <[email protected]> wrote: > James, > I agree with the point you're making, but this situation did already > exist with live auctions in the form of written absentee bids, albeit to a > lesser extent. I've never trusted absentee bids after I left one with one of > the London auction houses. They accidentally placed my bid against another > item of much lesser value, curiously just hitting my maximum, and creating a > world record price about five times over for that item. > > Paul > www.movieposterstudio.com > > > In a message dated 15/09/2009 08:34:09 GMT Daylight Time, > [email protected] writes: > > > There's a very real difference today compared to the shill-bidding of the > past. Prior to internet bidding, there was no way for the "house shill" to > *know* what the other bidders were willing to pay as their maximum bid. > > > Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com > ___________________________________________________________________ How to > UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: > [email protected] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF > MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content. > > Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: [email protected] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content.
