Heritage Auction — should I bid proxy in advance, or live?
P0CKETCHANGE
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There’s a lot I’m interested in on HA today. Is there an advantage to either bidding strategy, proxy or live? It’s asking me to select bid protection between 1/2 and 3 increments, how does this work?
Nothing is as expensive as free money.
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I always prefer to bid live. Usually if it’s something for my personal collection it’s more important. That way I can real time bury myself instead of missing something. 😂
Usually coins I plan for resale I’m ok with setting my max proxy and forgetting about it.
But for coins I really want I like the option to increase my bid or cut bid If available. There is nothing worse than looking at your post auction summary and seeing you lost all your bids by 1 increment.
My Ebay Store
Depends on how much the lot is a priority for you - if it's a "nice to have", put in a proxy bid. If it's a "must have", then go with live bidding. On the "must haves", I usually put in a "place-holder" bid ahead of time. That way, if the computer link doesn't work, I've made sure somebody else doesn't buy it cheap. Then I watch live - if I get it for the place-holder bid, great. If I don't, then I can jump in with live bidding. If the value of the lot you want warrants it, I would highly recommend contacting Heritage and arrange for phone bidding. With a Heritage rep bidding for you live over the phone, you don't have to worry about the auctioneer missing your bid. They won't close the lot until either you drop out or everybody else does.
Member ANA, SPMC, SCNA, FUN, CONECA
For higher dollar stuff where the increments get bigger, I like to get to my number first and make the other guy take the next step. For that reason I often put in an early bid.
I prefer to bid live and only pre-bid if I cannot watch it due to prior commitments.
Wayne
Kennedys are my quest...
If you must have it then bid live or place a nuke bid. Otherwise set a price you are comfortable paying and bid in advance. Bidding live or nuke bids can really cost you if you end up in a biding war with another must have buyer.
My Collection of Old Holders
Never a slave to one plastic brand will I ever be.
If this is the case, you'll really never know if you truly lost by only one increment. The "High" bidder may have had a much higher "Max" bid, so even if you stayed there "live" to bid, and you did indeed bid that extra increment, that "High" bidders "Max" bid could still jump up automatically to beat you by one increment.
My collecting “Pride & Joy” is my PCGS Registry Dansco 7070 Set:
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/type-sets/design-type-sets/complete-dansco-7070-modified-type-set-1796-date/publishedset/213996
Why can't you do both?
If I really want it, I go all in with both, and increments to assist.
Surely I could. The question I posed in my post was about the advantages of the bidding methods. If there’s a strategic case to be made for doing both on a single lot, I’m certainly all ears.
Nothing is as expensive as free money.
How do you choose the number of increments for bid protection, and what does that choice mean in practice?
Nothing is as expensive as free money.
You can't snipe in a ļive auction.
I always bid early so there is no danger of internet issues, memory issues etc. If it's something I really want, I show up in case I want to jump back in if I get outbid.
There's no advantage to bidding at the last minute. The auction continues until everyone surrenders anyway. You have to be willing to pay more than the underbidder.
If there is a pretty clear price for an item, you want your bid in first to force someone to overpay. 1st one at $250 gets $250.
I have been collecting on and off for 50 + years, and there are very few coins I've seen that "had my name on them." I can think of maybe three. These are the coins where you look at them, get out your checkbook, and ask, "how much do you want for it?"
Everything else, if you don't buy it now, eventually, another one will turn up. I always place my max bid early - I or someone I trust always looks at the coin in hand beforehand - and forget about it. If someone else wants to spend more for the coin, it's his coin. No regrets.
"Seu cabra da peste,
"Sou Mangueira......."
Depends. When the great ones come up (uber coins), I price them out, put in a max bid, do further research, then bid live if I am willing to go higher and if I am outbid. There was one coin in the Summer ANA Anaheim a few years back that was so amazing to me, I put in a nuclear bid, then flew to the auction to protect it live. My paddle was ready but did not have to use it. But one can do the same thing live online if one stays on top of the auction, in this case I wanted to see it in hand before knowing whether this was 'the one' and ready to bid on site. If they are nice but not an uber coin, I put in my max bid then forget about it (see Elcontador's note right above). This happened at GC Sunday, I put in a very aggressive bid on a great but not uber coin, and was then outbid by 3 bid increments. Oh well I will just wait for the next one............
Best, SH
All, it’s a moot point. The lot went for over 600% of what I was expecting, over 12 times more than the proxy bids, and it sold for more than the next grade up. But this is all good advice for next time!
Nothing is as expensive as free money.
I have done both at one time or another. I do wait until the end to place my “serious bids.” Sometimes I do a $1 to $10 “foot in the door” bid. Sometimes I decide that I will bid “$X” and no more. In that case, I put a bid on the book. Other time I set a number and bid live, perhaps on increment over my “high bid.” I did win something with a cut bid over the weekend. I have done that a few times.
There is a lot of psychological advantage to bidding at the last minute, via proxy bid or when the lot goes live. The amount people are willing to bid is not always inflexible. If you’re putting your cards on the table well before the auction goes live, you’re both visibly driving the price up and showing your opponents your hand, and they then have all the extra time they need to consider that hand and adjust their bid accordingly.
I find that people are often willing to bid past the opening bid, even if the opening bid is high, because it shows that there is demand from at least two other bidders at that price level. If a lot opens at a far lower bid, they may not otherwise be willing to stretch past that same high price during the live bidding, because it feels more risky than it would in the first scenario.
There is no advantage to bidding early, except in the event that you happen to tie max bids with the underbidder and your bid takes precedence because it was placed first. Memory or internet issues can he avoided by using proxy bids, which don’t show to others until the lot goes live.
Gobrecht's Engraved Mature Head Large Cent Model
https://www.instagram.com/rexrarities/?hl=en
The one obvious advantage to bidding early is getting on the correct increment.
You've already mentioned the ties, which I had mentioned earlier.
Another advantage of bidding early is that you can't get "auction fever".
So, there's at least 3 advantages.
I fail to see any real disadvantage other than the ability to exceed your predetermined max. No one knows if you are live or not. No one knows what your max bid is.
There's an odd bit or logic that is more confirmation bias. You claim to have noticed that puerile are willing to bid past the opening bid. Isn't that really just an observation that some people like to bid late?
But, whatever the reason, they still don't know what my max bid is. So, go ahead, bid past the open.
You should be able to get on the correct increment regardless of when you bid, I’m not really sure what you mean by that.
A very small advantage, as it rarely happens, and if it does that’s when a cut bid is useful.
I don’t think that’s an advantage. I’d rather be able to adjust my max bid if necessary, and I can recognize what’s too high and what is an appropriate stretch. You can be logical about your bids regardless of when you make them, but bidding towards the end gives you a better idea of what you consider reasonable in relation to what other bidders do.
They can see your max by bidding past it. If they do bid past it, you just guaranteed that you won’t win. They could always change their mind or bid differently when the auction goes live, and maybe then you would end up winning at the same price.
It is that as well (and there is a reason why they do bid late). It’s an observation that items tend not to sell at their opening bids, and it’s a conclusion based on my knowledge of appropriate market values, of how I myself think as a bidder, and of the natural biases that people are prone to. It just makes sense. If that slabbed cricket were selling at Heritage and opened at $300, I would be less likely to consider bidding it up to $5000, than if it hit $4800 several days prior to the live sale - in the latter version, I have an established minimum market value of nearly $5000 set by at least two other bidders. In the former, I do not know that the coin is thought of as being worth $4800 by other bidders, and might have concluded a more appropriate market value to be, say, $1500. So, if the cricket nevertheless gets bid up from $500 to $4800 in the live sale (assuming the other bidders don’t have similar feelings of uncertainty), than I will be less likely to throw in that $5000 bid, as I won’t be as ready for it. By concealing high bids until the end you have the element of surprise on your side.
Also, I pay attention to how many other bidders there are when an auction goes live (usually floor vs internet vs phone bids will be noted separately, and the speed at which other bids come in an anonymous auction may be indicative of multiple bidders). If a coin is bid up very quickly from $500 to $5000 by multiple bidders, I know there is significant demand and will be more willing to stretch above $5000. If it’s bid up to $1500 by multiple bidders, then they all drop out and it’s just me versus one person, I’ll be less likely to push it all the way up to $5000. A 1v1 bidding war spanning a significant number of bid increments is indicative that you will have a harder time getting your money back if you try to resell the item, because the market will be thinner at that price level. You can’t gauge this in non-live bids. Even during live sales I will usually sit back and wait for all the other bidders to drop out before putting in my own bid, so I can see how they behave and what the high point seems to be for everyone else (aside from the one remaining bidder). This also makes bidding look less active to others, as if I start bidding right away when the sale goes live, it will be more apparent that there are multiple interested parties, and if another bidder notices that, they may feel more confident about bidding it up higher.
The one real counterargument to all this is that now more and more people are saving their bids for when items go live and refraining from bidding beforehand, so it’s now predictable that items will sell for multiples of their opening bids (and people are increasingly bidding like this, you can ask some of the auction houses about recent bidding trends), and the element of surprise is lost. However, it’s still always helpful to observe bidder behavior during live sales.
Gobrecht's Engraved Mature Head Large Cent Model
https://www.instagram.com/rexrarities/?hl=en
For expensive coins, the increment is everything. When the increment is in the thousands, you need to be there first. You can't simply jump in the increment later as someone else will already be on it.
As for finding your max, they have to go past it, whether early or late. Again, you can't snipe an auction. So the winner will airways be the person willing to pay more, no matter when that bid was placed.
The only advantage to live is that you can hold your card up and refuse to put it down. Not really much of an advantage, but if you must have it there it is.
Here’s one disadvantage, and this is the main reason I never place my max bid early on finite ending auctions like GC and eBay (admittedly it’s a bit different on Heritage and others whose end time on the block is undetermined):
Let’s say your max bid that you place early is truly an aggressive bid (not nuclear, but with a reasonable chance of ending up as the high bid). By having placed it early, especially as the end time is closely approaching, it gives “wafflers” more time to think about raising their own max bid, so they eat away at your max bid. As such, while you may still end up as the high bidder, even below your max bid, you very well may have ended up paying more for that coin than you otherwise would have had the wafflers not had the time to eat away.
My collecting “Pride & Joy” is my PCGS Registry Dansco 7070 Set:
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/type-sets/design-type-sets/complete-dansco-7070-modified-type-set-1796-date/publishedset/213996
This can be a big value for hard to price items.
And of course, holding up your card can be fun!
Agree. I always snipe on eBay & GC, unless I know I cannot be active at the time of auction closing in which case I'll place my max bid as late as possible. On HA, it seems like a good strategy to make a live proxy bid 7 days before the auction closes, as that gets the bid in yet keeps it secret until the auction goes live.
Nothing is as expensive as free money.
Max bid info is not usually published and bidders often think they lost by one increment when the max internet or proxy bid could be much higher, or the floor/live bidder could go much higher. Sheridan Downey does publish max bid data on his auction PR's, which is a real eye-opener on some of the nuclear bids placed that were many increments above the winning bid.
I prefer the proxy bid, but will occasionally try to bid live although my keyboard skills aren't what they used to be - fingers have gotten too fat.
That assumes psychology that we don't have a lot of evidence to back. It also contradicts the prior assertion that auctions go up after they go live. In the end, the auction doesn't time out. To have to be willing to go higher. The whole strategy of a live auction is to give you auction fever which suggests that people are more likely to go higher when live.
The strategy for hard to price items is likely different. In that case, however, I still think your odds of being bid up is higher live than by proxy.
This is the best kept secret in bidding strategies! It’s actually kept hidden (not activated) until that coin goes on the block! Additionally, YOU will own that bid in case a live bidder when the coin is on the block bids up to that level, as you win on the tie!
My collecting “Pride & Joy” is my PCGS Registry Dansco 7070 Set:
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/type-sets/design-type-sets/complete-dansco-7070-modified-type-set-1796-date/publishedset/213996
I bid early bc I am willing to pay that much and don't care if anyone else bids me up to what I am willing to pay. I am not in this to save money I am in it to collect what I collect. If I were a dealer trying to make a livelihood out of coins, it would be different. Sometimes I am willing to pay way more than anyone else. Sometimes I am not.
There is also the psychology of putting an aggressive bid up early, and making someone match or exceed it. When the price keeps going up, many who are only bargain hunters, stop bidding. At the end, it is only the serious ones bidding anyway, and if they are willing to go over my early aggressive bid, good for them. Brings up the values for all anyway the higher something goes.......
I do both. I put my rational high bid in via proxy and then follow live and adjust my bids accordingly. For what I buy, there is the real possibility that I mis-figured the market value, so I have to be able to adjust on the fly but want to protection of the proxy bid in case of some mishap, like I fall asleep, or the power goes out.
Latin American Collection
True, but if I bid live I can make the decision on whether or not I want to engage in a battle for the coin.
My Ebay Store
@Rexford, how do you get on the right side of the increments when you are bidding live?
Here is an example. My bid was $50,000 in an item. I think the increment was $5,000 or $2,250. I forget which it was, but it was not “chump change” to me. I put up $50,000 on an Internet bid. The was a dealer in the room who was representing a client. His limit was also $50,000. I got the piece because my bid was on the book. Later the dealer offered me a small profit, but I passed.
This is an example of why it’s better to put up your maximum bid just before the auction.
Being on increment in your final bid is the same exact thing as winning in a tie bid. It’s not an additional advantage to bidding early. If it really matters to you, you can usually get on the increment you want when it’s live by strategically bidding once the bid hits an even number of bids under your max, and bid quickly once the other person outbids you so you will stay on that increment. Personally, if I really want a coin I’ll be fine with cut-bidding (bidding 1/2 an increment over) if I end up being off increment in the final bid. If I don’t want the coin enough to cut-bid, then I don’t want it enough to care about being off increment and will be fine with losing it at that price.
Gobrecht's Engraved Mature Head Large Cent Model
https://www.instagram.com/rexrarities/?hl=en
The probability of being bid up is certainly higher being live, but so is the probability of winning. It comes down to which one is more important.
I agree that if you have a pre-determined limit, it's better to put it in early for this exact reason.
If there are only two bidders, that does not work.
Why not? It takes 2 to go to the moon.
If you don't know the value before hand but are willing to go to the moon, bidding live seems to be a viable way to go.
I was referring to the $50,000 which was my bid. If I were to be on the wrong side, I would had to have to gone to $55,000. I don’t know how else to explain it.
If the extra $5,750 (15% buyers fee at that time) doesn’t mean anything to you, then yes, it does not matter which side of the bid you are on.
You said it wouldn't work if there were 2 bidders. I'm not sure how it world have worked if there were 3 bidders.
And in the scenario I posted, winning is more important than price, so it's a bit different than your scenario where price seems to be more important.
Winning at any price is dangerous to your financial health. I have an 1855-D gold dollar that proves that. I love the coin, but hate what I paid for it.
The comment above re not getting caught up in auction hype is important. I never get into a "mine is bigger than yours" mentality at auctions. It's a great way to get yourself buried in a coin.
Also, the coin will sell at the next increment (at least at Heritage). So if you put in a max bid of $2,000 on a coin, with increments being $100, and the highest bid is $1,700, it's your coin for $1,800 plus the 20% to the house.
"Seu cabra da peste,
"Sou Mangueira......."
I've won coins both ways, but I'm almost always happier with the price if I leave proxy bids
Well, it sounds like the OP's target has come and gone, but the strategy must be different depending on circumstances.
On generic quasi-bullion items, such as MS62-64 Saints, the first one to the anticipated final increment wins. Few people are willing to set a new record on something that you can buy at any time.
For items that are massively important to you, nothing beats phone bidding, or bidding in person. For everything else, it depends. At Heritage, I once hid the bid button on a coin and the slight Internet lag between my button push and it registering my bid jumped me something like 3 increments, well beyond what I wanted to pay..... and I ended up winning the lot.
From that, I learned to research my price, establish my maximum, and execute a proxy bid well ahead of time. Then, I let it ride. Sometimes, in thinly-traded material or in markets that are rapidly changing, you have to "feel the pulse" of the auction. Sometimes I'll bid live in these scenarios, but it isn't without significant risk.
I enjoy the rush of bidding live, but understanding the max value to me before hand is a critical limiter. Fortunately, I haven’t found myself getting burned (yet).
"Got a flaming heart, can't get my fill"
Live. Try snare at decent price.
Nuke bids very likely there wb some rabid well off collector bidding it up. Not a win win for me.
Without reading all the above comments, I would say both. Just in case smoething goes wrong. I was waiting to bid on smoething one time and at the very last minute my electricity went off for just a few secs, I missed the bid and therefore did not win the auction. Frustrated ever since, but I won't be again, If I really want something my bid is in ahead of time.
Once I annualized and calculate my bid I just plant it and (try to) forget it. My schedule always seems to conflict with the live event anyway. As long as I know I took a shot I’m good with either outcome. It’s nice to hear how others think about it though.
(old thread alert)
Does anyone know if Heritage changed their "Live Proxy Bid" window recently?
In the past, this functionality opened 7 days before an auction, but I was just browsing a lot that's almost a month out, and the Live Proxy Bid is already available.
Nothing is as expensive as free money.
Someone else asked me about that a few weeks ago so I checked to confirm and was told “yes”.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
That was me. I love this functionality, and now that it opens at the same time that Proxy Bidding begins, it’s even better!
This tool is the best kept bidding secret at Heritage, as I believe the majority of Heritage bidders either don’t know about it at all, or don’t recognize the advantages of using it.
Steve
My collecting “Pride & Joy” is my PCGS Registry Dansco 7070 Set:
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/type-sets/design-type-sets/complete-dansco-7070-modified-type-set-1796-date/publishedset/213996
@winesteven
Thank you for this explanation. I’ll be shifting my strategy now.
Thanks @winesteven —you were the one who explained this functionality to me originally, and I have been using it successfully ever since. I believe I won one of my 20c pieces in a tie, where my live proxy prevailed.
With live proxy opening up much earlier, there's an incentive to place the bid earlier as well, because if you end up in a tie against another bidder's proxy, the earlier bid will prevail.
Nothing is as expensive as free money.