Does anyone understand this Term of Sale in ANR's recent auction catalog?

Longacre

I was taking a look at the Terms of Sale in the recent ANR auction catalog. In particular, in Item 7, it states, "ANR will not accept a reserve price from a consignor above the high estimated value shown in the catalog for the auction and any exceptions to this rule will be announced at the auction prior to the opening of bidding on the material."


I don't understand this statement (or maybe I am not reading it in the correct context). Who exactly establishes the "high estimated value"? Also, I don't see any estimated values in the catalog, although there are starting bids when you log into the site to bid online. Are these the same things? Are there any times where the high estimated value and the reserve price are significantly different? I assume the reserve price is by definition the consignor's bare minimum selling price.

Also, not having been to many auctions, exactly how is it disclosed to bidders that the reserve price is higher than the high estimated value for the lot? Does this cause any conflict in that an online bidder might not have the same information as a floor bidder? Or does the website immediately "jump" the starting bid to the consignor's reserve when the lot opens?

ANACONDA

They probably just copied the terms from an art auction house which does give estimates of value.

Elcontador

I think they are trying to avoid a situation where someone makes an absurdly high bid on a coin and they probably can't collect it later, because the bid is so high, that it doesn't make sense. I've seen this happen on a Heritage lot or two

LanLord

What I don't understand is in one statement they say they

"ANR will not accept a reserve price from a consignor above the high estimated value shown in the catalog for the auction"
Then they say
"and any exceptions to this rule will be announced at the auction prior to the opening of bidding on the material"

So which is it, do they net accept higher reserved prices or do they with prior announcements?

That just seems like completely screwed up wording

Pistareen

Hi all --

I'm not a lawyer, nor did I write the terms of sale, but I believe this has to do with a New York law that in case of published estimates, the reserve bid cannot be above the high published estimates. Since we've only ever had estimates in one sale -- the Eliasberg world sale -- and there were no reserves, it's kind of a moot point!