How I lost SB lot 1166 by $1

rays

I called SB to find out how this could happen, and they explained it to me.

I bid $451 10 days ago on Lot 1166, a Kentucky token colonial. Until today, I was the high bidder. It sold today, no floor bids, for $452.

I thought someone beat my bid by only $1 and won the lot, but this did not happen.

Instead, the bid was at $400 and someone just happened to bid $452 by internet just before the internet bidding closed. So they technically beat my (current) bid by $50 and were then higher by $1 at $452 so they won.

Never seen this happen before.

STONE

Rays, I have been contacted by a couple people about this EXACT same situation, and I'll be honest I was skeptical up until recently.

But now I tentatively believe something fishy is going on at S-B in regards to their bidding system.


For example, one individual I have been recently dealing with emailed me warning me that several of his bids were suspiciously "maxed",
meaning that he had put pre-bids in on several coins and coincidentally, suspiciously, or otherwise all sold at his Max Bid!

Another collector I have been in contact with had something much more similar to your situation happen where he was outbid by less
than $10 of his max bid, which subsequently didn't make sense to him.


SO, I've been warned, and this may be a decent warning for you...or it could just be very coincidental!

RYK

It can and does happen with increasing frequency. I see people adding a few dollars to what would be the normal bid increment to edge out someone who is already on that bid.

In your example it went:

Rays: $400 (Max $451)

Bidder X: $452

Had your max bid been $453 or higher, the next bid would have been $503 (or whatever).

For the same reason you chose $451 rather than $450, Bidder X chose $452. Checkmate!

tradedollarnut

IIRC, it used to be at the old Stacks that mail bids were NOT true auction bids but rather an offer to buy at full bid and Stacks would sell the item at your full bid regardless of underbidder (or lack thereof)

notwilight

exact same scenario happens often on ebay. I've won and lost by .01. --Jerry

rays

<< <i>For the same reason you chose $451 rather than $450, Bidder X chose $452. Checkmate! >>



This is exactly right. Makes for interesting bidding strategy (online only, this wouldn't happen with floor bidders).

illini420

Anytime you place a max bid you really have to trust the auction house. Particularly when the auction houses freely admit they also place bids in competition with bidders. Some auction companies I trust, and others I definitely do not!

RYK

I am going to give S-B the benefit of the doubt on this one. I think that my explanation is more likely to be correct.

illini420

<< <i>exact same scenario happens often on ebay. I've won and lost by .01. --Jerry >>



Even worse than that, in one heritage auction I lost with a tie bid!! I happened to place a max bid that was equal to someone elses prior max bid. That really sucked!

coindeuce

<< <i>IIRC, it used to be at the old Stacks that mail bids were NOT true auction bids but rather an offer to buy at full bid and Stacks would sell the item at your full bid regardless of underbidder (or lack thereof) >>



I could see that having been the case with a mail bid only sale, but in the case where a floor session is the final event of a sale, it would seem highly unethical for an auction house to penalize a bidder for not being in the room by forcing them to pay the full amount of their mail bid, in the case where that mail bid might eclipse the highest floor bid by more than a full increment of the bids as published by the auction house.

Most of the auction houses I have ever done business with had a rule established that the floor session would always start at one bid increment above the 2nd highest mail (or email) bid anyway.

Rays, if your competitor actually did enter a $452 bid at the close of internet bidding, it should have been posted immediately as the actual bid on the auction website, since that bid did not exceed your proxy bid by more than a full increment. You would have then been afforded an opportunity to have placed a telephone bid, or had an agent bid from the floor if the interim between the close of internet bidding and the call of the lot were sufficient. Somehow the S-B system did not recognize the level of your proxy(max) bid as being within an increment of the final internet bid.

rainbowroosie

If you do not have confidence in a seller, don't buy from them.

LindeDad

<< <i>If you do not have confidence in a seller, don't buy from them. >>

BryceM

So here's my question.... Let's just suppose for a moment that an auction house did bid on items in their own sale. In certain other venues this might be considered a shill bid. The big downside to this strategy is that sooner or later the shill bidder (or auction house) will win a few of those bids.

What then do they tell the consignor?

If they simply pay the consignor the usual amount, that leaves them with the problem of an unsold coin to dispose of. I can't imagine it would be in their financial interest to accumulate too much of this type of inventory. After all, it's proven at least once that it was the coin "nobody wanted".

Is anyone aware of a method by which an auction company could move said coins without it being blatantly obvious that they were doing so? In the digital age it isn't all that hard to follow where certain coins go.

Maybe I'm just the babe in the woods here. Please clarify.

rays

<< <i>Rays, if your competitor actually did enter a $452 bid at the close of internet bidding, it should have been posted immediately as the actual bid on the auction website, since that bid did not exceed your proxy bid by more than a full increment. You would have then been afforded an opportunity to have placed a telephone bid, or had an agent bid from the floor if the interim between the close of internet bidding and the call of the lot were sufficient. Somehow the S-B system did not recognize the level of your proxy(max) bid as being within an increment of the final internet bid. >>



This probably did happen as I didn't check the bid between this morning, (one hour before the end of the internet session, when I was winning at $400), until the floor session was over.

indiananationals

i won a $2.5 gold 11d au58 on HA.com for like 1400 on a sunday night auction and next day the lot vanished i called they said it was i error and i hadnt won ....hum i guess not when a 4500 coin sells for 1400 this is a reason i no longer evn look at HA.COM

swhuck

For obvious reasons I'm not familiar with the OP's exact situation, but that sort of thing can and often does happen any time more than one person can place a secret maximum bid. It happens here regularly.

RYK's explanation is almost certainly what happened.

And yes, it has happened to me, too.

coindeuce

With the information shared by Rays which confirms he did not observe the posted bid for his lot between the end of internet bidding and the start of the floor session, it is apparent that RYK's explanation is correct. Nothing suspicious about the circumstance at all.

I placed a substantial proxy bid on a HA lot one time, then followed through with phone bidding privileges because someone that I suspected was an agent for a competing bidder had casually asked me what I expected to see the lot hammer for. I never did give a reply, but my suspicion was well founded, as the person I had expected to be my competitor bid from the floor, but they acceded to my phone bids.

crypto79

I see a lot of maxed out bids at auction but that is more likely the sign of a good bidder. Think about it; If you are going after a coin you are going to bid full value maybe 10-20% over to "make sure". Considering the number of coins that trade over price levels that 10-20% ends up as enough to scare off the dealers who don't see any profit and other buyers who are price point shoppers.

rays

<< <i>With the information shared by Rays which confirms he did not observe the posted bid for his lot between the end of internet bidding and the start of the floor session, it is apparent that RYK's explanation is correct. Nothing suspicious about the circumstance at all.

I placed a substantial proxy bid on a HA lot one time, then followed through with phone bidding privileges because someone that I suspected was an agent for a competing bidder had casually asked me what I expected to see the lot hammer for. I never did give a reply, but my suspicion was well founded, as the person I had expected to be my competitor bid from the floor, but they acceded to my phone bids. >>



The point of my post was not to cast suspicion upon Stacks-Bowers, but merely to offer an explanation how one could be outbid on a lot by as little as $1, substantially less than the usual bidding increment.

The same thing could happen with a $10,000 coin if one bidder had a maximum bid of $10,000 and another $10,001. It just had never happened to me before.

CEOcoinshopcom

Just a quick throw in.
We have auctions on our website, and with all the coins we sell, there have been some interesting bids/wins/etc.
All our bidders info is in the database, in a closed file.
We don't look/watch/participate/involve with our bidders bids.
With that said, some of the weird "math things" happen with the bidding, and some crazy things happen.
I would think that most of the other auction houses keep their integrity... also it would take a lot of time to watch single auctions.....
With a high priced item, I can see folks wondering if there is "weird" stuff going on. I agree with "if you don't trust the seller"....
So our tech guy has to "do the math" sometimes to go back and figure out what happened... and there is always something interesting in the mix.

My biggest advice would be.... if you REALLY want the coin, step up a little more, and hope it goes for less.... As a lifelong collector, it bums me out when I miss a coin... so I know how you feel.
Have fun....

rec78

Happens all the time. Especially on Ebay--I lost many lots by a few cents and some with the exact same bid only the other bidder bid earlier. I have won some bids the same way. I have won bids by 1 cent or even being the earlier bidder with the same exact bid. Proxy bidding works that way sometimes. You could have won the lot by $1 and the other bidder would be writing this thread instead of you. Smoetimes you win-Smoetimes you lose.

Bob

mbogoman

Yep, it does happen all the time. I've both won and lost by it. Since I can't afford to fly all around the country I've got to rely on internet bids. My max bids are never an exact bid increment anymore...

As far as SB's auction integrity, the only coin I've won so far in the Baltimore auction I won for $600 under my max bid...