Experiences with Holabird Western America Collections auctions
dcarr
Posts: 9,204 ✭✭✭✭✭
If anyone else has bid in these auctions, what were your experiences ?
Here is mine:
Several years ago there was a dealer at the Long Beach show that had for sale some Colorado agricultural medals, circa early 1870s. The prices seemed pretty high so I did not buy. At a subsequent show, that same dealer indicated that those same medals had been consigned to a Holabird auction. So I waited for them to appear in the September/October 2015 Holabird auction. I had the opportunity to examine the auction lots in person before the auction, so I did.
There were a total of five Colorado Agricultural medals from the early 1870s, all in silver. In my opinion, all had been cleaned although four of the five had re-toned somewhat. One was still fairly bright and looked "polishy". This is not unusual for award medals of this sort. Other than the toning, all five were very similar. I decided that I would bid on the two I liked best. Rather than sitting in on the live auction, I filled out and submitted my "secret maximum bids" sheet prior to the auction. I bid $1,250 for one medal, and $1,100 for the other. I also decided that I would bid $400 on the polished-looking one, although I didn't really need it since it was very similar to the one I had bid $1,100 on. All three bids were above the minimum starting bid. I did not place any bids on the other two.
Here are the results of those five auctions:
Lot 5371: Colorado Agricultural Medal, winning bid: $1,250 (me)
https://holabirdamericana.liveauctiongroup.com/Colorado-Agricultural-Society-Medal_i23262989
Lot 5372: Boulder County [Colorado] Agricultural Medal, winning bid: $400 (me)
https://holabirdamericana.liveauctiongroup.com/Silver-Boulder-County-Agricultural-medal_i23262990
Lot 5373: Boulder County [Colorado] Agricultural Medal, winning bid: $1,100 (me)
https://holabirdamericana.liveauctiongroup.com/Silver-Boulder-County-Agricultural-Medal_i23262991
Lot 5374: Boulder County [Colorado] Agricultural Medal, winning bid: $500 (NOT me)
https://holabirdamericana.liveauctiongroup.com/Silver-Boulder-County-Agricultural-Medal_i23262992
Lot 5375: Boulder County [Colorado] Agricultural Medal, winning bid: $500 (NOT me)
https://holabirdamericana.liveauctiongroup.com/Silver-Boulder-County-Agricultural-Society-Medal_i23262993
So my "secret" maximum bids were $1,250; $1,100; and $400.
I won all three lots for EXACTLY my "secret" maximum. Hmm...
I should have learned my lesson. But, although apprehensive, in the October 2016 Holabird auction I bid on this Sacramento Agricultural & Horticultural Fair Medal, lot 3243:
https://holabirdamericana.liveauctiongroup.com/Sacramento-Agricultural-Horticultural-Fair-Medal_i25652382
The starting bid was $75. I had a secret maximum bid of $115. I won the lot for $80.
I thought, wow, I actually got a good deal on that one and I'm happy with that - maybe I'll participate in these auctions to a greater extent going forward. But then I received this email from Holabird auctions:
Title:
"Item winner changed (you did not win)."
Message:
"After the auction ended the auctioneer resolved bidding discrepancies that occurred during live bidding. Unfortunately, in the process the auctioneer has removed you as the winning bidder for the item. Contact the auctioneer for more information."
But I checked the lot listing a couple weeks after the auction was over and it still said starting bid of $75 and "NOT SOLD". Really ? Not Sold ? And now years later the listing still says "Not Sold". Who was this "winning bidder" that they changed it to then ?
At this point I had enough. I contacted Holabird auctions about my grievances. I also told them that I would no longer bid in their auctions and that I wanted off their mailing lists. I did not want to receive any more emails and I did not want to receive any more catalogs in the mail.
The email reply was:
"Mr. Carr,
I am sorry this has turned out this way for you and will remove you from our mailing and e-mail lists.
PS: However, just to let you know we use a third party online auction house to make sure we can't see maximum bids and, therefore, can not 'bid up' a customer. "
I have continued to receive emails and printed catalogs in the years since then. I have requested multiple times that they stop sending them to me. Just today I received a heavy printed catalog in the mail.
Comments
Sounds like a headache and I too would be upset.
I believe an auction company can use your maximum number as your bid no matter where the underbidder is. It’s in the fine print somewhere. Mail bids and write ins were discussed at length at a Sumer Seminar I attended one year.
It’s happened to me once on a Heritage online bid. I put 1600 max bid on a coin that had an underbidder of 600. I won at 1600. I bought the coin and took my medicine, but I always wish I would have told them to stuff it. It’s not like I trust them enough now to bid ever again anyway. Although auction companies must know that when they do this they will likely lose a bidder going forward, I just don’t think they care. I suspect this happens with just about all auction companies. Large sums of money and pressure to perform or temptation don’t mix.
Yeah Dan, sounds like BS to me also. Can you bid live online?
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Heard the name before though I have not dealt with them. See from their About Us section it used to be associated with Kagin’s Inc. from 2006-2014, but no longer is part of it.
The first three sure give the impression of games being played with your bids. If you left written bids directly with them for the live auction then third party online software would not prevent someone from using your highest bids against you.
Did a search for the unsold item to see if it was offered later, and it was. Shows as sold for $90 hammer bid in a July 2017 auction.
https://holabirdamericana.liveauctiongroup.com/Sacramento-Agricultural-Horticultural-Fair-Medal_i27446797
I suppose there could be a legitimate reason for the No Sale if a problem was discovered too late to reopen the lot. That's what had me wondering if it might have been offered again in the next auction. But those 3 wins at exactly the high bids inspire no trust.
At least the catalogs keep costing them money and help the USPS stay in business at the same time. Some of their catalogs have even sold for a few dollars on Ebay and might be of interest to some.
Hope others can say what their experiences have been with them.
"To Be Esteemed Be Useful" - 1792 Birch Cent --- "I personally think we developed language because of our deep need to complain." - Lily Tomlin
I am not certain of the "fine print". But I have won several Heritage auctions for amounts that were LOWER than my secret maximum bids, even when those bids were submitted on a written form prior to the start of the auction, or submitted on-line prior to the auction date.
That story certainly does not instill confidence in those auctions !
The potted plants in the room are often the most active bidders.
I suspect that it is no coincidence that you won three lots at your maximum bid. Like you I would not bid at such a place. Recycle the catalogue.
Back when I started collecting Thomas L. Elder medals (1976, before I published my catalogue of them) most of them went cheap. Joe Levine of Presidential Coin & Antiques had many of them in his sales. I was young, single, enthusiastic and had money, so I used to make what were then nuclear bids of $100 each on everything and would get everything at $8, $10 or $12 each. Over times the winning bids crept up to $20 or more as other collectors fought me, but I didn't care. I knew that Joe was honest about reducing bids.
That first experience with the three max bids winning at the submitted amount would have sealed the deal for me. There is no doubt in my mind that they simply accepted your high bid regardless of the level of bids at close. Lessons learned. Cheers, RickO
A legitimate auction house will treat the maximum bids as just that. If the lot can be bought for less then it should be sold to you for less. An auction house that sells 100% or almost 100% of their lots at the maximum is engaging in unethical practices and should be off of your list of suppliers permanently, except of course you are REALLY DESPERATE to acquire something and willing to put up with their behavior.
I might add that auction houses that act this are extremely shortsighted. Sure, they might max out on you a few times before you wise up, but in the long run treating maximum bids as “buy bids” will chase customers away and lower their ability to conduct effective auctions. Some auction firms seem to forget that there are two sides to a transaction. Some of them treat bidders and buyers like dirt, which is stupid.
Building an auction business is hard work. You need to get both consigners and buyers who will both come away satisfied. Jacking up the bids will make the consigners happy, but if you lose legitimate bidders to support competitive pricing, you will ultimately lose consigners because they will go elsewhere to get the best prices. You can’t ride a good horse to death without consequences.
...and best of all, you still get an interesting auction catalogue for free!
Maybe because these auction companies also retail coins, they use your max bid as a market indicator, then consider themselves the underbidder. If they feel your bid is market max or retail, they let it go for that, or they sell it themselves priced based on the data you just gave them.
Interesting. The exact same photos were used in both auctions. They shot themselves in the foot while only netting $10 more.
@dcarr
They are very unique medals...I am sorry you encountered such experience. Did they know they were dealing with the famous DC Mint owner?
I have had this happen also, however sometimes your bid on esoteric items might be the ONLY bid received, therefore there is nothing to reduce it to so it is taken at face value.
Interesting, but unsettling !!!
An interesting suggestion.
Ah, starting bid would be my guess as to what would be fair in that instance. There is a certain firm in NY that used to do that frequently with their auctions (it's still in business).
Well, just Love coins, period.
Reading your post, I thought that could be the answer. But then noticed that each of the first five lots @dcarr linked to states Start Price 400.00 USD near the top next to the estimates.
"To Be Esteemed Be Useful" - 1792 Birch Cent --- "I personally think we developed language because of our deep need to complain." - Lily Tomlin
Yes, that was my understanding when I first bid on these.
I believed that I would win them for one bid increment above the second highest bid.
And if there were no other bids, I would win them for the starting bid, or at worst, one bid increment above the starting bid.