Featured Best Practices For Bidding At On-Site Auction?

Thank You Sea Goat! You deserve some credit for that.

 

Always bid max 15% above a round figure if you want to win. People always have a max figure in their head where they want to stop. So let say they have 10 as max than you need to bid 11.50, they have 100 so you bid max 115. Do this off course only if you really want something.

 

that doesn't work at a live auction..

 

Dont know what you mean
If you are at a live auction and you have a max figure of 100 in your head. Would I not win if I bid 102 and there are no other interested. Many had maybe 100 max in their head.

 

Go to a live auction....they don't take bids of 102 or 56.78 or 322.98 or 6417 or 24006...........

They all have increments that kick in at certain dollar amounts.......and you have to bid the next highest amount ......not the next highest penny !!

 

Sometimes, rarely, a live auctioneer will take a bid at less than a full increment; usually with a little laugh.....if bidding has nearly stopped, say at $600, and the next increment should be $700, but a bidder near the front yells out "How about $650?"
But I've never seen that with small increments like $2, or such. (And often such a partial-increment bid will trigger a frenzy of new bidding).
And re

A live auction that I patronize frequently, will always start at the second highest bid if there are multiple absentee bids; this insures that the highest absentee bid gets a fair shake, and at a minimum, may pay only one increment above the second-highest; beyond that, bidding will be driven by in-house and phone bidders until the highest absentee bid is reached or exceeded.
Starting at the max absentee bid will often result in that bidder winning, but at a substantially higher price than necessary. I wouldn't want to be an absentee bidder in a house with that practice.

 

I have.....I put down 7 absentee bids....2 went for 2 bids more than mine......5 went for the next highest bid....& no more......
i don't bid there anymore...

 

I think they'll go straight in if the highest book bid is well under the estimate, but otherwise not.

 

Do you , now ?

 

Komokwa, I'm not understanding why you won't bid there anymore, they all went higher than your bid.
I love going to auctions, but sadly the last one close to me closed last December so it is a 3 hour drive to the nearest one now. I'm heading to one on Saturday, hopefully I'll be able to get a bunch of stuff to make the drive worthwhile.
I always stay at the back of the room, I like to see who is bidding against me. If the opening bid is dropping I'll bid before it gets too low - I find it deters a lot of folks that would have bid at the lowest price from jumping in.

 

I forgot to add... Some auction houses are dishonest and have the house number so until you're familiar with that auction house I might would stand in the back just to watch just see if they're building a house number

 

I had a shill bid against me on some rugs here in Montreal....it was so obvious...

CX...-they seemed to be starting the bidding at my phoned in bid.....& only one other bidder wanted the same 5 items...i wanted......hahhhhh....it just sounds to fishy...

 

what is a house number?

Thanks komokwa, that makes sense then.

 

A house number means the auction house will have a "number" they will assign to no one, they will pretend this number is bidding to drive the price up. If the house number gets stuck with the item it will go on the houses number so no one knows the house was bidding.
Its extremely dishonest.

Theres a company from up north that holds a once a month auction. I attended a few times and for some reason prices just seemed to go SKY HIGH and with in seconds. I could not understand it..
I couldnt even keep up with who was bidding. I quit going because I couldnt afford anything.

Months later I found out they are notorious to having a house number. It was hear say but I wasnt surprised.
When they would come in town a few of them would attend our auction to buy things to reconsign to their auction.
They asked one of our floor help to help them on their floor one Saturday.
He said they were so bad with their house number they loaded over half their tractor trailer back up with items they sold to the house number.

 

...and hopefully put themselves out of business eventually. Dishonesty never pays in the long run.

 

maybe not...but in the short run...it can be very lucrative ........

 

Provided you don't get caught.

 

that's where the long run comes into play !
when one gets greedy.....

 

thanks SeaGoat, I've never heard of that before.