Pushing 330,000 All Different Worldwide Stamps In One Collection .

By that logic, though, the firms should do nothing differently from what they're doing now, right? If these customers' behavior is so profitable to the auction houses, why would the firms change how they treat them? Especially if the customers keep running up the bids on a repeated basis.

"Why would they change " nobody said to change ,just treat those active bidders better , years ago food and dinners out was a thank you . But now everything is on-line , maybe a Christmas gift like a gold -platted tongs or a fruit cake would help .

My question: do they even know these bidders that end up as non winners. I don't know one way or the other if each bidder's file (if these exist) are updated. Obviously they would know that Floortrader has won X number of lots for one auction but do they know that Mirman bid on X number of lots and won none for the same auction? Furthermore, do they know how many lots have been won/lost during current year or previous year(s)?

MIRMAN---Yes the firms that use computers for each bid, knows who bid and at what second ,it is all time stamped . This was not the case years ago when it was a room filled with bidders holding a numbered card paddle . I have seen my computer print out once when another bidder was making a legal issue and needed a written statement from me confirming a bid .

The auction house would be foolish not to be data mining everyone's bidding history.

And absolutely they record the underbidder, for the reason floortrader mentioned. When the underbidder was a live floor bidder, I've often heard the auctioneer say, for his record keeping, "and the underbidder was bidder number 67" for example. Especially when a book bidder wins at his top limit, they need documentation to know there were actually other real bidders that ran the book bidder up to his limit.

Never at a public auction have I received thanks for being the underbidder, but it has happened on ebay more than once.

Maybe there is too much liability involved, if a token gift or even a Thank You email were presented to the jury, it might look like the auction house is colluding with a shill bidder.

Agree the Auctioneer has done a better job of recording the activity of a public auction . With most bidding being tracked by computer software . I do know the most active bidders who buy in large numbers are using 3 to 5 different bidder numbers . So nobody is sure of their activity . .

I am sure the stamp auction firms know who are the bidders who only bid the opening bid then stop bidding and they know by person who will take it a few bids higher .

As for me on a few occasions ,I like to piss some people off during viewing sessions ,when they sit for hours figuring every dollar of catalog on huge yellow notepads. I like to tell them "that lot your looking at ,is going home with me tomorrow " guess I get ticked when they come into the viewing room early at opening and sit there for 3 or 4 hours with one lot and "hog" the lot .

To Floortrader & Zebraman - Thank you both for your answers. I agree that it would be foolish for a firm not to track bidder patterns. I believe that a lot of bidders who only bid the opening bids are just registering a bid in case no one else does.

Yes, some bidders are bottom feeders (no offense to anyone) and leave very low opening bids, hoping to get a bargain, which sometimes happens.

Other times, a bidder will place a lowball bid simply as a way of marking the lot as a 'favorite' that they will come back to later during the auction to bid live. They don't want to leave their top bid too early because that can impact the opening price and they may get outbid even before the auction starts. During the auction they can review the list of "My Bids" and easily remember what lots they were interested in.

Building a collection with many thousands of unusual items put into it makes for a much interesting collection .

Floortrader - a beautiful page. It prompted me to wonder why an Italian stamp would be listed under Austria. I went to the web and found that Trieste was once part of the Austrian Empire. Wow! A great example of how history and philately are tied together.