How Do You Feel About Public Auctions Without Live Viewing?

Then they've changed to utilizing the live SAN auction this time around, as there are links on the SAN auction page to listen to the live broadcast and to bid live. If the auction house isn't using SAN for live bidding, those links are not there and there's an announcement on the table of contents page to have bids in by a certain time.

Exactly!

My first time using the live bidding format on SAN went great! Was the Golden Oak auction and it seemed flawless to me. Never had any idea once live, how fast they move lol but I really liked it. Especially like someone mentioned, it seems like I was always losing out by one increment to the floor bidders in the past Dutch auctions so tomorrow will be interesting.

If memory serves, Rasdale moves pretty fast as well.

Yes, Rasdale uses the 7 second countdown clock. Keeps things moving. No pauses and prompting. Trepel drives me crazy when I am high bidder and he waits and waits until somebody jumps back in. Seems like an eternity.

Yes, rogdcam, I call it the Trepel Death Pause (TDP). I will say though that there is a tremendous sense of satisfaction in enduring and getting through the TDP and realizing you have persevered and won a lot. That said, it would probably lengthen my life measurably if Siegel adopted a bid clock!

On line bidding is great I use it for the past few years ,actually it gives me more money to spend . Some of you don't realise the cost for me to fly to the East Coast ,round trip tickets ,car rental ,hotel and food expense . That was for two or three days of viewing .

The worst was the Gregg Mannig Auctions because those always included a night out with a bunch of dealers and picking up the tab for those who slipped out early and forgot to leave something on the table . Then again that was another reason to hate stamp dealers [Sorry-- got off subject].

So bidding on the Dutch County auction lots was pretty brutal as usual. I bidded on 16 lots and won 2 and only 2 because no one else bid on them. Bidding was still very fierce with lots go well over the estimates on a number of lots despite no floor viewing nor videos for those lots on Youtube. I thought I was being rather aggressive at least for me, but nah - not even close.

Battlestamps - It makes me wonder if perhaps some people DID view the material.

They're going very slowly, I bet they are going nuts. Usually they wrap up 800 bids on day 1 in 2 two hour sessions.

For sure there are dealers who are well enough known that some auction houses will send them material before a sale. I don't know whether Dutch country does so, but some do.

I haven't seen this aggression for larger lots since the early days of ebay .

Reason for some of this is because Kelleher and Rasdale put off their collections/accumalations auctions ,plus the big increase in sales on ebay for mixture lots and small collections over the past month .

I flat refuse to bid on any Dutch Country Auction because they shut off phone, email, and on-line bids an hour before the auction ends. Live bidders can easily outbid you.

I wrote them early last year asking why they do this, especially since they list on SAN. This is the pertinent part of their reply:

"During our 40 years as an auction house, we continue to hold ranking with our extremely strong floor bidding. Which is why we have not yet gone to internet bidding.

We do have a few options for our absentee bidders to increase your chance of beating out someone on the floor:

• Place your bid at the maximum you are willing to pay - noting that our opening would not automatically begin there. Our opening starts at one increment above the second highest bid.

• Hire an auction agent to administer bids for you. Agents are listed on the inside back cover of catalog.

• Phone bidding - requirement: total bids equal or exceed $5000."

I'll spend my money with Siegel, Kelleher, and Aldrich - all of whom take a more friendly approach to internet bidders.

But uboatnut, the bidding on SAN *WAS* live this time around. I sat in on one of the sessions and could have bid live if I wanted.

There were some kinks happening but I was able to get a few of the lots I wanted and the 2 main ones I really wanted

Might talk to them about it but it seemed like some of the lots went live and then within a couple seconds (literally 3 or 4 seconds) and BOOM. Sold to book bid. I was like Huh? I had more than one bid not register live but maybe i'm just old and slow :D

Sure isn't my internet connection.

Same topic kinda but the vids. What did some of the veteran bidders here think?

My impression is yes, they are better than no pics but *most* that I watched, only gave you a small idea of what was there and forget about trying to see any kind of condition. Unlike pics where you can take your time, zoom in and see that tear on the big $$ item in a collection. Not much to see from 3 feet away videos with a shaking camera.

On the bright side, i've always liked DCA and their estimates are generally, imho, on the low side. I just don't see how one can bid a lot into the stratosphere having seen nothing and only going by the description.

ABC is going to be very interesting at the end of the month...