Tie Bids At Auction Every Time??

The SAN site, Sparks Auction, Lot 1838

Were you following on the regular version of the auction, or the Live Auction site page?

I was on the latter and had no difficulty even when another bidder eventually topped my pre-auction bid. I was able to bid again and was successful.

I did see many lots reported as sold, but with no identification as to the buyer ID, although it seems most were sold to the book.

Live auction page, there was no topping of my prebid, only that there was a tie

Dutchman, I had an INCREDIBLY long post trying to answer your's, but it became ridiculously unwieldy. I think at some point I may have solved all the problems in the Middle East in the middle of it.

2nd try: SAN is one tool among many that is used by the auctioneer. Live auctions are receiving bids from a roomful of bidders (COVID is impacting that, but COVID is only temporary), over the phone, via e-mail (outside the SAN system), and via FAX (well, at least that is POSSIBLE). It is up to the auction house to integrate all those sources. As spelled out in (probably) every auctioneers Terms is a phrase something like, "All lots sold at the Auctioneer's discretion." Leave it up to SAN, and you've taken the Auctioneer's discretion out of it. You, literally, might as well be bidding on ebay. And is ebay perfect?? In the end, Auctioneers are not going away. They are not going to relinquish their discretion over how there business is run. You need to determine to your own satisfaction which ones you can trust and which you cannot. There are many collectors that don't 'auction' - maybe that is your answer.

During my talk with Tom Droege, he made me aware of an SAN option called (something like) Agent Bidding. With it, you enter your bid on SAN and the auctioneer only sees a bid that is an increment over the next highest SAN bid. As bidding progresses live, and all the other bids are being entered into SAN (bidders in the room, phone bidders, etc) your bid progresses on the auctioneer's screen only as it is needed to remain the high bid. Based on your post, it sounds like you leave your highest bid on SAN so Agent Bidding sounds perfect for you. If you are always able to bid live on SAN, then Agent Bidding probably isn't as valuable (Tom Droege would probably beg to differ). SAN is a business, and their business model is such that they cannot provide everything for free to the bidder. Agent bidding is an OPTION, implying that you have to pay for it. SAN probably makes its $$$ mostly from the auction house, but they also get some from the bidder side of things, just as all auction houses get a cut from their consignors AND from their purchasers.

I spoke with Tom at length about my issue that started this thread. He is very informative, very friendly, and very receptive. As I said earlier, he laid my original concerns to rest. SAN is very good, but not perfect. Tom is receptive - if you have a problem with SAN, or have an idea that you think might enhance its use, you should e-mail Tom. Posting concerns here is probably not the way to go --- you will notice that Tom posted to this thread 3 times and that he (at least as I write this) has a total of 3 posts in SCF. He cannot read all posts, trolling for who has what concern with how things happen. So, if you have an idea, or a concern, for SAN you should contact him directly. He is always improving the SAN experience, and new ideas are (I am sure) always welcome.

There. Believe it or not, THAT the short version.

I think that identifying the buyer is up to the auctioneer, not SAN, because, ultimately, all sales are at the discretion of the auctioneer. Auctioneers have been licensed and are required to follow a code of ethics in order to retain their license. On the flip side, if it can be shown that they are not living up to their Code, they can lose their license and livelihood. You will never be able to take away the auctioneer's discretion of how to run their business. Nor will SAN.

ETA: I DO think the auctioneer should ID the buyer if the bidder was on the SAN system, but that is on the auctioneer for the reason stated above. A live bidder (whether in the auction room, or on SAN, or on the phone) should know in realtime whether he bought the lot or not. In my case, it impacts how I bid on future lots in the auction.

My problem has nothing to do with trust.

It has to do with the following:

There can never be such a thing as a tie if the 1st in bid is given priority which it should be given. The fact you had as many issues as you did with the same situation as I just had, says things are not right! And by coincidence, they are all at the Max bids which is a joke.

A live auction should not be marked as sold until all bids from all sources are in and accounted for. Otherwise it is not a true live auction. If SAN and/or the auctioneers can't deal with it, all pre bids should be stopped the day before the live auction, and then everything would be in prior to the live auction starting and I guarantee there would be no supposed ties. On a live auction on SAN, the tie comment comes from then, not the auction house.

And the fact I could not bid again makes me wonder even more what was going on.

Tom and the auction houses can sweep it all under the carpet and try to justify what goes on, but it is just pathetic.

They are hurting their sellers and buyers by their non functioning sites.

And I should not have to hire a live agent to line someones pockets to compensate for shortcomings on a site.

And I am sorry, these issues should be made public so others may be aware of what is going on.

And I am waiting to see if I did win the auction at my max or higher.

If you could not bid again because the button was not functional in all likelihood the lot had been hammered down and bidding was closed.

The red screen was still up in regards to the tie and the lot was still open

Well, it kinda does. It is not up to Tom Droege to police how auctioneers run their business, nor should it be - then we are all depending on Tom Droege to do the right thing instead of all the auction houses. The idea of who's bid arrived first is at the discretion of the auctioneer - that is part of what he is licensed to do - and as long as there are multiple ways to bid (SAN, phone, raising a paddle, etc) it can only remain at the discretion of the auctioneer. So it is in that sense that trust is involved. As to the tie bid message seen on SAN, I am NOT sure that is generated automatically by SAN. And again, nor should it, for the "auctioner discretion" reason, and the "it is not up to Tom Droege to police" reason. I think you want SAN to take a role that they cannot and should not take.

If you have concerns beyond that, then you should e-mail Tom Droege. If you disagree with him charging for SAN options in order to 'line someones pockets to compensate for shortcomings on a site', then contact him directly. If he doesn't know there is a problem, he won't fix it.

Me? I think the guy has every right to charge for an option. He put work into it and deserves to get paid for it. Someday, maybe it will be the standard, rather than the option. We have a basic difference of opinion on that point.

I have sent an email to Sparks and when I hear back, I will let you know.

If SAN worked properly with the auction sites, we would not be having these discussions.

SAN is allowed to charge whatever they want for their site and options and I never said they shouldn't or couldn't. I just won't pay for them for lower priced items, and should not have to.

I have been going to and dealing with real public auctions and on line auctions for 50 years, and have never had these issues come up before.

For what its worth, I followed much of today's Sparks through SAN - bid on a bunch and won a few - and didn't experience any issues either on the wins or losses. The only ties I experienced were when two internet bidders entered the same increment at the same time and the other bidder clicked first. In which case I was notified of the tie and given the option to bid higher as per normal. I was online during the bidding for lot 1838 and it seemed to flow normally, although since I wasn't bidding, wasn't paying close attention.

Dutchman - it sounds like you had almost exactly the same experience/frustration as I did when I started this thread. Both WRT the tie bid issue AND the who-won-that-last-lot issue. In my case, the source of both issues seems to have been with the SAN operator at the auction house. This person was not the SAN-trained operator, but had to take over from the SAN-trained operator who had to leave for some reason. The auction house was new to the live-bidding aspect of SAN. I suspect they were 'forced' into the live-bidding aspect due to COVID audience restrictions. In a sense, it was the perfect storm. I now expect things to be improved next time, and we will see. I don't KNOW if that's what happened with the auction you were writing about, but the signs are the same.

I think writing Sparks was a good move. Hopefully, they can adequately answer all your concerns. Don't be surprised if their explanation is similar to the one I received.

I haven't had these problems in all the years I have been using SAN. These problems don't appear to be isolated. I don't know where the source of the problem is, nor where the resolution should be made, but it may well prompt SAN and/or the auction house(s) to make changes. We bidders only see what we see, and looks can be deceiving, so we don't know who needs to fix what has happened. We can 'argue' and throw theories on where the problem is all day, but we simply don't know. As a bidder, I think I would like to see 'the system' behave as you would. I want to sit at my computer, make bids, and see if I am the high bidder in realtime, or not. I would like more transparency, but I would like more transparency than there has ever been in the auction industry, and I don't know that I have a legal 'right' to that. But, I'd like it.

I just want to say these stamp auctions are run a lot cleaner than the old methods used 50 years ago . The crap that went on many years ago was a crime .
Back in the old days agent bidders had a in bed relations with the auction houses , the auction firms knew the pattern of bidders who sat in front of them . Even bidders who sat in the room made agreements not to bid against each other .

Now with on-line bidding your never sure who is at the other end ,because some have a new number at each auction not like me at Rasdale with bidder card 715 ,people didn't have to turn around because they knew 715 from many auctions .

Now you have no clue who is bidding ,now it can be a employee of the auction house or even the consignor themselfs .

The house knows who is bidding.

Does the house or does SAN?