Siegel Changing Auction Platforms

"You do know these "BIG BOYS " are in hock to the stamp auction houses from three or four auctions ago"

Not all of them. I assure you that some do not have that problem.

About a year ago Kelleher implemented a policy that was apparently intended to solve this problem of slow payments. They charge 20% Buyers Premium but if you pay by any method within 15 days they lower this to 18% with no CC charge. Obviously they had a problem and I love their solution but I don't know if it helped with the Big Guys. I've heard stories for years about the slow payment problem and how a Big Guy had to sell the item before they paid for it but I don't know any facts.

For sure there are some in that situation. Just not all of them.

Morning all,

Now, I know the rest of the story. About ten years ago I had a call from a friend and long time dealer wanting to buy a part of my collection. He came down, looked at it, and agreed to the price. All was fine till I said, "Rick, grab you checkbook and it is yours." He then himmed and hawed and left. About two weeks later he passed on it for now. That was ten years or more ago.

RLSNY - I was successful bidding from my cell phone - didn't need the mobile app; just ran the new bid platform, but with the desktop version.

I was a arbitrator for the National Futures Association .I had 12 years of back office and accounting experience . Over 10 years of listening to peoples claims . You would be surprised how many con-artist and new people sat in front of us thinking they were the first ones to think up away to cheat the system or cheat customers ,while us on the committee heard the same thing year after year .

It has to be the same for stamp auction firms ,they also are played by people with the same stupid con-games ,with each person thinking they are smarter than the auction houses and the first to pull this stunt.These "big boys " get shut down and move from auction house to auction house .

You have to believe there are people looking for the edge to by pass these new methods of bidding at auction and the firms are learning and correcting any flaws that are forgotten by the programers ,so it sounds like the firms are listening and running parallel systems to get the bugs out or just trash the new system and still have the fall back old method .

"For sure there are some in that situation. Just not all of them."

Yep

definitely. I've built major options and stock exchanges systems here in the US and work designing electronic trading platforms. Finding the edge is how quantitative, high frequency, algo trading came about. To think any market doesn't have this, is naive. Flash Boys is a good book on this topic. Eventually things change, a pivot will occur and new levers will be pulled for a new edge.

RISMONEY --Your correct there are those looking at these new platforms and trying to figure the edge in getting their bids in ,but it comes down to beating my high bid . Sure there are bidders who try to roll over other bidders like NYSTAMPS ,but it works the other way too, after they clean out the room of other bidders and we still got 30 seconds I been know to throw in a last second bid so they now pay two ticks higher for the lot and they always increase their bid ....it becomes a game of gotch.

While we knew they were migrating away from SAN long-term, I didn't think the move would be completed this quickly. In email today:






The one feature I will miss that I don't know that either Siegel's main website or new platform supports, was the ability to be notified via email whenever a lot with certain keywords and/or catalog numbers was listed. I rely on that SAN feature a LOT.

Yeah, I got it too. Just what I need, another website to learn how to navigate. Having to register for each sale individually seems a bit clunky since I'm already password-ed in, although the site looks pretty clean.

And I agree...I hope they will have an email notification system !

Received the email and noted that there was a WW auction coming up. I usually rely on SAN front page to note such things. Went to Siegel and viewed the catalog. I note that it is a much different auction than I am used to seeing from Siegel in that the material is much more middle ground. More of a Kelleher type auction with many Areas and Countries groups broken out from collections and a lot of the more affordable issues lotted as opposed to the usual "wow, look at that" material. Not a bad thing but Siegel is definitely heading in different directions it seems.

What I would like to know is whether anyone will be able to listen and watch the auction without bidding, like we could on SAN. We should not have to register to just watch.

It may be that they are "starting slowly" with respect to the new platform and want to make sure all the kinks are worked out before they roll out real high profile material, so I don't know that this is indicative of a change in direction regarding the nature of their auctions.