Bidding At Kelleher Auction House

So I knew the lot I wanted was going to be auctioned at a time I would be unavailable to bid. And this was a must have for me.
So I bid on SAN and provided a min-bid, lets say $500, a max bid say $1200. When I placed the bid, earlier today the item was at $450.

The suggested bid range was $500-$750.

I ended up being able to witness the auction on SAN live bidding.
I did find it curious, that as I was the high bidder at $500, there were no "bid ups" to bring the price to $750. Should I be skeptical there were "book bids" before, and these were to the point of $700, and then my winning bid came up to $750? It felt a little contrived, but maybe it was in my head.


Has anyone else experienced anything like this? I'm not upset as it was a must have stamp that I have been waiting years for, but I may have shot myself in the foot, by maybe $100-150 and the extra juice/tax going the SAN route, disclosing my max, and not bidding live. I still think charging tax on US stamps is totally wrong but thats a different discussion.

It might of had a reserve.

I've used SAN Unattended Live bidding a couple times and while I don't completely understand it but I won each time I used it.

Many Kelleher auctions also have telephone bidding which further confuses things.

The lack of transparency puts the odds in favor of the 'house'. Auctions are played on on an uneven playing field, it is baked into the the lack of transparency. Thinking otherwise is like going to a casino and thinking that the odds are anything but in favor of the house.

Imagine if, for example, ebay had an algorithm which added one extra 'bid' to every bid auction. They are currently doing over 2 billion transactions per day. I do not know how many are BIN vs. auction listings but lets assume 50%; the extra commission fees they would generate for themselves on 1 billion auctions per day would be huge. Obviously this is illegal so it is highly unlikely they would risk this but it illustrates how the lack of transparency can work in favor of a auction house.
Don

Yes, exactly as you describe. So, now, if I can't bid live, I will ONLY bid using SAN Unattended Live bidding. I have been extremely happy with that bidding tool. If an auction house doesn't have SAN unattended live bidding, and I can't bid live, I won't bid, unless it is a minor low-ball bidding situation.

I use Unattended Live Bidding as well and have also been happy. The House does not see anything beforehand, just your bids being executed in real time as needed until your max is reached. Of course the House can still keep jacking the price with a fabricated book bid but not knowing your max puts them in danger of being left holding the proverbial bag.

If you can't make an auction, there are also philatelic auction agents.

The auction houses generally list independent auction agents in their catalogs. Those are regular live attendees at many different auctions and charge reasonably. They know stamps and can inspect items if needed, and can do limit and "or" bids for you. If you don't get a lot, I believe you still pay nothing. A single $500 bid would be worth it for them to take.

I have been there. It can FEEL like shenanigans going on all around you. And, maybe there are. But there's no way to know for sure, unless you are an employee at the auction house. Although the tin-foil-hat-guy-in-me says "Shenanigans!!", I know there are all kinds of ways these appearances can be good honest bidding. If you can't get away from the internal tin-foil-hat-guy and accept that you simply can't know everything out of your POV, then sign up for Unattended Live Bidding. Let the tin-foil-hat-guy get some sleep. I have.

I agree that ignoring the lack of transparency may help some sleep better, just as ignoring the history of auction 'shenanigans' (i.e. Apfelbaum) will also help folks sleep better. How quickly we seem to have walked away from the 'outrage' that we saw with the Regency debacle last year. Did any of the 'outrage' actually change anyone's behavior? I do not recall a single post since then that outlined the risk that is associated with consigning material to an auction firm. <shrugs>

It is easy to complain (especially when we are anonymous) but when it comes down to changing our behavior with who we support then all bets are off. In my opinion we all can buy from whomever we want including those where we have to hold our nose as we do it. But for me I do not want to come across like I am complaining about the bad quality food at McDonalds while I am sitting in their drive-thru.
Don

Auction agent. Auction AGENT. AUCTION AGENT. AUCTION AGENT AUCTION AGENT. Did I say auction agent?

Please notice I did not limit my statement to any particular brick and mortar AUCTION FIRM. Nor am I saying which AUCTION AGENT you should use, but I am saying use an auction agent for your own well-being.

Time not to use an auction agent, when bidding on the floor from the back of the room with no one else behind you. Or IF you, not me, but you, not him, but you, trust the auction firm and are bidding on the phone and can hear what is going on.

An auction agent can also tell you if you lost, what you lost to as in the floor, the book, the internet, the snack table or the third pillar from the left or even a different customer of your own auction agent.

Cost? 5% of successful bids, often with an upper limit total per auction. Some agents have done 3% if the person is a customer as well as an auction agent client of theirs. No wins, no cost. Auction agents can also help you gauge the market price of items or areas. [For example, I collect a particular topical subject. It can appear on worldwide material. If one such rare and special version with an expensive catalog item comes up the well rounded agent can tell you that that material is currently going for 40% of catalog or 200% of catalog as a guide for you bid determination. In that instance I won the item both well below catalog and noticeably below my top bid.


So in summary, AUCTION AGENT.

Lastly remember it may not be what you think. I lost an item at ten times high estimate, I was on the floor leaning on the back wall, and when I whined several dealers laughed at me, saying there was no way the winner was going to lose that lot as moreover for him, price was no concern. Oh, okay. In a separate matter I lost on a more than solid bid for a postcard of good postal history. It sold to a postcard collector as the image of the town it showed was quite scarce and valuable to collectors of postcards from that town. Who'd a guessed, I don't collect the picture?

Full disclosure, I am a buying client of Kelleher's and use an agent each time for the public auctions. I use an agent for any public auction I cannot personally attend.

mootermutt, I think the feeling is all about being in an unfamiliar situation. Meanwhile, in ANY type auction, there could be:

• those who have done deals beforehand to not bid on certain lots to allow potential wins on other lots. Some do deals during the auction.
• those bidding by prearranged signal, including pretending not to be bidding. How cool is that? This works well for specialist dealers who will be watched on the auction floor by competitors -- "gosh, if X can pay that much, then the lot should be worth much more".
• a floor bidder running you up who owns what you are bidding on or does it just to be a ****.
• and on and on.

Maybe everyone should all thank your lucky stars that philatelic auctions generally move like glaciers, making them endurance events. This in an era where junior employees have short attention spans, translating into mistakes.

I recall only one philatelic auction house ever used the mile-a-minute auctioneer used almost anywhere else, forcing you to pay real attention. Do they still? Snooze and you lose.

The philatelic agents today are professionals. They can take emotion out of your bidding. Still, you can give them instructions like "take it up two more bids if you think it's needed" if that's what you would do if you attended. Agents will generally refuse "Buy/buy at any cost" bids because they'll still get a complaint from the bidder for paying too much despite the order.

hy-brasil:



There are all kinds of things going on at auctions, and a seasoned bidder will know what can be ignored, what to note, and what is a red flag. If I have read your statement about making deals right, that is highly illegal. If a few bidders get together to 'coordinate' their bids (no matter what the intent - save money, allow everybody some action, let your buddy come away feeling good about the auction, etc) this is bid rigging. A handful of dealers got into BIG trouble years ago for doing exactly this - they had a 'party' the night before, 'bid' amongst themselves, and the winner of the 'party bid' got the green light on that lot during the live auction. The other 'bidders' from the party sat back during the auction. Money changed hands for the privilege to be the bidder, but the group saved much money in the end. Since the group represented a significant portion of the purchases at some of the auction houses, it involved REAL money. When the group saved $50K on $500K in purchases, it was the consignors that got hurt.

Although technically illegal, if I (as a small buyer - maybe 2 or 3 lots at a good auction) were to coordinate bids with one or a couple of my buddies, I could probably get away with it - being small fish, but the principle is the same. There's the white lie you tell your kid about Santa, then there's the lie you tell your wife about 'Mrs. Claus' at the office, then there's lying in front of congress. The real harm of each is different, but they are each lies. Some are commonly accepted, some are not, and some will land you in jail.

mootermutt:
Of course that's not legal. I know of almost all the people involved in the infamous auction ring that operated internationally. Nothing ever happened to the principle person in the ring since everyone was charged in the US court system. Since he was British, all he had to do is stay out of the US and did.

And it's not like bid rigging ever ended, not even with the peripheral members of the ring. So I really doubt anyone ever does this as a one-time thing. Situational ethics, you know. Nothing technical about it, either -- it's illegal.

And if whomever someone is regularly "crossing off" with gets grabbed by the law for some other dirty dealing, that someone might end up trying to be made a scapegoat when a deal is made to get out of going to jail.

"Nothing ever happened to the principle person in the ring since everyone was charged in the US court system. Since he was British, all he had to do is stay out of the US and did."

If you are talking about S.O., he continued to buy at US auctions by sending over an agent when took videos of lots that he was interested in. (actually he used two different guys)

It is all based upon trust. That being said, the relatively recent Regency-Superior saga should not be forgotten. That was very bad indeed. In addition if you search enough for background on some current auction house owners and/or executives you might be shocked by what you find in the past. I believe in people changing and reforming and in redemption but you should know what was and factor it into decisions as to what could be.

I agree, when people get caught doing something wrong they often change...I think that many of them redouble their efforts to not get caught again.
Don