HA Lot withdrawn? 0

[dannyboy]

Hi all - I've bought lots of stuff from Heritage but haven't had this happen before.  I just had my high bid on a raw Spirit 21 in FN cancelled as the lot "has been withdrawn".  Anyone else been through this?  Doesn't seem fair as I'm sure as heck not allowed to withdraw a bid once I've submitted it.  Can a seller just change their mind or is it something else?  Thoughts appreciated.

[adamstrange]

It can happen for any number of reasons, usually legit.  For example, if ownership of the item is in question the lot could be pulled until it is resolved. 

[Junkdrawer]

I bid early in the week for a Sunday weekly auction and watched as I was lead bid and like you I saw the lot withdrawn. I called and couldn’t get any info from HA. The piece of art in question was a Miss Fury sketch by Tarpé Mills. The piece was used on the cover to a sketchbook so I guess you could call it published. You never see a Tarpé Mills piece let alone one used on a book that sells on Amazon. So the art and my bid went poof. A few weeks pass and the same lot comes back up, but only this time it states the piece is a print. Lol. 

https://comics.ha.com/itm/memorabilia/tarpe-mills-miss-fury-color-print-undated-/a/121718-15734.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515

I think I was more bummed to find out it wasn’t an original piece cause I really liked it and wanted it so badly than the original feeling of getting my bid removed after winning all week

Edited July 7, 2018 by Junkdrawer

[Zolnerowich]

Ditto. A Planet Comics I was following was also pulled. A lot of funny business in this particular Sunday auction! Someone messed up.

[Sqeggs]

I've seen it happen.  I would guess probably once in every two or three of their Sunday auctions, a book I'm bidding on will be pulled. As adamstrange noted, it could be a number of things.  They process a lot of stuff for those Sunday auctions and I think it is easy to overlook something or to make a serious mistake in the listing description.

It does seem that I get fewer e-mails indicating that the description has been revised and more e-mails indicating a lot has been pulled.  Maybe they have decided to pull lots with seriously incorrect descriptions rather than just to revise the descriptions.

[dannyboy]

Thanks for the insights.  I assume HA has the books in hand prior to the auction so that shouldn't be an issue.  If there is a material error in the description and they want to pull the listing - it would seem logical that the same item would show up in the next week's auction - and in fact, that HA should alert all prior bidders of such.  Just musing...  Finally, does anyone know if a seller can just change their mind and keep the book?

[Monkeyman]

I've notified Heritage a few times of errors in their descriptions.  Maybe if the error is big enough they pull the item and then relist it rather than just making a change.

Mike

[Sqeggs]

2 hours ago, dannyboy said:

Thanks for the insights.  I assume HA has the books in hand prior to the auction so that shouldn't be an issue.  If there is a material error in the description and they want to pull the listing - it would seem logical that the same item would show up in the next week's auction - and in fact, that HA should alert all prior bidders of such.  Just musing...  Finally, does anyone know if a seller can just change their mind and keep the book?

They don't necessarily relist the book right away.  I sold a book a few months ago that the buyer declined even before they had shipped it to him because after winning it he finally read the description closely and realized that it contained an error (about census rank, if iirc).  They didn't relist the book until the auction that closed on Sunday. 

[Dr. Love]

41 minutes ago, Sqeggs said:

They don't necessarily relist the book right away.  I sold a book a few months ago that the buyer declined even before they had shipped it to him because after winning it he finally read the description closely and realized that it contained an error (about census rank, if iirc).  They didn't relist the book until the auction that closed on Sunday. 

This brings up a perhaps little known but important point about HA's listing methodology.  If the book is an issue sold by them in the past, the listing process will import the census data that displayed at the time of that previous listing.  They do not update that census info with current data, neither through an electronic handshake or by having the catalog department check the census.  The census data could be off by a number of years.  I wrote in with a request for a manual update of census data on two romance books that went off last night, for instance.  The display was off by two years in both cases.

Forewarned, you are.  As in, check the census data on books you're going to bid on, but especially on books you've got up for sale.  Apparently they will honor a cancellation due to bad data, even though there's a disclaimer about that on the site.

 

Edited July 9, 2018 by Dr. Love

[Sqeggs]

On 7/9/2018 at 4:11 PM, Dr. Love said:

This brings up a perhaps little known but important point about HA's listing methodology.  If the book is an issue sold by them in the past, the listing process will import the census data that displayed at the time of that previous listing.  They do not update that census info with current data, neither through an electronic handshake or by having the catalog department check the census.  The census data could be off by a number of years.  I wrote in with a request for a manual update of census data on two romance books that went off last night, for instance.  The display was off by two years in both cases.

Forewarned, you are.  As in, check the census data on books you're going to bid on, but especially on books you've got up for sale.  Apparently they will honor a cancellation due to bad data, even though there's a disclaimer about that on the site.

 

Interesting.  I hadn't realized that.  The other way their use of the census data can be off is if CGC has screwed it up and listed copies of the issue in different places. Happens with typos or where the pub is ambiguous or where the title can be entered a couple of ways.  You would think they would go strictly by the indicia, but publisher info is sometimes ambiguous when the publisher has set up multiple (phony) entities to publish its books.

So, yeah, the moral is to check for yourself if census rank matters to you.

Wrt a buyer canceling because of incorrect census data or because he didn't read the description carefully enough, I suspect that HA only allows you to do that a couple of times unless you're buying a lot of stuff from them. 

Edited July 16, 2018 by Sqeggs

[dannyboy]

As a follow up - raw Spirit 21 in FN in this week's HA auction....only this time it has "apparent" in the description as there is color touch on the cover.  Seems like a good reason to pull the original listing as that wasn't disclosed.  Thanks for all of the insights.