First timers tips on bidding in Heritage auctions 0

[vodou]

50 minutes ago, John E. said:

the BP was “only” 18%

I remember 15%

[JollyComics]

I used to bid books many times and won easily until the numbers of high rollers are growing and I always got outbid.  I got tired of paying many unnecessary fees and taxes.  That's why I seldomly bid with Heritage.

I missed old timed auction on Sundays. The auction ended at 10pm but they changed it to the live auction. Less and lesser, I won the books ever since.

[Rick2you2]

6 hours ago, Carlo M said:

If it is something I really want I determine my max value but then I bid live.  That way I am sure there is at least another value point in the market around thatr levlel.

I had to go to a dinner once, really wanted a piece, left a proxy bid at a very high price (I was willing to pay that price but was sure it would never ever go that high) and lo guess what magically happened?

I have occasionally used a very simple technique to avoid this problem. Take the maximum market price for the piece and multiply by 5. That’s your proxy. It never ever gets that high, but you won’t lose by a few dollars, either. And if you did lose, someone else really earned it.

[malvin]

I had time and a couple of pieces really interested me so I was 1 for 3 for me today.  

The one I won I went higher than I initially thought, but still very happy with the purchase at the price I won it. The first one I lost went well above my max once live auction started.  And the 2nd one I lost I made the winner pay :P  In fact when I made my last couple of bids, I was hoping I would be outbid :P 

Malvin

[ShallowDan]

6 hours ago, Carlo M said:

I had to go to a dinner once, really wanted a piece, left a proxy bid at a very high price (I was willing to pay that price but was sure it would never ever go that high) and lo guess what magically happened?

Yep, I know this gets into vaguely conspiratorial territory, but always keep in mind that Heritage is explicitly allowed to bid on items.  I always bid live when possible, but the two times I put in proxy bids (on relatively minor items where I figured there wouldn't be much action) I won, but at a price that was right at the max bid I had submitted.

 

Another tip, but if you have small children and/or cats, make sure you disable live bidding, until they're coming up on something you're actually planning to bid on.  I had a near scare with an accidental four digit bid on something I had absolutely no interest in years ago when I first was getting started with Heritage!

[cstojano]

49 minutes ago, ShallowDan said:

Yep, I know this gets into vaguely conspiratorial territory, but always keep in mind that Heritage is explicitly allowed to bid on items.  I always bid live when possible, but the two times I put in proxy bids (on relatively minor items where I figured there wouldn't be much action) I won, but at a price that was right at the max bid I had submitted.

 

Another tip, but if you have small children and/or cats, make sure you disable live bidding, until they're coming up on something you're actually planning to bid on.  I had a near scare with an accidental four digit bid on something I had absolutely no interest in years ago when I first was getting started with Heritage!

I hate the way the live window pops up. I always seem to almost click the bid button by accident when the pop up within the pop up needs to be minimized. And I have an irrational fear of malware executing bids on your behalf when you aren't paying attention. 

[Real Elijah Snow]

Don't bid on anything until the live auction starts. 

Also, don't bother bidding on anything you hope to resell anytime soon. After you bend over and take all the fees/tax/shipping/CC fees, you better hope it's something you really want. A good example for me would be that Uncanny #248 Jim Lee page I won a month or so ago. I got it for what I felt was a good price. It's incredibly unlikely that I'll ever sell it, so that's a win for me. I'm not concerned with any margin on resale. 

Number of pieces I've bought at Clink auction this year? = couple hundred. Number of those I will resell at a profit in my lifetime to fund other art purchases? probably 1/2. 

Number of pieces I've bought at Heritage auction this year?= 5. Number I will sell before I croak = 0. 

 

Best advice really is just don't want anything that auctions at Heritage. 

 

[Noob19]

10 hours ago, OdinsSecrets said:

Important thing to keep in mind for HA is the additional fees on top of your bid. My last winning bid on HA was for around $180, and including buyer's premiums, credit card fees, sales tax, and shipping the total came to almost 40% higher than the bid. If you don't keep that in mind you can end up paying a lot more than you bargained for.

Something similar happened to me. Was stunned.

[vodou]

11 hours ago, ShallowDan said:

Yep, I know this gets into vaguely conspiratorial territory, but always keep in mind that Heritage is explicitly allowed to bid on items.  I always bid live when possible, but the two times I put in proxy bids (on relatively minor items where I figured there wouldn't be much action) I won, but at a price that was right at the max bid I had submitted.

The HA market is pretty efficient. So it's not necessarily HA conspiracy/badness at work. The "rule" is HA employees can only bid pre-live, hopefully that rule being enforced is worth more to HA than losing their reputation if there's ever a leak/leaker to the contraray. (I assume it is.)

If you're going after anything "mainstream" in almost all cases whatever your mental reasonable number is "plus one increment higher" to win bid is...you will be beat. Somebody else is always willing to pay at least one more bid over; they either don't care about "the market price of the past" or are a dealer and will just price it up @ double on their web site. We're all competing with professional flippers/dealers here, since the easy fleece sources those dudes used to work hard (out-of-touch older collectors/artists/widowers) are all dried up now. So it's not surprising that your cap number can/will be exactly what you end up winning for. Or losing by "one increment higher". Rick's x5 rule would work, but not too many people can chase like that (x5 FMV) very often...so be careful with that. You will win every single time and that's not necessarily a good thing...for your bank balance and thus your marriage

Now of course if third-party shilling is still happening (of course it is),you can also expect that "the right material" is always well-protected to "roughly fmv" anyway, so again, no surprise that those types of bids win or lose by one increment every time. I don't win much on HA because I won't overpay, but I am very successful at mentally handicapping what just about everything will go for. About 10% greatly outperforms (like the endless piles of Dickie Ayers Sgt. Fury that keeps going for four figures...um, no, somebody is going to die with that stuff or take a bad hit on resale ), but the rest I nail within one or two increments. That's FMV plus "push", nefarious or not.

 

[Bird]

well, I was the underbidder on the Sanjulian Groucho Marx. Congrats to the buyer!

[Rick2you2]

3 hours ago, vodou said:

The HA market is pretty efficient. So it's not necessarily HA conspiracy/badness at work. The "rule" is HA employees can only bid pre-live, hopefully that rule being enforced is worth more to HA than losing their reputation if there's ever a leak/leaker to the contraray. (I assume it is.)

If you're going after anything "mainstream" in almost all cases whatever your mental reasonable number is "plus one increment higher" to win bid is...you will be beat. Somebody else is always willing to pay at least one more bid over; they either don't care about "the market price of the past" or are a dealer and will just price it up @ double on their web site. We're all competing with professional flippers/dealers here, since the easy fleece sources those dudes used to work hard (out-of-touch older collectors/artists/widowers) are all dried up now. So it's not surprising that your cap number can/will be exactly what you end up winning for. Or losing by "one increment higher". Rick's x5 rule would work, but not too many people can chase like that (x5 FMV) very often...so be careful with that. You will win every single time and that's not necessarily a good thing...for your bank balance and thus your marriage

Now of course if third-party shilling is still happening (of course it is),you can also expect that "the right material" is always well-protected to "roughly fmv" anyway, so again, no surprise that those types of bids win or lose by one increment every time. I don't win much on HA because I won't overpay, but I am very successful at mentally handicapping what just about everything will go for. About 10% greatly outperforms (like the endless piles of Dickie Ayers Sgt. Fury that keeps going for four figures...um, no, somebody is going to die with that stuff or take a bad hit on resale ), but the rest I nail within one or two increments. That's FMV plus "push", nefarious or not.

 

Let me add a few things. First, my limited niche is not too popular, and I find myself liking things which aren’t universally loved. That is the best way, if you are so inclined, to get the best “deals”. I also won’t buy the higher priced stuff for the simple reason that I don’t consider it an investment to sell later. I remain amazed at the high quality output I see in more modern stuff, and will happily graze in those pastures rather than deal with Heritage too often. Comiclink suits me better in most cases.

[ShallowDan]

10 hours ago, vodou said:

The HA market is pretty efficient. So it's not necessarily HA conspiracy/badness at work. The "rule" is HA employees can only bid pre-live, hopefully that rule being enforced is worth more to HA than losing their reputation if there's ever a leak/leaker to the contraray. (I assume it is.)

If you're going after anything "mainstream" in almost all cases whatever your mental reasonable number is "plus one increment higher" to win bid is...you will be beat. Somebody else is always willing to pay at least one more bid over; they either don't care about "the market price of the past" or are a dealer and will just price it up @ double on their web site. We're all competing with professional flippers/dealers here, since the easy fleece sources those dudes used to work hard (out-of-touch older collectors/artists/widowers) are all dried up now. So it's not surprising that your cap number can/will be exactly what you end up winning for. Or losing by "one increment higher". Rick's x5 rule would work, but not too many people can chase like that (x5 FMV) very often...so be careful with that. You will win every single time and that's not necessarily a good thing...for your bank balance and thus your marriage

Now of course if third-party shilling is still happening (of course it is),you can also expect that "the right material" is always well-protected to "roughly fmv" anyway, so again, no surprise that those types of bids win or lose by one increment every time. I don't win much on HA because I won't overpay, but I am very successful at mentally handicapping what just about everything will go for. About 10% greatly outperforms (like the endless piles of Dickie Ayers Sgt. Fury that keeps going for four figures...um, no, somebody is going to die with that stuff or take a bad hit on resale ), but the rest I nail within one or two increments. That's FMV plus "push", nefarious or not.

 

I wasn't aware of the bolded, but definitely hope that's the case.  As I said, it just felt as if they automatically inserted a house bid to trigger my max.

Although in their defense, in both cases I had mentally figured what the pieces were worth, then added just a bit of fat for my final bid.  So, the counter-argument would be that I just nailed the FMV right on the nose.

Maybe one day when I've had a few too many, I'll take a stab at Rick's FMV x5 suggestion (only to find out that someone else is doing the same thing on the same exact piece  )

[Rick2you2]

1 hour ago, ShallowDan said:

Maybe one day when I've had a few too many, I'll take a stab at Rick's FMV x5 suggestion (only to find out that someone else is doing the same thing on the same exact piece  )

Done properly, it isn’t as nutty as it may seem. Most people bid based on perceived market value. So, if there is at least one other person who perceives a market value, they will limit their bid to that amount, or slightly more. Your multiplier will mean you only come in a little higher. Unless someone else perceives a really high potential market value, the bidding will never get close. And since I only collect, not sell, market value is a meaningless risk of loss.
 

The idea should be used carefully. Do not use it on pieces which will attract a lot of attention on their own (Byrne X-Men, for example). And, don’t use it if there are indications of a lot of bidders. You may encounter someone with similar exuberance and get in trouble. Also, you can mix it up a bit, and use a lower multiplier or bid number early on to see what reaction it generates, and add to it later to flush out competition. And, there are times I have seen suspicious bidding patterns and bail (I am watching one now with suspicion). Or be prepared to drop out if you go in earlier with less than a 5 multiplier. 
 

Edited June 17, 2020 by Rick2you2

[vodou]

12 hours ago, Rick2you2 said:

there are times I have seen suspicious bidding patterns

Yep.

[alexgross.com]

On 6/15/2020 at 6:36 PM, ShallowDan said:

Yep, I know this gets into vaguely conspiratorial territory, but always keep in mind that Heritage is explicitly allowed to bid on items.  I always bid live when possible, but the two times I put in proxy bids (on relatively minor items where I figured there wouldn't be much action) I won, but at a price that was right at the max bid I had submitted.

 

me as well. these were not minor items or tracking bids- i was worried i'd miss the live auction. ended up way overpaying for expensive stuff (by thousands) never bid early on HA!!

[aokartman]

25 minutes ago, www.alexgross.com said:

me as well. these were not minor items or tracking bids- i was worried i'd miss the live auction. ended up way overpaying for expensive stuff (by thousands) never bid early on HA!!

This is what happens on most auction formats that allow early bidding, not limited to HA.  Live Auctioneers will just take your bid, no attempt at proxy.  Ebay proxies, but the shill factor is strong.  Not familiar with CLINK or CCONNECT.

David

[John E.]

On 6/15/2020 at 8:36 PM, ShallowDan said:

I always bid live when possible, but the two times I put in proxy bids (on relatively minor items where I figured there wouldn't be much action) I won, but at a price that was right at the max bid I had submitted.

Come to think of it, this happened to me too. I won, I think, one bid increment under my max. 🤔 

[Rick2you2]

On 6/15/2020 at 9:16 PM, Rick2you2 said:

I have occasionally used a very simple technique to avoid this problem. Take the maximum market price for the piece and multiply by 5. That’s your proxy. It never ever gets that high, but you won’t lose by a few dollars, either. And if you did lose, someone else really earned it.

Well, there was a surprise for me today. I was interested in a piece on another auction site, and bid over 5 times the estimated experts' price (which was probably a bit low, but not very). It actually lost. 

I'm not too unhappy since I already owned a piece from the same book that is better than the one I lost on.

Stil and all, it would have been nice to own.