[78-L] Snipes and snails...

[simmonssomer]

Back in the forties certain top-of-the-line antique dealers in one of our 
major metro areas formed "combinations" prior to the auction. Three and 
often more dealers appointed one bidder and gave him instructions on how 
high to bid. The others stayed out of the bidding.

Understand that this relates to 18th and 19th century furniture, porcelain, 
silver, gold and other very high priced stuff.

When (and if) their representative won the item they would meet and hold a 
post-auction meeting to resolve the situation. This cut down on a lot of 
open auction competition which usually resulted in lower winning bids.. They 
claimed it saved thousands of dollars on important items.
The eventual winner would remunerate the other members of the group with a 
certain percentage of his winning bid.
I believe that technically it was very much against the rules of the auction 
house but it was employed universally nevertheless.

Al Simmons

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Biel" <mbiel at mbiel.com>
To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
Sent: Friday, May 15, 2009 9:13 PM
Subject: Re: [78-L] Snipes and snails...


> One of the advantages of the autosnipe services is that it operates
> automatically whether or not you are awake or asleep, on-line or
> off-line, or even if you have a very slow internet connection.  A couple
> of weeks ago I put in a snipe on something and then drove off to a
> convention.  Three days later, while I was still on the road, I won the
> item, and only found out about it after arriving in Brooklyn.
>
> Trying to fight off fast ending bids cannot be done by hand because you
> can't refresh the screen fast enough to see what you would need to bid.
> Of course you can put in a high bid early on, but every time someone
> else puts in a bid, so would "you".  By putting in the high bid on a
> snipe program instead of a standard bid, you won't be encouraging others
> to keep on putting in more and more bids that will be topped repeatedly
> by "you".
>
> Under the old rules when bidder's identities were shown, during the time
> I was trying to build up my Peter and the Wolf holdings there were two
> others doing the same.  We got to know whether or not is was something
> that was going to be coveted by one of the others -- until I found the
> snipe service and they would never know I was going to bid until it was
> practically too late.
>
> Steve's idea that two of these programs might be competing against each
> other shows a misunderstanding of how they work.  They put in ONE BID,
> and do it a few seconds before the ending time.  You select the number
> of seconds.  Some do it one second, some back off a bit.  If you do it
> close to the ending time, sure, nobody can react fast enough, but tie
> bids will go to the earlier bidder.
>
> I hate to reveal my "secret" but anyway, I am very rarely bidding
> anymore.
>
> Mike Biel   mbiel at mbiel.com
>
>
>
> From: "Taylor Bowie" <bowiebks at isomedia.com>
>> In fact, one can now buy "autosniping" applications, which makes it
>> impossible
>> for mere humans to win anything on eWotsit!! I'm not sure what happens if
>> two instances of these programs wind up competing against each other...?!
>>
>> ...stevenc
>
>
> Not at all...I often get sniped, but if my bid was higher than the
> snipe,
> I still win the record. It's the matter of being willing to bid with
> some
> sense of the current market, and not what one wishes the market were.
>
> BTW the sniping programs are not a new thing...they've been around for
> at
> least six or seven years. If two bidders put in the same amount for a
> snipe, the earlier snipe of the two gets the edge, just like if any two
> bids come in of the same amount at the same time.
>
> Taylor
>
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