CNG revealing all proxy bids

I can't find anything in the CNG terms and conditions stating that they will keep proxy bids confidential.

It's not illegal to announce the amount needed to "clear the book." Yet as another poster mentioned, it destroys confidence in advance bidding, especially if this was not their previous practice.

Most reputable auction houses maintain bidder confidentiality. This means not only keeping the bidders' identities a secret, but also not revealing their maximum bids. Most bidders — myself included — bid a maximum with the hope that the bidding won't ever reach that maximum. Maximum means "as great, high, or intense as possible or permitted." It's an extreme. It's what one must pay if absolutely necessary to obtain an item, not what one truly wishes to pay, or thinks he should pay.

I think that the majority of buyers feel this way, and the majority of auctioneers understand those feelings and respect them. Respect for those feelings isn't about being nice people, it's about attracting bidders and higher maximum bids. It's good for business.

Ultimately, however, the buyer is merely a customer. The consignor is the client. Auctioneers have a fiduciary responsibility to the consignor, not the buyer. This means that the auctioneer is obligated by law to act in the consignor's best interest.

Again, it isn't illegal to "clear the book" in the way that CNG has done, if they feel that it will serve to maximize the sale results. However, it may be considered unethical or at least unsavory to most buyers. To my way of thinking, a maximum bid that is automatically maxed out is just a bid. It is therefore intentionally misleading, and what is intentionally misleading is unethical. It's a bid, not a "maximum" bid.

To me the practice seems counterproductive. If the bidder knows that his bid will be automatically maxed out, it will discourage advance bidding, which will suppress auction results and work against the consignor's best interest.

 

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Do I understand this properly?

Suppose a book bidder is ahead at $500 with a limit of $700. If the auctioneer announces you'd need to bid $725 to clear the book, an underbidder who might bid up to $600 knows his max won't win so might not bother to bid further as soon as he hears that, resulting in the $500 bid winning instead of a $625 bid winning if the auction had progressed without the auctioneers comment.

How is that good for the consigner or the auction house?

 

Some of the problems might have occurred with their "double click" system of bidding. The system seems to require you clicking the bid button and then in effect authorizing it with a second click. This may have confused some. I did notice that the auctioneer telling a bidder to "authorize his bid" a number of times. Mind you I bid on 14 coins, drove a couple up into really stupid territory ( was a bridesmaid on both of them) and got 3. So I await the morning with interest.

 

This isn't quite how it went down, and the way it went down is certainly not good for prebidders. I'll give a fictitious example of precisely what was happening: Doug entered a prebid of $300 yesterday; Carausius bids $280 at the live sale triggering Doug's $300 maximum bid; auctioneer then says "Carausius, you'll need to bid $320 to clear the book". In effect, auctioneer is telling me that you are done at $300. Without this information, I may not have bid further, fearing you might bid up to $350; but knowing your maximum, I go ahead and win the coin for $320. Thus, the consignor (who gets the extra increment) and the lot winner (who gets a coin) are the only beneficiaries of this approach. The prebidder becomes an unintended shill.

I'll never prebid in future CNG live sales after witnessing this approach over and over again throughout the day. Instead, I'll be certain to bid live, with the volume turned-up so that I can win coins for one increment above the book. Perhaps other auction firms also announce that "another bid increment will clear the book" and the practice has gone unnoticed by me. The frequency was hard to miss this time.

I totally understand the auction house's duty to maximize hammer prices for consignors. However this approach has an unintended consequence: the loss of prebidder confidence.

 

See my post above @Valentinian to get the true picture.

 

Ugh as if their auctions weren’t already pricey enough. I don’t see much difference between doing this or using a house shill to bid it up to the top bidder’s max.

 

My worst experience has been with the German abbott and costello auction where I prebid 4200 for an estimate of 2500, in the auction they opened at 4200 (what a surprise) noone was interested but the auctioneer said this is my max, someone offered 50 euros (1/4th of a step) and they sold it for 4250.

 

This is the reason why I only bid live, or starting bid. After also having experienced a couple of times that my max pre bid became starting bid, I’ve just lost confidence in sellers. I’m absolutely sure there are exceptions from that, however, as many people value their honesty over money. I’m disappointed to read this thread about CNG, though. They have always been the good guys in my book.

 

Well, they have just fairly recently changed hands. Just saying.....

 

I am trying to understand this.

@Carausius , are you saying this announcement only happens when the book's maximum is the current high bid so one more bid would beat it (as in your $300 example)?

Is the point of contention that the announcement encourages that one more bid?

Are you suggesting that a potential bidder who is willing to pay more than the current bid might not submit a bid of that higher amount because he is unsure of how high he might have to go, but he would bid if he were sure it would take the book out of the running? (That announcement would not take other live bidders out of the running.)

Or, I suppose maybe someone would not even expect to bid at all on that lot until they heard that the current level was at the book's max. He might quickly decide that level is low enough to provoke his interest and submit a bid on a coin he had not expected to bid on.

Is this next situation similar?

Near the end of his auctions Frank Robinson puts out lists of bids required to beat the current high bid. I have wondered if that lowers the prices realized. If he already has a bid of $140 and a second of $200 and he announces that a bid of $210 is needed to beat the current high bid, I would not bother to bid if my limit were $180. So, the second high might remain $140. But he is careful to make the PR only one notch above the second high bid. So, the high bidder gets it at $150 instead of $190. That announcement might lower the PRs. Or, maybe that announcement about $210 tells bidders it is worth more than they thought and actually provokes a $210 bid or more that might not otherwise have happened.

Were the CNG announcements only when the the book's maximum was the current high bid?

 

I believe so.

Yes, but more precisely the next answer.

Yes. This is the biggest issue, IMO. By tipping the prebidder's hand, you give the live bidder the advantage. Also, the live bidder may not have planned to bid more, but when faced with a "just one more increment and it's mine" scenario, goes ahead.

 

This really captures the essence here. Revealing the proxy bid entirely changes the psychological dynamic. It’s a different game, and not one proxy bidders would necessarily agree to. You can provide logically reasoning all day long, but anyone who has bid in a live auction knows rationality is not what you feel at that last second. And how many proxy bidders feel the pain of regret not going one more increment over their cold logic set limit? Another step in the abuse of proxy bidders. I am in this hobby because it’s fun and I enjoy it. When I begin to feel taken advantage of, it is not fun anymore.

 

The answer here makes all the difference. If they are ONLY giving this information when the book max has been reached, this strikes me as dishonest; if they did it on all lots as a way of keeping the sale moving, it might be less offensive but after revealing the max, no bids could be entered for less than that number without being a shill situation. There is no longer expectation of any action that does not result in a higher realization so it must be the former.

I once enjoyed watching what Clio bought in CNG sales and complimented him here on his good taste. I find it hard to believe that he would be buying 70% of the lots in any sale because 70% of the coins in even the better sales are either pedestrian coins not worthy of his collection or duplicates of things he already had. Perhaps I was wrong that he was building a world class collection of the most interesting and important coins and not just a pile of high end but 'ordinary' coins. Of course, he could be investing rather than collecting and hoping to sell the surplus for a profit or leveraging trades with owners of things he wants. I do not pretend to understand all the business aspects of coins but I previously thought Clio did have a good grasp on which coins were important to the study as opposed to eye candy.

My observation is most of Frank's 'Going Cheaply' list are coins that received no bids or coins that received only slightly more than the minimum. I have never been leading on a coin that later appeared on his cheap list but I have on several occasions seen things that I had overlooked previously and bid. I usually bid a bit over the minimum to guard against others bidding just the minimum needed but in the last sale that did not work and I lost six of the cheap lots which ended up selling for more than I would pay. I won one which was listed at the start price of $45 by bidding $51 and was charged $49. I assume this means someone else also bid on the lot - perhaps $48??? I would be interested in hearing from anyone who bought any of the 'Going Cheaply' lots in this last sale to see if we 'bumped heads' on them.

Below is FSR lot 166 - my 'Going Cheaply' win. It is better than most of these common coins (Sear 7098 var.) but has one 'problem' that led to a very uncharacteristic FSR error. He listed the date as "K-Pi-P" which anyone that understands Greek numbers would know was impossible. The 'K' was a poorly struck B making the date year 182 or 130BC. Greek numerals used a different set of letters for each digit with B being two and K being twenty. P (rho) is clearly 100 and Pi is 80 so the leftmost digit has to be Alpha through theta (1-9). Antiochus VII died in 129BC or year 183 by their system so the Pi makes only A, B or Gamma possible. Comparing this coin to others online, I see that the odd shaped B was standard. If anyone has a coin of this type with a clear B, I would love to see it.


I hope this does not mean Frank is getting old and will be selling his business and good name to someone who will run it into the ground as happens too often. Who remembers when Singer made the best sewing machines?

Someone help me: Frank correctly pointed out that this coin was exceptional due to the clear detail on the reverse headdress. Unlike most you see, it has some symbol in the central circle. Can anyone tell me the meaning of that symbol?

 

The isis headdress on that coin from Antiochos VII is actually that of Hathor (a cow god). You can see the horns with the solar disk between them and with plumes rising above. That symbol in the middle I suggest is actually the cobra around the solar disk. Atleast that is my guess, maybe @David@PCC knows more about it.



Here is a reverse with a similar symbol:

 

The known years are 174 to 183. You and I have the same coin minus the grain.

Antiochus VII
Mint: Antioch
AE 18
Year 182 130/131 BC
Obvs: Bust of Eros right wearing myrtle wreath.
Revs: BAΣIΛEΩΣ ANTIOXOY EYEPГETOY, Head-dress of Isis. Ear of grain to left, BΠP in ex
18mm, 6.4g.
Ref: SNG Isr.262.1959, SC 2067.20e

Pavlos is correct. I think by this time Isis was hellenized and probably influenced by the occupation of Ptolemy.

I like Frank but he makes lots of these errors, at least with Seleucids. I don't think he has the references to properly attribute these. One example were I was the under bidder on a $60 opening bid and the high bid was $2500. The reason was he attributed to the wrong ruler.

 

I participated in the CNG auction and was absolutely aghast at what they were doing to the pre-bidders by encouraging live bidders to clear their pre-bid. I say this as a consigner in CNG 114 as well as a live bidder. I suspect it's fully legal, but it certainly comes off sleazy and I can't recall it happening in other auctions I've attended. It was clearly a systematic practice and not just an eager auctioneer oversight.

My observations:

1. This practice completely undermines the pre-bid system. I can tell you as a bidder, I would expect my pre-bid to speak for me in my absence at a live auction and not be used to as shill bid to push up the live bidder.

2. Almost every time CNG told someone to clear the book, it won the lot with that single bid. That just doesn't sit right to me for what is supposed to be a public competitive auction. It just sort of smells bad.

3. This practice may seem advantageous to consigners, but that view is very short sighted. Having multiple bid avenues is good for all parties, but if the pre-bid avenue is only used as a tool to increase live bids, pre-bidders will quit bidding. I know I have. This will reduce overall auction participation (see next point).

4. CNG's new bidding platform bites. The audio doesn't run on Safari which is the native internet browser on Apple products (common folks, it's 2020!). I had to have a Chrome window running in the background to listen to the auctioneer - especially for when they were compromising the integrity of pre-bids - and then do my bidding on Safari. And don't get me started on the stupid double confirm bid process when you do bid live! The Apple App store app is unstable on my iPad and iPhone because it crashes or becomes unresponsive. The upside to the mobile app is that it does do audio, but it's useless to use for bidding for Apple device owners in my experience so....

5. If bidding live is hobbled by flashy but unreliable technology and the pre-bid system is compromised by short sighted live auction opportunism, CNG will be limiting potential bidders. If bidders don't show up, consigners (like yours truly) will quit consigning and go with another dealer. Not everyone wants to or can bid live. That's why there is supposed to be an honorable pre-bidding system!


I would encourage them to stop it. It's sleazy and unbecoming of a brand that has historically stood as one of the finest ancient coins dealers in the business. It takes decades to build a quality brand, but it can be ruined in a flash.

 

Clear? ...Best I can do atm.

 

I couldn't agree more and am grateful to @Andrew McCabe for posting this thread: I didn't have my audio on during the sale as I was in meetings/doing other work but was about to make some pre-bids on later lots as I wasn't certain when they would hammer but this thread stopped me in my tracks.

This practice entirely defeats any strategy of prebidding and is something I've never heard before. Normally, auctioneers will indicate when a bid clears the book but only after it has cleared the book.

 

I agree with andrew, it's quite unethical.
i have attended many live auctions (mainly in France and Germany) and very often, the auctionner doesn't explicitely say that the highest proxy bid is reach but it's easy to know it : in the way he glances at the bidder, in suddenly straightening up, by a certain movement with its hammer ...

 

Well I'm one of of those bidders and of course I was just nixed out of all my bids today* and wound up with nothing. I'm not too upset though because I'm very used to losing my lots at CNG (even when I'm high bidder).

I was thinking of going an extra increment during the mail/proxy bidding stage but didn't. Also my wife called me away to help with something crtical so I couldn't live bid. Ultimately if I really wanted the item, I would've bid higher: though it was already getting well overpriced at my point and beyond.

CNG charges an extra fee if you phone bid 22.5% vs the 20% done thru their app or website.

Nonetheless I have reason to believe that Roman coins will not continue their present pricing aphelion but will return to Earth in 2 -3 years. Of course I may be wrong and they may quintuple every year for the next 5 years. This is probably what causes me to be a bit conservative pricing-wise at this time and not to bid with utter abandon {which it seems is what everyone else is doing}.

* to be honest it was just one lot, but of course it was a nice one.