I have recently substantially overbid for a coin in an auction because instead of pressing 23 I inadvertently pressed 231 and confirmed the bid before realising my error! This was only a few minutes before the lot came up so I did not have any time to contact the auction house or platform to try and retract. I was irritated with myself because of the risk that I might end up paying a bit more than I otherwise would have wanted to but did not anticipate any serious problem. However, when the bidding started, it was at 180 and that was what the coin went for. When I looked at the bidding history a bid of 170 had come in shortly after mine. The coin is probably worth 30-40 maximum. At this stage I am deliberately not naming the auction house (or the currency, which might give a clue) because I have dealt with them many times in the past and have always found them reputable. But I do find this suspicious. No-one in their right mind would bid 170 for this coin. Now, in fairness, I should say that after my inadvertent bid the bidding stood at 16 so I suppose it is possible that someone else meant to bid 17 and 'fat fingered' themselves. But the possibility of that happening twice on the same lot seems to be extremely remote. This isn't the end of the world - I have probably placed thousands of bids over the years and this is the first time it has happened. It's sufficient to be irritating but it's not a vast sum so if I have to write it off to experience, so be it. But before doing so I wanted to ask whether any other members had come across instances of auction houses spotting an unusually high bid and somehow putting in a high, albeit lower, bid themselves so as to force the price up.
This is the reason Clio bids at 3s before closure. Frankly I don't get why people bother to bid days before closure for auctions with a fixed closure. I don't get either why others enter into pre- bidding wars before the closure when there is a floor after the prebids.
I don't get the point you're making pprp. I didn't bid days before closure, I bid 10 minutes before closure. And I only did that rather than bidding live, as is my usual practice, because I expected I would be on an important phone call when the bid came up.
How can anyone "fat finger" a 3 and a 1 when the 2 is between them? I could understand a 213, but not a 231.
The first keystroke hits the 2 and 3 simultaneously, then the second keystroke hits the 1. Easy to understand.
On a somewhat related note... Not having deep pockets, and being a bargain hunter, I primarily hope to pay somewhere near(or below) the low-end of the avg. market-value range of coins. This means that I miss out on coins a lot of the time to those with deeper pockets, or those willing to pay at the higher end of the avg. market-value range. However, on some occasions, there have been times when I've decided that I've really wanted to win an auction lot, albeit for a reasonable amount/within avg. market-value range. Not knowing what the lot may actually fetch, I've given thought that a reasonable amount represents a single increment bid above the next highest bidder -- with the thinking that there's at least one other bidder that agrees on the value(to them). So, how about throwing out a random high number to secure the lot? A 'nuclear bid' so-to-speak. Problem is, what if another bidder employs the same 'nuclear bidding' strategy for the same lot? If I win, I may be stuck way overpaying for a lot. For me, even if I really want something, my enjoyment can be affected if I feel that I've way overpaid. I'm of a frugal nature. So, I've avoided going that route when (proxy or timed-auction/AKA snipe) bidding, even if the risk is to lose a lot that I really want. I've lost a fair amount of lots as the under-bidder, kicking myself that I would have been willing to pay the next increment, but not knowing how much more would have been necessary to actually secure the lot. Perhaps the under-bidder in your auction was a random 'nuclear bid'?
This does sound suspicious Ian - although I suspect if there is any foul play going on here it will be extremely difficult to prove. I am not an expert in the workings of online auctions, but have looked into this a little after an unusually long streak of always winning lots at my maximum pre-bid with a particular auction house. In the end though I concluded it was just a coincidence. At the time I searched on this forum for similar topics and here are a couple of threads from the past year or so where people have discussed somewhat similar situations: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/getting-tired-of-auction-houses.353645/page-2#post-4008361 https://www.cointalk.com/threads/cng-112-mr-shill-revealed.346679/page-2#post-3707989 I hope these links to specific posts work I am sharing these links because I have looked into this before, but do not wish to support or deny the information given - merely just share it with you. It is of course tempting in a situation like this to imagine we have been hard done by. On the other hand, I would assume that in the long term most auction houses have much more to lose than gain by using these practices. For what it's worth, while I do trust auction houses, I now take the same approach as you and will only bid on auctions live and not place pre-bids. That means I miss a lot of coins that sell when I am working but it gives me peace of mind that I'm in control of administering my own max bid. If only you could contact the underbidder and sell it to them for 170 and just take the loss of 10
I've got a fat-finger story to add to this thread. I was preparing for a lot that I was interested in bidding for live that was coming down the pike in a couple of more lots. I had the screen-arrow staged over the 'Place A Bid Now' button. I inadvertently left-clicked on the button prematurely bidding on a coin that I had zero interest in whatsoever. Despite hoping that some other bidder would rectify my error, I won the lot; as apparently nobody else had any interest in it either. To add insult to injury, the lot that I had intended to bid on hammered above my set max that I was willing to put forth. After fees, currency conversion and shipping it came out to around $70 to pay for the one coin. Thankfully it wasn't a massively expensive mistake, whew. From now on, I keep the arrow far away from the 'Place A Bid Now' button until I am ready to bid.
In the past, I've entered an amount I thought would easily win an eBay auction only to be sniped at the last moment. Then, a day or two later, I get a message from the Seller saying that the high bidder didn't complete the sale (for whatever reason). They then offer me a BIN price...equal to my high bid (after the sniper jacked me up). I tell them I'll buy the coin at my bid price before I got sniped, but they never take me up on the offer. I suspect shenanigans!
I generaly place an initial bid, just over the present bid then wait until the set date and time to snipe in my max bid because too often i have placed that max bid that should never have been reached only to win by a buck or two from my max... now i wait for the 6 second mark to snipe in...
Thanks to everyone for their comments. I'll contact the auction house with my concerns and see what happens.
This makes no sense to me, either, when the item will be going on to live bidding. All prebidders are doing is driving up the starting price before it even goes to actual (live) auction. Why not wait for the live auction, and at least start things out much lower? Except for items with little or no interest to others, it's probably going to be won by a live snipe bid anyway. (And I can only imagine who might be prebidding against you and running up the price)
Never encountered personally this situation "any other members had come across instances of auction houses spotting an unusually high bid and somehow putting in a high, albeit lower, bid themselves so as to force the price up." Since pre-bids are anonymous, this wouldn't surprise me. What annoyed me, in several occasions, is something like the opposite situation. I would call it fat laptop situation On a live bidding, exactly yesterday, I was preparing to bid on a cheap coin that I wanted, pre-bid was low and I would have won it. The auction reached the mentioned lot, I was minding my own business and preparing to bid, and the browser decided to crash. No need to say that until I reopened the browser and in the same time ran to my PC to open the website, the lot was already lost. No idea since the laptop is quite new and well configured (I work in IT) On other occasions, on the same blessed laptop, I clicked on "bid"... and clicked .... and clicked.... but this wasn't registered. I had in mind for a second that this is not a coincidence, but I prefer to think about what I managed to buy, not what I lost because of ... fat errors.
I had the exact same thing happen to me several yrs ago, on a non-coin item. Told the seller I would pay my last "reasonable" bid (I think around $175); never heard back, so reported him. Also had the "inadvertent" bid adventure (within a month or 2 of the above episode); I saw, this time a coin, I liked, figured it would be a good capture @$40, so I put in my max @$50, & waited for it to end in 4 days. A couple of hrs before the end, I checked on it & found I had actually bid $500!!! Fortunately, I won it for about $35...whew! These 2 circumstances, happening so close together, forced me to re-evaluate my bidding prowess, & I've been better off for it...
This last one also suggests the seller either was not aware of the high bid or was honest in not arranging a $400 bid. To me, this is a suggestion that I could bid on his future sales with greater comfort.
Good point Doug! And I did bid with him again, but with much more care...he did have some nice specimens...but we're talking about US coinage . And, I've restricted my coin buying severely over recent years ; in fact, "several years ago" may not be accurate, as I believe this happened about 6-8 yrs ago (I'm too lazy to research the exact date ) Time flies when you're...
A little off-topic, hope I'm not bothering anyone, but it is somehow similar to the situation in this thread. I know a guy, banknotes collector, who is quite rich. His collection is fantastic, I saw it, but it is out of my league. He told a lot of people that his strategy, in auctions, ebay or any other sites, is to put a pre-bid that is obscenely high, i.e. if an estimate price for a banknote is 500 EUR he will put a 2000 EUR pre-bid. Or 1000. Or 800. Or 1200. But you can never know. This is why when you "fight" with him it's practically impossible to win. A few months ago I participated in an Ebay auction for a banknote and he won it (didn't know about that). Honest price would have been 250-300 EUR. He won it with about 350 but the "pre-bid" he entered was 1500. To return on topic, as far as I'm aware he is not into ancient coins, so no danger yet
Yes, a little off track from the OP's concern. This is akin to the 'nuclear bidding' strategy that I alluded to above. For someone willing to get a lot at any cost, then this strategy may prove to be effective. Those with deep pockets (who may not be as concerned with setting a budget for their hobby) will likely be able to secure the majority of the coins that they desire. Their competition circle will often also be smaller, and perhaps more specialized. The risk for those with shallower pockets; utilizing this method could prove to be costly if one gets embattled in an auction within another bidder employing the same thinking. I presume that (with the exception of dealers/auction houses) most of those involved with ancients are more on the collector-side than as investors. However, a savvy collector may still have concerns about avoiding overpaying for coins relative to their perceived consensus market value(range). If I can get a really good deal on a coin that I could later resell for more (in turn allowing me to get more coins), having a better sense of market valuation may provide for one to aid in supplementing one's own collection.
A short note to thank everyone again for their comments and advice and to say that the auction house agreed to cancel the sale. Having looked further into the matter I believe that I would have been able to enforce a cancellation under distance selling regulations anyway, but it didn't come to that, it was resolved amicably on the phone.
