Baldwin's St.James - shambolic, unprofessional bunch

Knowing both the old Baldwin's well and admiring Frank Robinson very much, the below message Frank shared with his clients is worth sharing widely. This is the most shambolic, unprofessional, totally lacking in integrity, behaviour I've ever seen from an auction house:

QUOTE
A customer service story:

Recently I got an e-mail from Baldwin's-St.James announcing an e-auction. I could find no clue what the buyer fee is. Nevertheless, to avoid a cumbersome online bidding process, I e-mailed written bids on 132 lots, requesting confirmation.
No response.
I e-mailed again a few days later, asking for confirmation of my bids.
No response.
Then I located an e-mail address for auction manager Sam Carter. E-mailed him, again attaching my bids, requesting confirmation of their entry.
He replied saying they hadn't seen these bids before. Would I be bidding online?
I answered saying I might add late bids online, but meantime, will you please enter my bids?
No reply.
After a few more days I e-mailed him again, observing that the customer service stinks, and asking one more time that my bids be entered.
He replied, "I've been advised by my colleagues IAPN that we cannot accept your bids." No reason given. Asked me to accept his apology.
I asked for an explanation and said no to accepting the apology.
No reply.
Finally I did try to register to bid online and got a box saying "registration declined."
I e-mailed a complaint to several other people at Baldwin's.
No reply.
Meantime I also contacted the IAPN, and got a quick cordial response and follow-up from Executive Director Jean-Luc Van der Schueren. He saw "no explanation for this rather erratic conduct," adding, "I am not aware of any problem that you could have had with IAPN dealers.”
No further response from Baldwin's. Auction ended yesterday.

I don’t run my auctions like this.

Best regards,
Frank S, Robinson
UNQUOTE

 

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Wow, I wonder if there is another Frank Robinson that hasn't paid invoices with them? Otherwise I can't fathom why they wouldn't want his business... if I were a consignor, I certainly wouldn't be happy.

 

I think according to the rules of many auctioneers they have the right to decline bids and possibly without a reason. Without commenting on this particular case, I find bargain hunters quite an upsetting disturbance and I complained to an auctioneer some years ago when a certain bidder handle placed 100+ early prebids that amounted almost 200k pounds. It is absurd that bargain hunters get such credit levels and I would not bid against such trolls.

 

Do you have any idea who Frank Robinson is? If so, I'm very surprised at your apparent implication that he's some sort of troll. (If that's not your intended implication, then why even tell this story?)

If I understand correctly, Baldwin's St. James represents a fairly recent joint venture or merger between the famous dealer and auctioneer A H Baldwin & Sons Ltd., which has been around since 1872, and a company called St. James's Auctions which was the auction division of Knightsbridge Coins. Although I still see coins and medals for sale by A H Baldwin's itself, so I'm not sure of the distinction. Perhaps Baldwin's St. James is just for auctions. In any event, they're certainly a reputable company, so this kind of behavior seems very puzzling.

 

There is always a chance that old management sold the name and the current company are nothing related. Singer used to make the best sewing machines but no more. We once respected Lanz but no more. There was Freeman and Sear. Is this another iteration of the sad old song? Trust is easy to lose and takes forever to regain.

 

As I wrote "Without commenting on this particular case..." So my point was not to criticize this particular person but rather give another perspective where bidding on hundreds of lots when you don't intend to buy all of them is not nice

 

I've met Frank a number of times at shows and have sat next to him picking through uncleaned and bargain coin trays. He probably doesn't know me by name but he's a nice guy and he tries to buy coins at a price such that he can sell them and make a profit. Perfectly OK. He's even bid on a number of my ancients that I have put on ebay, but the bids are always quite low and he never bids again (he's never won). Again, fine by me. IF that was what he was attempting to do on 132 lots of the Baldwin-St. James auction I can see where that could cause some consternation.

 

Pardon my naivete, but what's the concern? That someone placing that many bids (even if they're relatively low), if he should he happen to be the winner on all or a substantial number of them, has neither the ability nor the intention to pay for all of them?

 

I'm not saying there is any, and there's absolutely no doubt he would pay if he won. I'm just speculating that there's quite a bit of work logging 132 exceptionally low bids which have little to no chance of winning, and it might not be worth their time. I suspect if it was just a couple of bids we wouldn't be talking about this.

 

I have been participating in Baldwin's of St. Jame's auctions since the merger. They have consistently been difficult to communicate with via email. That said, the actual auction and payment experience have been flawless. I believe the principles in the company are all well respected in the industry. My thought is that there is probably more to this story than what is seen on the surface. A lot of companies are struggling with manpower issues in this new normal. I know that a lot of the companies that I deal with on a daily basis are not working as efficiently as I am used to. I was talking to a vendor today that has a factory in a "hot spot" and he said that on a daily basis they don't know who will show up for work.

I'm not saying this is the case with Baldwin's but there could be something going on that we don't know about. It won't change my opinion of them unless this is the first step of them having consistently diminished service.

I do feel bad for the consignors that maybe didn't see the benefit of these bids.

 

Not nice? Bidding on lots should be telling everyone just what the coin is worth to you. If no one else wants it more, you get it at your price. If we only bid on coins we want at any price but not on coins we only want for our price, results would be much lower and many lots would not sell. Auctions hate lots that get no bids or just one bid so they sell at the reserve. The idea of an auction is to sell the lot at a price just higher that the level of the second highest bidder. I suspect Frank gets many bids on his sales at the minimum acceptable level/start price. Some people buy the lot at that level but had put in a higher bid just in case there was competition. I have won coins for 1/3 the bid I entered. I have also won lots for the start price when that was all I bid but no one else wanted the item. Both ways, I win the lot. Things even out 'nicely'. If you bid on every lot in a sale but only bid the minimum acceptable bid, There will be no unsold lots unless the seller has a secret reserve higher than the start price. I consider that a sleazy practice believing a lot should start at a number that will result in a sale and not waste my time bidding on a coin that they really did not want to sell.

 

I know he is a professional and respectable guy but that might not be what Baldwin thinks of him. It's your opinion about him and you can not expect everyone think the same way about him.

 

Maybe in the old paper days, but if it’s an online bid there should be little to no effort put into logging those bids.

I don’t see any problems here.

 

Hardly only my opinion. He's been a reputable dealer for decades.

 

That in itself would be enough to make one unpopular in some circles.

 

I have dealt with Frank for several years. I do not believe him capable of any behavior which would result in this kind of despicable treatment by the auction house.

 

May be that they do not appreciate the coins being flipped quickly in his auctions?
Should be none of their business.. but who knows..?
Sounds a little personal to me.

 

Uh, Is this some sort of faux pas that I was unaware of?

I was once told "If you can't handle the heat, don't stay in the kitchen"

 

I thought he was a retired judge.

 

True, he was a judge. He also wrote a very interesting book on numismatics.I highly recommend it. It was Confessions of a numismatic fanatic