CNG revealing all proxy bids

Been watching CNG for the last few hours. In all my experience watching auctions this was the most shamelessly unethical treatment of proxy bidders that I've seen. Some dozens of times the auctioneer said "you will need to go 2250 in order to clear the book" or similar. He might as well just have published the (secret) high bids of proxy pre-bidders. In many jurisdictions this would be against the law.

I'd be interested to hear comments of any who pre-bid at CNG and now feel hard done by, with the auctioneer blatently advertising the max.

 

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I don't like it but I don't think it is unusual. Stacks did the same thing at today's auction. Not condoning it at all but it happens at other auction houses.

 

Never seen it like this.

Auctioneer just had a late bid (after lot should have closed) kept the lot open and told the bidder he needed to rebid to clear the book. Said it again. Kept it open for an eternity but never got the bid back.

Maybe Stacks does it but in most jurisdictions this is illegal.

 

Must be great for those who are shill-bidding on their own coins!

I have seen auctioneers doing that from time to time in floor auctions, but then bids have been very close to proxy bids at least.

 

It wasn't coins but my wife and I were bidding on some land. We were the high bidders after a lengthy bout. Nobody would out bid. So, the auctioneer decided to take a break for an hour. When he came back he resumed bidding. We thought about pulling our bid. But, nobody bid over us.

 

That is really disappointing to hear.

 

It seems to me that the only person hurt by this is the consignor and, since I do not sell coins through CNG type houses, it is good for me. Lets say that a coin stands at $100 and I am willing to pay $200 but am told that the max bid is $300. I will not make a bid on that lot. It would be unethical for them to tell me that they need $300+ and then accept my bid of $290 forcing the book to use its max to beat me. If no one, not knowing the max, bid on the lot, the buyer with his $300 bid should get it for the $100 bid that was leading (and probably the opening bid). I like this because it enables me, the bargain hunter, to identify coins that are simply not going to be mine and not waste my time bidding up the person who was leading just to spite him. I then can apply my resources to coins that I might actually have a chance of winning.

There remains the fact that you benefit no one complaining about the rules at an auction as long as they are stated up front. If you don't like CNG rules, bid elsewhere and leave those coins for people who can deal with it. There are dealers out there that I will not even bother to look at their coins because I consider them not to be people I can tolerate for one reason or another. You have every right to your opinion on the matter. Vote with your feet. Put sellers you don't like out of business by taking your business elsewhere. I fail to see why, feeling as you do, you would consign more coins to their sale. Send them to a seller who plays by rules you can accept.

 

I am always very upset when this happens. It is clearly unethical and even illegal depending on the country. I have seen this happen many times. It is the reason I stopped placing prebids unless I absolutely can't bid online at the time of the auction. Last time I prebid I finally could connect a couple of minutes before my targeted lot came up just to hear the auctioneer trying to persuade bidders to try a bit higher and maybe they would be successful.

 

Sad to hear such actions are taking place at some places. Personally I would just never use them again as a consignor or bidder. I don't really have a problem with house bids if they're willing to pay the consignor that and try and resell it themselves, but to announce the high bids is just preposterous and seems like it should be a violation of some terms

 

I would have pulled the deal, but, the property shared the fence line with my parents property. I think the other potential bidders knew that and decided not to get involved. The rest of the auctioned property was very actively pursued and the bids went much higher per acre. Good people out there in the country.

 

We have limited options as sellers and buyers, and sellers / buyers with a strong voice, such as I am, have a responsibility to make views known. I've certainly been in touch with CNG today and only after they ignored my comments, went here to make my views known.

Proxy bidding is a sacrosanct issue of trust. Once you feel that auctioneers will reveal your proxy then you'll never bid proxy with them again. That causes a lot of extra hassle (its midnight in Europe now) and ultimately the loss of confidence leads to less proxy bids and lower income for auction houses. Cause a loss in trust in the proxy system and you reduce your income in time.

The market is small tho. CNG Roma NAC and Kuenker at the top level. Collector arena small too. So by making my views known am trying to nudge the market. I've limited venues I can sell my good coins tbh

 

Amen!

 

Just to be clear they are not "announcing" the high bids explictly but saying "you will need to bid X to clear the high bid" when bidders are close. But that destroys confidence in advance bidding of course.

 

I see it as the same thing. If you know what bid level you need to be at to win, you can figure out the current high bid. I'd rather someone just do a minimum bid type thing if thats the case

 

What do CNG's auction terms and conditions say about keeping proxy bids confidential?

 

I watched the scale weight and RR portion of the auction with interest. I agree that the flow of the auction was different. It looked like CNG worked hard to coax as much as they could from buyers. That is not a problem for sellers unless buyers do not make pre-bids because their max bids are not respected and the number of buyers drops.
@DonnaML - I do not see where CNG addresses keeping proxy bids confidential.

I watched Lot 547, Aes Grave Tressis with interest. The hammer price was well above my limit, but I was surprised it went for "only" $19,000. I hope someone here got it.

 

These are the two main problems I see.

1. Less interest in the items by people who see bidding as a hopeless endeavor. Hurts the consignor with a lower return.

2. Promotes “hate bidding” where a bidder keeps bidding up to the leader’s max. Hurts the winner with paying more than otherwise.

 

I should have also mentioned that such announcements really do hurt the seller as well. If you know what you have to bid and that it will be announced a bidding war on a special item is much less likely and many bidders will be turned off by such a process

 

If everyone bid wat was honestly their MAX there would be no raises. The problem I see is the merging of mail bids and live bids since the two do not mesh fairly. Live auctions allow people to bid one advance at a time until there was only one paddle in the air. Mail bids used to allow us to send in a number and we either won or lost never knowing the status until the end. If unable to attend in person, we had the option of bidding by phone or using an agent who did attend but now every coin is auctioned twice with the first one only counting if the second failed to draw interest. Now that we have no live sales with rooms full of Covid breathing people, the auction houses have to get creative to keep the live concept kicking lest they turn into just runners of ail sales. I don't know an answer that could possibly be pleasing to all. The news is filled with businesses changed forever by the quarantine. Perhaps this will be another industry that is changed forever.