Little help on Heritage?

Aloha, I joined Heritage and I was wondering about the live and internet auctions. There's too many and I'm so confused . I am watching a Matte Proof cent and it says Heritage live enabled, so I checked the auction details and it says internet bids will be accepted until 10:00 CT. What is all of this? Not that simple to me, e bay is alot easier. Auction dates are on Sept 23-26 while it says lot viewing is from Sept 6-9. I have no idea when to place a bid, next thing I know, It won't let me bid because its expired .

 

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Heritage auctions can be combinations of internet, floor, and mail bidding. Their Internet only auctions are much like an Ebay auction. I agree it can be confusing when you are not familiar with their terms and how their Webpage works.

You must register with Heritage in advance of placing a bid. They will give you an ID and password.

I suspect you are looking at an auction that has normal internet bidding enabled only up to the day of the auction. At that point, you can still bid from your computer but you have to do it using their live auction software during the auction. The live auction software lets you hear & view the auction as it is happening. You can press the bid button during the Heritage live auction just as though you were bidding on the floor.

In either case (by internet before the auction day or using Heritage live on auction day) you can always place a maximum bid on your lot. Heritage calls the maximum bid your proxy bid I think.

I hope this information helps. You can always contact them by phone & have them explain the nuances to you.

 

Thank you alot Collect89. I'll have to check out the Heritage live stuff, because I am sure I'm not the only person wanting a Matte Proof cent...

 

You should be bid any time between now until auction date, not sure why it says it expired, heritage will log you out if you are inactive for certain amount of time, maybe that was why it wont let you bid.

 

Would I be able to enter my max bid minutes before auction end like on e bay?

 

Yes, BUT....... That "Heritage Live" you asked about is literally you sending a message to the auctioneer as a bid. However, I have heard of many times people have messed up and wound up bidding a lot more than intended. Until you know what you are doing, I would recommend you not touch live bidding. On the other hand, there is little last second bidding (except floor bidding) at Heritage. There are advantages to bidding in the last few hours, but last minute bids are not generally needed.

 

Thanks for the replies. I'm much more comfortable with bidding :smile

 

rlm is correct, there is typically very little advantage to bidding at the last possible second in a live auction. This is because the auction doesn't end at a specific time (like eBay does). In fact as long as there are bids being made that particular lot will remain open with the auctioneer accepting additional bids. The best plan typically is to place your bids before your lots actually hit the block so that the computer will excercise them on your behalf.

As a Heritage Auctioneer I can confirm that the auctions do move fairly quickly (that IS one of the points of an auction, after all). Typically they go between 150 and 250 lots per hour, which works out to an average of 12-20 seconds per lot. That means you need to be prepared when your lot opens because you run the risk of missing it if you aren't ready to bid once the lot opens. However if you are prepared then you should have little difficulty in keeping up if you have a fairly recent computer with a good internet connection. One thing you can do during a live auction is you can click the "disable bidding" button on the Heritage Live software so that you don't accidentally bid on an item that you don't intend to bid upon.

 

If the bid goes over my max bid, am I pretty much done? Like, go back in there and place another bid?

 

I believe so - never done live bidding myself. I (my own personal preference) is to bid my max bid and then forget about it. I do this with most auctions I am interested in.

 

Thanks everyone for the help, I never thought Heritage featured so much until now. I hopefully will have me a new MPL before long :smile

 

Yes, if your max bid (proxy bid) is exceeded, then I believe you can then enter a new bid. As Cave Troll mentioned, once your coin is on the block, it may only be bid on the floor for 10 or 20 seconds before the auctioneer closes the sale. In the Heritage live mode, you will have a large red-colored button to press when you want to bid one increment above the current bid. If you are just watching the auction live & do not want to bid, then you can disable the button & just watch.

I might suggest that you just place your max bid & then watch the auction. If you get outbid, then so be it. Have fun & good luck with the coin.

 

Thanks Collect89. I'm real desperate on MPL's.

 

This can be dangerous though since you don't really know what you are bidding. Since the floor bidding is still going on the current bid can change considerably between the time you hit the button and when your bid is accepted. I remember a case on the PCGS forum where a coin opened at a ridiculously low amount and one of the member hit the bid next increment button.. But while he was doing so a floor bidder jumped the bid several thousand dollars. So when he bid it was a few hundred, but he won the lot at fourteen thousand. For this reason max bids placed earlier are safer.

 

good post from Conder101

I normally disable the bid button & just watch the auction. Sometimes the coins around 'my coin' are going for tens of thousands of dollars & I find it a little scary to have the bid button active.

 

You can always place another bid if you are bidding live.

 

My recommendations:

(1) If you know how much you want to bid on a coin and no higher, bid it as soon as possible and forget it. The earliest bid wins tiebreakers, and there is no advantage to sniping in an auction with a live component. (I would argue that the same is true for any Heritage auction, in fact.)

(2) If you know how much you want to bid on a coin, but think you might go higher depending on how other people bid, bid the amount you know you want to bid as soon as possible. When the live auction comes up, watch for a while to get a feel for what goes on in the auction and on the software, then bid (or don't bid) as you see fit. We will not allow you to bid against yourself.

 

This can happen, but it doesn't happen often, and because we know that it's a possibility we will correct legitimate mistakes. The earlier you let us know about this sort of thing the better.

In practice, the times when this is most likely to happen are:

-Right after a lot opens. There are times when the lot opens and we then need to resolve competing Heritage Live Proxy and maybe Internet bids. If you see a wall of text in your status screen that shows bids going up as fast as your computer can spit out line feeds, that is what is happening.

-When there is heavy live bidding, which can happen on the floor or even on auctions where live bidding is strictly through Heritage Live.

In either case, a slight hesitation in clicking the button should help. You'll get a feel for this as you watch the auction.

 

That's what I was considering, putting in my high bid and then forget it. I'm not worrying about the live stuff, just putting in a bid and leave it that, if I lose, I lose.