Community Stories

Auction house potentially made me overbid myself, can I request transparency? ~2000+ euro overpay

MtV
Posts
3,312
Likes
12,919
bombaywalla bombaywalla
Well, what I was hinting at here was -- do your homework before bidding & avoid getting screwed rather than posting here for "advice" or sympathy....
(didnt want to be blunt but you didnt get the hint from my earlier post.... 😵‍💫)

Have you even read his post?

He asks exactly one question - can you request information regarding competing bids. Regardless of the reply, which might be no, that's a legitimate question. Your answer, in contrast, misses the point completely and saying that you didnt want to be blunt doesn't make it any less so. How is "do your homework before bidding" helping in any way?
 
DitchGreen
Posts
44
Likes
97
Davidt Davidt
That would exclude pretty much every single auction house that sells vintage watches (in the UK at least).
Exactly this. 30-35% is basically standard for UK auctions.
The OP's concerns are exactly why I'd never leave a commission bid, and instead only bid 'live'.
 
Dan S
Posts
23,129
Likes
51,632
cristos71 cristos71
Auctioneers bid against the room all the time, it’s a known trick to reach reserve or bump a commission bid. That is the risk you run with a commission email bid, you cannot see what is going on and are reliant on the honesty of the auctioneer.

I was thinking the same thing. Many auction houses are extremely sneaky about how they report the bidding, and I've seen some things that look very strange. With the combination of phone, internet, and live bidding these days, the auctioneer has the opportunity to engage in a lot of manipulation. And a maximum bid by email is obviously the best case scenario for them. They can so easily make you pay your maximum. I'm curious about the C-case Constellation that's worth 5k. Is it gold?
 
Dries
Posts
94
Likes
249
Hi,

I think some good advice has already been provided (re the 3500 hammer - if it were your own bid it would have been one step higher).

This feeling is exactly why I will never use commission if possible. For these smaller auction houses it should usually be possible to use an external platform. You then enter you max bid and the platform bids up to that amount; that way, if there is no competition you can get things cheaper.

We might find this appalling behaviour, but I think it is all too human for a smaller auction house to 'create' competition if say, they get a commission bid for five or ten times their estimate.

In France, I have been told these auctioneers somehow have to be officially licensed. So it might be possible to formally request the bid increments and a division between room/ online with bidder nummers for online bids. I would advise to only push for this after you have received the item.

Oh, finally, we NEED to see that C-case of yours, which I am sure is more than worth the issues you are having rn.

Best,

Dries
 
Davidt
Posts
12,872
Likes
22,252
When I was younger and buying a car at auction I was pretty certain there was a phantom bidder driving me up.

No experience of it with watch auctions however. In fact just last week I entered a bid on a vintage Omega, then similarly to the OP upped by bid after working out my max total price. Surprisingly I won the auction within my original bid (surprisingly as I expected it to go higher, not because I expected the auction house to use my second bid against me first).
Edited:
 
Dan S
Posts
23,129
Likes
51,632
I will add that this could also be a legitimate situation where two people just thought they would enter an unrealistically high bid to make sure they won the watch. I've seen this happen before, it's a risky strategy.
 
Davidt
Posts
12,872
Likes
22,252
Dan S Dan S
I will add that this could also be a legitimate situation where two people just thought they would enter an unrealistically high bid to make sure they won the watch. I've seen this happen before, it's a risky strategy.

Ah the old nuclear bid!
 
Franzjoni
Posts
94
Likes
64
[QUOTE="
They were both registered as phone bids over the email, their website was throwing an error so I had to bid by email, and my update was on the same email chain as well
[/QUOTE]

Hardcore! This is always my fear in online auctions. Thanks for sharing your experience with this special story!
 
Evitzee
Posts
7,519
Likes
13,896
In the old days it was called 'bidding off the chandelier', there has always been the opportunity for the auctioneer to juice the bid. I've sold at auction many times with good outcomes, but I rarely buy at auction. If you put in an absentee bid be comfortable with coughing up that, plus premium, if you win. In my experience the big houses, Sotheby's, Christie's, Phillips, play it pretty straight, no real experience with the smaller players.
Edited:
 
STANDY
Posts
16,853
Likes
47,844
At least you didn’t go Ashley

Ashley = The Mod that accidentally bid $55000 instead of $5500 on a gold Constellation deluxe and went to bed 😗
 
aprax
Posts
332
Likes
987
Well, for what it's worth I don't think you should be worried, because your raising the bid from 3500 to 4100 EUR could not have had any impact. If you hadn't raised it you would still have been the highest bidder.
We've all been there...
 
kaplan
Posts
2,605
Likes
3,043
This is the watch, white gold, I've been "stalking" all online auctions I can reach for 2 years, regular white gold C-Case's go for $2000+premium around average, a similar dial in yellow gold sold for $2800 net. recently and it took months for it to go, so long that I got too comfortable and regret not pushing it, that's why with this watch I pushed it, I like the non-polished case - I still hope I get it, in the eye of the beholder it's priceless

And here's the auction house, I didn't want to share it initially as I'm making accusations and I don't want to taint their name: https://www.millon.com/catalogue/vente1650-horlogerie/lot74-omega

There's still no reply but I'm waiting and the delay in a reply is concerning as well, it should've been a simple issue to solve instantly, like suggested even if something is amiss, I'll add the watch to my museum of C-Case's and pursue the situation later on, I hope this bad experience can help someone, their live bid system was problematic for me, I couldn't even watch the auction for example: https://drouot.com/l/17622361-omega-constellation--ref--1680

There's a hotel which does auctions, and they use an auction house to auction, as far as I assess this is the situation, and my correspondence was with Millon which is the auction house, I assessed that Drouot was the intermediary, and Millon was the driver, sometimes the intermediary can't get the auction application approved so I corresponded directly with Millon, but as I understand these are intertwined entities as Drouot seems to do the storage as well, unlike other auction houses they provide 60 days free storage so at least there won't be the added stress of preparing a delivery

I believe we have to make some noise to push change, I hope at least I can make a small nudge to this auction house to send a bid report along with an invoice for their auctions, I have no idea what kind of bids I went against


Screen Shot 2022-04-06 at 13.26.12.png
 
Skrotis
Posts
522
Likes
2,353
your actions tell me that you do not understand auctions.
An auction house's job is to treat bidders 'and buyers' information confidentially.
If you do not have confidence in the house, your only choice is to physically inspect the object and bid in the hall, otherwise you take a chance.
Auction house is to be equated with used car dealers in morals and ethics.
 
Mark020
Posts
6,273
Likes
9,833
I learned the hard way never to bid in advance. The auction house knows your bid and - tadaa - the bidding will than miraculously end at that level
 
dsio
Posts
33,162
Likes
37,894
STANDY STANDY
At least you didn’t go Ashley

Ashley = The Mod that accidentally bid $55000 instead of $5500 on a gold Constellation deluxe and went to bed 😗
Tbh that isn’t my worst auction buy, I love that watch and still got it cheap. In about 2009 or so I bought an ‘08 Chrysler Crossfire coupe from a salvage auction thinking it couldn’t be that bad, as luck would have it a month earlier Karmann who made the body panels went into receivership so there were zero parts available and I ended up offloading it to some crook that steals and rebirths cars for $2000 after spending $8000 on it. I was also drunk at the auction after a big lunch which is what led me to do something as stupid as buying a Chrysler or any sort to begin with.
 
Evitzee
Posts
7,519
Likes
13,896
At least it wasn't a Chrysler LeBaron convertible owned by some dentist named John Voight.
 
Peemacgee
Posts
6,010
Likes
9,305
Skrotis Skrotis
your actions tell me that you do not understand auctions.
An auction house's job is to treat bidders 'and buyers' information confidentially.
If you do not have confidence in the house, your only choice is to physically inspect the object and bid in the hall, otherwise you take a chance.

This.

Plus, if there was a bidder (or bidders) in the room, they wouldn't have a record of who was bidding as the paddle number is only recorded if you win the bidding for the lot.
I'm fairly sure that you are pissing in the wind if you think that the auction house will give you a record of bids, other than to perhaps say "we had numerous absentee and in-the-room bids".

For the record, the only time I have left an absentee bid at auction I won the lot with the maximum amount I entered - funny that....
Fortunately, it wasn't too much more than I expected the watch to go for and if I'd been there I would have bid up to that amount anyway - but I won't be doing it again.

You obviously like the watch, if you can afford it, just put it down it experience as you are unlikely to get any other satisfaction.
 
kaplan
Posts
2,605
Likes
3,043
Thanks for all the feedback and experiences, indeed I like the watch and it’s experience, I feel less bad, I’ll feel good after I have the watch in hand after a long journey to me

Maybe I even surprised them by increasing my bid last second, as it didn’t end up at 4100 😀
 
6 More Posts...
Sign up or log in to reply...