Back to the July 13 Live Auctioneers experience

I got a note saying https://lloydralstontoys.com/ now has their own live bidding.  Perhaps other bidders got messed up as well and they brought it in-house?

I, too was involved in a contested final bid and in fact presented my case in less than three minutes of the lot's close - backed up with screenshots of my higher bid that had been included in an e-mail sent to Lloyd Ralston, the day prior to auction.  In my researches I learned that "In 2002, the NYC-based company formed a marketing partnership with eBay to introduce eBay Live Auctions. This alliance of LiveAuctioneers and eBay enabled auction houses worldwide to go online with their live sales—a development that changed the auction business forever. "  and I consequently sent them a heated review concerning their's and e-bay's monopolisation of all commercial endeavour!

I do believe this brings us back to the conversation of whether a wider or narrower and more discerning market is the best way to realise value on these collections. And I cannot help thinking that auction houses like Lloyd Ralston might be better-off without big brother.

On a quite separate note I had a long and informative chat with France's Customs (Douanes) today, in which I learned that by international agreement, Toys are subject to import duty and their six-digit merchandise code begins with the two digits 95 (denoting their chapter).  Model cars come under a separate chapter beginning with the two digits 97 for Objets D'Arts and Collectable which are not - as Chris Sweetman noted on the previous thread - subject to duties. Though I was told this distinction must be clearly documented on the labelling at dispatch.  Furthermore, I was told by French Douanes that VAT on Chapter 97 imports should be subject to 5.5% VAT but that Group La Poste - which is another international cartel conglomeration, will only levy the standard 20%.  The advisor's implication being that with correct labelling and a wisely chosen carrier, costs should be greatly reduced.

" I do believe this brings us back to the conversation of whether a wider or narrower and more discerning market is the best way to realise value on these collections. And I cannot help thinking that auction houses like Lloyd Ralston might be better-off without big brother."

They don't care......the bottom line is sale and collect the premium. They invest so much time in listing. I am not surprise they don't reply to complains.

By the way, some of these lots are already listed on Ebay.

By the way, some of these lots are already listed on Ebay.

Thanks for this,  I have just noted that the two items I was interested in have just appeared on Ebay at around 2.8 times the all up price paid on the Ralston auction showing that speculators and dealers are very active in this hobby.

At the risk of maybe beating a dead horse, I thought I'd provide a further update that just came in, on my saga with Live Auctioneers.  After reporting what seemed to be in inconsistency/error in their bidding process I reported my situation to the Better Business Bureau since Live Auctioneers never responded in any meaningful way to my emails or phone calls to them over a number of days.   Live Auctioneers finally woke up and responded to the BBB.  Here is their reply:

MESSAGE FROM Live Auctioneers via the BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU:

Hi John,

I'm sorry to hear that you didn't win the lot you bid on in the July 13th auction.  I checked the bidding history on Lot 0457 which I will summarize below:

The auctioneer opened with your leading absentee bid of $90. The auctioneer then accepted a floor bid of $100. The system submitted your absentee bid of $110 which the auctioneer then accepted. You were outbid again by the floor (now at $120), prompting the system to bid $130 for you. The floor bidder placed a bid of $140, and the system sent your bid of $150. The floor bid $160 was then submitted and accepted by the auctioneer. Since your maximum absentee bid was $160, the system stopped bidding on your behalf.  When no other bids came in, the auctioneer sold the lot to the floor bidder for $160.

I can understand your frustration especially as the lot was sold at the same bid amount you had placed.  When you are bidding against a floor bidder, your bids submitted are always the next bid increment. Had you been bidding against another LiveAuctioneers bidder, your bids would have had priority as the first to place an absentee bid until your maximum absentee bid of $160 was reached or until no one else bid against you. Unfortunately, you were bidding against a floor bidder, so the bids were always for the next bid increment. Your bid happened to come out of turn, and the floor bidder outbid you at the winning price of $160 (which happened to be your maximum bid), simply because it was his/her turn to bid, not yours.

I hope this helped clarify what happened. If you have questions, please reply to my colleague on the Bidder Support team or send another email to info@liveauctioneers.com.

Regards,

LiveAuctioneers

Kudos to the BBB for obtaining an explanation to what happened to my bid on this item.   I would say however, that this situation with online bidders and floor bidders is not explained in any of Live Auctioneers website information that I found.    So my conclusion is that anyone who did win an auction via online bidding was very lucky given that apparently live bidders can trump online bidders with the same dollar bid.   In my opinion that seems patently unfair.

This does seem unfair since your max bid was EARLIER. I've never heard of a live bid accepted vs. an earlier online bid for the same maximum. I wonder if it would have been different if you were bidding online with Ralston directly? 

@mg-harv If I would have been interested to bid on any of these items, I would have gone directly with Ralston. Was there any benefits to deal with LiveAuctioneers.com and not the real auction house?

As far as I am concerned, there was only one model I was interested in the entire listing. I was not interested in the other model of the lot.  Last week, I found it on Ebay UK and made a reasonable offer that was accepted. I may pay a little more but I don't have the burden to buy models I don't care at all.

Posted by: @nickies

@mg-harv If I would have been interested to bid on any of these items, I would have gone directly with Ralston. Was there any benefits to deal with LiveAuctioneers.com and not the real auction house?

As far as I am concerned, there was only one model I was interested in the entire listing. I was not interested in the other model of the lot.  Last week, I found it on Ebay UK and made a reasonable offer that was accepted. I may pay a little more but I don't have the burden to buy models I don't care at all.

I do not know if there was a benefit from bidding directly with Ralston but if future auctions come up that I am interested in that is what I will do.   Interestingly, of the two NEO items I lost I was only really interested in one but both of them are now on Ebay from a Seattle based seller at almost three times the per item winning amount on the auction.   Apparently this auction bidder traveled across the country to bid live at the auction site??

@john-quilter I know who he is. I bought once 3 years ago and will never again. His entire inventory is overpriced. It's cheaper to buy a rare model in Europe and paying the shipping cost.

Posted by: @nickies

@john-quilter I know who he is. I bought once 3 years ago and will never again. His entire inventory is overpriced. It's cheaper to buy a rare model in Europe and paying the shipping cost.

Looking at my records, I see the only models I have ever bought from him was back in 2018 when I got these two Vector Models made in Ukraine,  a four door and two door 1959 Plymouth station wagons.

The benefit for using the LiveAuctioneers website was that you could pre-bid online and then bid online during the auction.  I used it without issue both before and during.  I was outbid on all but one lot.  I had no problems with them luckily.

Now they have their own online system on their website - so maybe the issues John had will be fixed.