Okay, so I've not been keeping this thing updated AT ALL, and that should probably change. I'm going to try and post on here at least once a week, and see if I can keep that up.
So, here is what has been going down at Mound City Auctions, and with me in general.
lessee...last update was in November of 2009. Wow...just wow. We've held a second comic book auction, last September. Broke another 98 or so world records at that one, and solved our shipping problems with comics - actually had a lot of positive feedback from our bidders. We currently have over 27,000 comics on consignment, and I'm going to be sending off roughly 350 comics to the Certified Guarantee Corporation (CGC) tomorrow for grading. Those books, and around 5,000 others, will be sold at our upcoming August 26, 27, & 28th auction here in St. Louis. So far, that is the only listing for that sale - and it only has the partial inventory list for the comics. The catalog is being processed - I still have to organize the comics into lot order (the lots are basically created, but don't have estimated grades on the raw comics yet, which I'm doing as I attach lot stickers to the bags & boards). Additionally, we will be selling the first 8,000 or so lower end Bronze, Copper, and Modern comics in an auction taking place on June 9th at the same location as the August comic auction, the American Legion post on Midland Blvd in Overland, MO. We've started to use that location as an auction hall, in order to keep our overhead low rather than buy or lease a building.
Our first Civil War Auction *(picture above is of some of the many, many swords from that auction) is coming up on July 22, 23, & 24th, also at the American Legion post. And our first Wine Auction is happening this Sunday - and is being live simulcast on both Proxibid and LiveAuctioneers. Which brings me to something I can actually speak a bit longer on and have something other than plugs in this post. Yay!
Live simulcast auctions are one thing - basically you have a live audience, like a normal auction setting - people sitting in chairs or standing around a tent, or a house, holding bid cards & generally having a good time. In addition to that, you have (if you are in a hall) a guy sitting on a computer and receiving bids from online participants, who typically are viewing information on the current lot on their home computers, as well as watching a live video and audio feed showing the auctioneer and the crowd at the live auction. You can also run remote, basically have the guy on the computer back at the office, and have him relaying bids through a headset to another guy on a phone at the auction site - this works well if you are doing the sale on location, and the auctioneer and crowd of onsite bidders have to be mobile to participate in the auction. We have been doing online auctions for a couple of years now, with pretty solid success. There are several online bidding platforms, and so far, my personal favorite is Proxibid - they have a combination of a knowledgeable staff, solid agents/representatives, good programming, and an easy to use application for both bidders and for auctioneers. However, it isn't perfect, and there are still some issues that tend to crop up from time to time - not that these are insurmountable, or completely the fault of Proxibid. For example, if you loose internet access - or have another technical issue (computer freezes, or something) you are forced to either continue the auction using the pre-bids (absentee bids) left from the online bidders until you can get the application online again, or you can switch to non-lotted items (if you have any). If you have any familiarity with auctions, you will know that anything which breaks the rhythm of the auctioneer's chant - even something as simple as taking a drink of water at the wrong time - can steal away the auction's momentum, which takes time to recover from. If you are planning on running a live simulcast auction, be ABSOLUTELY sure to check and double check ALL your technical gear - make sure your computer is running properly, make sure your internet connection isn't buggy, etc.
Running a live simulcast auction on multiple bidding platforms doesn't just double the effort, it goes exponential. The November 2009 comic auction was live simulcast on both Proxibid and iCollector. There is already a lot of effort & time that goes into crafting a catalog for a single online bidding platform - and typically the format of the data which one platform requires for uploading a completed catalog is completely different from that of another platform - additionally you must perform "idiot checks" to make sure you didn't leave a typo in that switches lot order on anything - otherwise you'll have one platform bidding on lot 95 while the other platform is bidding on lot 96, for example. This can cause massive issues. So caution is most definitely proscribed.
All those warnings aside - running an auction with a solid catalog of valuable items, on multiple online bidding platforms, in concurrence with a live onsite auction, can be very, very good for you, your bidders, and your clients. It helps widen the pool of available bidders, increasing the chance for people not previously exposed to your client's property to the property in order to bid & win it, increasing the competitive price of the goods in question, and in the end, creating more value for your client, and for your company. If you have the technical prowess & fortitude to make it happen, it can pay off.
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