Trade Shows

In a little over a week, I'll be in Chicago at Wizard World Chicago, where for the first time since we started selling comic books, Mound City Auctions will be setting up a booth. I'm really, really looking forward to this - for the past 2 years, attending the Chicago comic con has been a big highlight of my summer months.

As of this evening, our August comic auction catalog is finally finished - all the written description of the lots is managed, and all I have left to do to fully realize the sale (aside from the advertising & the auction itself) is to take pictures & upload everything. The upload of the text will happen tomorrow morning, hopefully by the time noon rolls around I'll have the text for both days up on Auctionzip, and I'll have the catalog (at least the text based portion) uploaded onto the two platforms we are using for the sale - Proxibid & Auctionzip Live.

The next step after that is the advertising. With the completion of the text for the catalog, and the final upload process accomplished, we can create an adwords campaign targeted to the sale, using long tail search terms lifted directly from the catalog itself. This in turn will lead to increased traffic on the comic landing page, which in turn will direct interested parties to either of the two bidding platforms. The traditional media portion will include fliers for the trade show, signage & banners for the trade show, and a raffle we will hold at the comic convention, with the prize of an iPad 2. The raffle form will be used as a collection point for future bidders, with an included acceptance of advertising from us for future events & requests for consignments.

As far as the convention goes (and to get to the point of the title of this update) we are beginning what will hopefully be a long, successful showing at various trade shows. Our display was delivered today - a 10 foot sectional piece of curving backdrop with velcro/carpet backing, magnetic attachment points, lighting, and a small matching table. Our plan is to have a variety of banner style signage attached to the backdrop, and to have a flatscreen tv displayed on the table showing a looping video advertising our services.

The planning portion of the process for this upcoming comic auction is nearly done - and with not a moment to spare. I've been pulling 10 to 12 hour days, and that is probably going to keep up until the convention starts.

Oh well......at least this year I'll (hopefully) be able to get Patrick Stewart's autograph.

Status report

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.

Comic News

Okay, I've been holding off on writing on here for a couple of days, because I was waiting for some things to settle in and get decided on before we could go public about them. We finally have a date set and a location selected for the November comic book auction. The higher value books have been graded by the CGC, and we are in the process of getting them updated on our website. Soon we'll have the catalog done, and then we can really hit the media.

So, without further ado, the big, expensive comic book auction, will be taking place on November 1st and 2nd, at the Ameristar Casino in St. Charles MO. There will be a 1 day preview on October 31st. It is open to the public, and there will be a costume contest on the 31st - the person in the best costume will receive a voucher for $100.00 off at the comic auction.

With the location selected, and the date set, now all we have to do is fully prepare for the auction. This means that I'm going to be very busy designing advertising, calling potential bidders, leaving messages on comic collector's internet forums and message boards, meeting with potential bidders at places like Archon, and generally running around like a nerdy chicken with its head cut off. Fun times. Fun times...

House Auctions

We had another house auction today. This one sold for $89,900 to a nice couple who are planning on using it as a real estate investment - buy it now, while the market is down, and either rent it or sell in a few years when things have recovered some more. This is the second house we've sold in a week. This was also the second time we had tried to auction off this piece of property. The first time we tried to sell it, the minimum was unpublished, meaning that we (the auction company) knew how much the seller was willing to sell it for, but we weren't allowed to make that knowledge public. When you aren't allowed to tell someone what your actual sale price is, it makes them hesitant to bid on the property - not knowing how much it will actually cost prevents some people from being willing to participate at all. Think of it this way - say hypothetically that you wanted to buy a new car. You go to the lot, and find one you like, but when you start to ask how much the car is (so you can begin negotiating the price down) the dealer starts asking you how much you would be willing to pay for it. This would be fine, if you were talking with them about buying a couch, or something smaller. But when you are dealing with a major investment (like a car, a house, etc) its usually better for the buyer to know what they are getting into. And if you have the attention of the buyers (like at an auction, when you want to have as many potential buyers as possible), the more open the discussion is, the more likely you are to be able to actually move the property, whether said property is real estate or roller skates. The more information you have available on a piece of real estate, the easier it will be to convince a potential bidder that the property in question is worth their time to investigate, and possibly to purchase.

Recently, we've sold about 3 houses in the past month or so. The first one was in Festus, MO. It had 3 acres, a mother-in-law apartment in the basement, a 2 car garage, and was very private - the house sat back behind its sub-division, with a quarter mile long gravel driveway, and was surrounded by trees and bushes. That property was sold with no reserve - meaning that whatever the high bid was, that was the final selling price. Basically, when a bidder hears the words "no-reserve" or "absolute auction", a knowledgeable bidder realizes that if no one else registers to bid on that property, it can be had for an extremely reasonable price, because regardless of the lack of competition, the property will absolutely sell. In turn, absolute auctions are among the most volatile, because the lack of a reserve that must be met results typically in high levels of competition, which brings a better value. On the opposite side of the spectrum, there are unpublished minimums - which was the case when we first tried to sell the property we sold today. In those cases, there is a firm minimum, but beyond the seller and the auctioneer, the general bidding public is unaware of what the minimum required for purchase is. The middle ground, and the way that the majority of our real estate sales have taken place, is a published minimum, where the seller sets a price that they find acceptable for their property, the auctioneer advertises the sale with that price made public for the bidders to know how much is required to purchase the property, and then the real estate is sold to the highest bidder at or above that minimum purchase price. All three methods are viable, but all three methods have times when they are better for a particular piece of real estate as opposed to the other two methods.

Another Dollar...

...$159,900 individual dollars today, to be exact. The house auction I mentioned yesterday went splendidly. We had a total of 4 registered bidders, with around 10 people actually in attendance. The final bid came in at $145,400, with a 10% buyers premium. The opening bid we received was $75,000, and the bidding came down to two of the bidders ranging from five thousand dollar increments down to $100 dollar bids at the close. I'm going to see about getting the video of the auction uploaded to youtube and putting a link on here in a future post.

Take that, housing market and crazy economy!

Another day...

...another bunch of comics. We finished inventory on the comics for the auction yesterday, and today we began to lay out some further plans for the auction, including possible locations.

So far, the best candidate seems to be the Ameristar casino in St. Charles - but there's nothing written in stone yet. Its a nice place though, and I would be lying if I said I wouldn't like to hold the auction there. However, the costs have to be figured in, and we need to run comparisons between various possible locations before we agree to anything. Aside from that, we've got a real estate auction tomorrow for a house in Rockhill, MO, near Manchester Blvd. The house is the one pictured above.

Alright, business talk aside, personal talk begins. I think I'm going to try my hand at assembling a bassinet today. Or maybe not, but it's gonna have to happen soon. I've been trying to get all the baby stuff - the stroller, the car seat, the crib, etc. assembled at the rate of one every other day or so, but it's been a looooong week. I think there is still one shower left to go (Lisa somehow managed to end with like, four separate baby showers), and I'm running out of room in my house. It's a good thing that children are so small when they are born, or there wouldn't be any room left in here for Julia when she shows up. I've got to clear some of this stuff out.

I get paid large amounts to play with comic books...

...take that everyone I hated in High School.

No, seriously - we've got an auction coming up at Mound City that has like, 3,000+ vintage comic books, and for the past two months, whenever I haven't been setting up an auction, running an auction, or holding an open house for some real estate we were selling, I've been spending every minute possible at work preparing for the comic book auction.

The auction is going to be ridiculous. There are individual issues of comics, that retail for more than my house costs. No, I'm not exaggerating. You want proof? Here is the record price for Amazing Fantasy #15 - for those of you who aren't comic book geeks, that is the first appearance of Spider-Man.

We've got the first Silver Age Green Lantern, the first issue of The Avengers, the first appearance of the Justice League of America, the first issue of The X-Men, and many, many others. This auction is going to kick crazy amounts of ass. Crazy, crazy, craaaaaazy amounts of ass.

As soon as we have the location and date nailed down, you'll hear about it.