I sent the following email to Jay and received a prompt reply.
Hi Jay,
I know you are busy so I'll try to be brief. I live in Birmingham AL and have already booked a hotel room in Tulsa and trailer in order to attend this auction. The recent addition of remote bidding has given me some concerns as I'm committing approximately $400 just to attend and I see some possible issues arising form the remote bidding. As a member of Pinside, a very popular and active pinball forum, I am seeing that my concerns are well shared and some folks are waffling on even going. I would be much more comfortable with a more reasonable deposit by the remote bidders, similar to what I will invest, $400 base, $50 per auction perhaps. You then settle the difference with a partial refund or additional charge. Below is a link to a Pinside discussion for your reference.
regards
Bill,
Wow, I am sorry. First thank you for bringing this to may attention.
I have not done this before. I asked for suggestions from a local collector and I came up with the $ 50 per unit. It's for $ 50 per unit. I will not have someone standing there, all day with one bidder, after they have asked for only one machine. We will bid for them on the machines they want, and only if they have given us $ 50 per machine. They do not get their money back unless they are the winning bidder or the second high bidder on that machine.
I understand your investment is substantial. I would like to encourage you to still attend. The advantage of being there is that you will know exactly how the condition is on that machine. People that bid remotely will not have any recourse if the machine they win the bid on doesn't satisfy them due to condition. That is my biggest concern. I would rather have everyone attend.
I did state on my website that I was working on a solution to bid remotely. So, I hope potential buyers will give me a little allowance for trying to accommodate everyone.
Keep in mind, it is $ 50 paid upfront per machine that a remote bidder wants to bid on. I had a guy tell me yesterday that he wanted to bid on all of them. I said "simple, 160 machines times $ 50 each is $ 8,000, where is your credit card".
Please feel free to call me at 918-639-7653. I don't see the link to the Pinside discussion. Please feel free to copy and paste my response to the Pinside discussion, I am not a member.
P.S. I have not sold 160 Pinball machines before. I also know, not many have had a collection like this one to sell. Many hard to find, special machines. Please consider attending or bidding remotely.
Thanks Again,
Jay Litchfield
BidLoud.com
918-639-7653