Winston Salem Auction Tesults 1/16/16

Thank you for taking the time to post this!

Andrew

small list compared to past auctions. decent prices on most is that because condition was poor?

is that +10 or 15 or 20% hammer premium?

Who got Austin Powers! Anyone on Pinside?

Operators pay a flat 10 dollar fee to purchase. Many non operators get around this too. State tax is low in NC think 6 or 6.5.

Home or Coin op enthusiasts pay 10 percent.

It cost 10 to enter any item to sell, no matter a sign or pinball machine or box of pcb boards. You never pay more than 100 dollars to sell an item. Commission on 8200 Monster Bash would only be 110 net 8090 to seller.

That sounds like a very fair deal for all involved. If anything buyer benefits

Not all the time. The seller can do a "buy back" and only cost them $10. Not very fair to the buyer when they run up price.
Not every one does but it happens.

Seems to me that if the sellers cannot bid on their games they would not bring them. Basically resulting in very little pins at all. Most "buyers" seem to attend to mingle and enjoy the event while getting to play some free pinball. Big crowds with only a fraction bidding from what I have seen over the last few years. As it has been said before, if you attend to find good deals on pins you most likely be disappointed however good deals do show up from time-to-time.

Wasn't much free pinball as most didn't seem to work, but agree you don't want to scare away sellers.

I'm a newbie but my take on it is that buy backs are pretty close to shill bidding and pretty lame, esp if it only costs them $10. A better solution (which the auction co may not offer) would be to have a starting bid price on the machine. That way people don't need to waste their time if just looking for a deal.

Given the TZs didn't seem playable, based on those prices either it was a buy back, the buyer took a big gamble, or had the chance to fully check it out somehow. MB was playable, but that price is steep for the condition, IMHO. In fact, most of those prices seem really high unless they were playable or easier to examine.

I would say it is shill bidding, no doubt. Undisclosed reserves would work which is the way most car auctions do it. I have always wondered why they did not do that. I would say that operators do change there mind on what they would let something go for, depends on how other items they are selling have sold. Buyers are the same, anyone that buys at auctions has bid more than what they originally set as the max they would go...part of the fun.

What is bad is when a seller wins his piece back then says I did not mean to bid and it goes to the last person bidding, that is wrong but I have seen that happen a few times. Regulars typically know the operators/sellers that are bringing games so you know who is shill bidding. The auctioneers definitely know because they will always look at to see if they want to let it go, at least the common sellers.

I do not sell at auctions but my guess is that as much as 70-90% of pins are shill bid on, well maybe not bid on but the owner is there ready to bid if needed.

I personally do not think any of the games at this auction were buy backs,

The auctions I have been to charge the buyer 15% to 20% premium and the seller pays $10 to enter each piece in the auction plus 10% to 15% of the selling price. So sometimes a seller may buy back his machine but will make a cash sale, out the back door, for less than the buy back price. Or the buyer pays the buy back price but skips the 15-20% premium.

Holy crap Monster Bash!
Here's to hoping for a remake.

How about all the times when Jason (auctioneer) bids up an item with supposed multiple (phantom) bids of over perhaps 5-7 hundred dollars just to realize seconds later that he is then trying to get an actual REAL starting bid of 100 dollars or less. Just another form of fishing I guess.............