Art Auction Question
Dr. Cat
Karl Jorgensen (xyd...@smart.net) wrote:
: What happens when the same person puts five consecutive bids on a piece?
[snip]
: My guess is people would do this in order to
: force the piece to auction, thus eliminating the risk of someone
: outbidding you at the last minute. However, I heard that a piece with
: five consecutive bids by the same person _doesn't_ go to auction -- it
: goes directly to the person who put the five bids on it. Is this true?
: It would seem pretty unfair if that were the case, because that means
: nobody else gets a chance to bid on it.
I heard about this incident from the person that filled the bid sheets on
two or three pieces. All this is hearsay and or speculation on my part,
so I hope anyone who knows better and spots any inaccuracies in my report
of the situation will come along and correct them. My impression, by the
way, is that this has never happened at any previous CF art show, that it
had never been thought about by anyone before, and that only the one
person did it this year & he didn't intend for it to turn out the way it did.
Apparently there's this phenomenon of trying to get pieces by lurking in
the art show until the last minute, watching one or more pieces, and if
anybody writes another bid below yours you quickly write a higher bid in.
I don't know how much of this is done to get pieces that simply don't get
enough bids to go to auction, and how much is done by people who are
planning not to attend the auction & thinking their rivals probably won't
either. Given the length of the auction I guess I can sympathize. I
haven't seen this last minute horde phenomenon at other cons I've been
to, but whatever. Just realized this year that Confurence art shows are
working that way, so I'm not sure yet whether I think the rules should be
changed to discourage it or not. It is kinda weird definitely. :X)
Anyway, the person who did the consecutive bids thing wanted to defend
some pieces that were across the room from each other. Rather than
repeatedly bouncing back and forth through the crowded room, he had an
idea. He asked at the art show desk if he was allowed to follow up his
own bids with higher ones on the same bid sheet, and they said yes. So
he figured that by filling the bid sheet with one dollar increments he
would end up placing a bid only four dollars higher than the minimum bid
& would guarantee that the piece would go to the auction, which he was
planning to attend & where he was quite willing to compete for those
pieces with any other interested bidders. Then he could go to the other
side of the room and calmly stand vigil over the other pieces he wanted
to defend & not have to keep running around the room. That was his plan.
What happened, though, is that he was called up to the counter and told
that he would have to buy those pieces at the last bid price he wrote
down, since there was only one bidder on the sheet the art show rules as
written specified that it would not go to auction. He said that he
wanted them to go to auction and didn't think this was fair to the artist.
But they insisted that wasn't what was going to happen, even though the
person talking to him seemed very displeased about it. I'm guessing they
were displaed at him for "finding and exploiting a loophole" even though
he had done so only by accident & was clearly quite willing to have that
loophole ignored and see justice served.
Now from the side of the story I heard, the point to wonder about is, why
couldn't the art show have simply ignored the letter of the rules, gone
with the presumable spirit of the rules, and sent those two or three
pieces to the auction? Who would have been hurt by that decision? Not
the person who filled the bid sheet, who not only was willing to have the
piece go to auction, but would have preferred it for the artist's sake.
Not the artist, who would have gotten either just as much money or more,
but not any less. Maybe a little extra work and waiting for the art show
staff, and all the bidders who attended the auction, but not enough to
worry about. The one thing I can think is that perhaps Jazmyn feels
honor bound to stick to the letter of the written rules for the art show
& not to change them in mid-con, which I could certainly understand. And
in any case, I'm operating from incomplete and possibly flawed
information about the situation, so I may be missing something important
here.
In any event, the "damage" was fairly contained, affecting just two or
three pieces in one year's con. I am sure that now that this has come up
the rules will be modified to prevent any such incident at next year's
con and everything will be fine. The bidder in question also told me
that he bid really high on one of the other pieces by the same artist
that did make it to the auction, so maybe that makes up for it a little.
The art in question was by Jack Kavanaugh, so if anyone's concerned that
he might have lost a few bucks in sales due to this mixup, you could do
worse than to buy a print or two from him the next time you get the
chance, to compensate. If you like his art & sense of humor as much as I
do you'll hardly find it much of an imposition to make on yourself. ;X)
*-------------------------------------------**-----------------------------*
Dr. Cat / Dragon's Eye Productions || Free alpha test:
*-------------------------------------------** http://www.bga.com/furcadia
Furcadia - a new graphic mud for PCs! || Let your imagination soar!
*-------------------------------------------**-----------------------------*
(Disclaimer: When bidding in an auction, it is not necessary to wave a
banana in the air while shouting one's bid in order to get the
auctioneer's attention.)
cmelv...@aol.com
In article <5c88sl$th3$1...@news.smart.net>, xyd...@smart.net wrote:
>
>Another question regarding the art auction:
>
>What happens when the same person puts five consecutive bids on a piece?
>(i.e., they outbid themselves by $1 each time). I hear this is frowned
>upon by the art show staff. My guess is people would do this in order to
>force the piece to auction, thus eliminating the risk of someone
>outbidding you at the last minute. However, I heard that a piece with
>five consecutive bids by the same person _doesn't_ go to auction -- it
>goes directly to the person who put the five bids on it. Is this true?
>It would seem pretty unfair if that were the case, because that means
>nobody else gets a chance to bid on it.
They would if they went to the auction.
The point is well taken, though. I suspect that the people tending
the art-show would be checking the slips beforehand (they did this
periodically to see if anything had reached the auction point) for any
such misuse, and, if the rules do indeed rule out such a practice, then
the bid sheet would be rendered invalid and a new one set up. Probably
the violator would be found and reprimanded; probably would have his
bidding rights revoked as well. (Someone from the con could better
address this; I'm making reasonable assumptions here, but don't know if
this is actually the procedure they follow.)
However -- I believe there was at least -one- piece in the Saturday
auction where a bidder overbid himself on the sheet; whether this was
accidental or intentional I don't know, nor do I know if he bid the entire
sheet.
John Cawley
>Karl Jorgensen (xyd...@smart.net) wrote:
>: What happens when the same person puts five consecutive bids on a
>:piece? [snip]
Dr. Cat wrote...
>I heard about this incident from the person that filled the bid sheets
>on two or three pieces. [snip] He was called up to the counter and
>told that he would have to buy those pieces at the last bid price he
>wrote down, since there was only one bidder on the sheet the art show
>rules as written specified that it would not go to auction.
I got briefly involved with this when Jack asked me to help talk to the
art show folks. It seems the lady who made this decision thought she
was punishing the bidder by MAKING him buy it. She felt this would
keep people from pulling the same trick, or forcing a piece to auction.
While I understood where her logic was coming from, I told her that it
was faulty, and actually cost the artist money. She stated that she
may have erred, and took full responsibility for the action. She also
offered the artist the chance to withdraw the pieces. [Jack did not.]
The short end is that this is apparently NOT policy at CF. Hopefully,
the rules will be ammended to clear up the problem before CF9. Due to
this incident, a number of key artists have stated they may boycot the
art show if such an ammendment is not made. Their opinion is
basically, 'What auction?'
/\__/\
topfox
Karl Jorgensen
Another question regarding the art auction:
What happens when the same person puts five consecutive bids on a piece?
(i.e., they outbid themselves by $1 each time). I hear this is frowned
upon by the art show staff. My guess is people would do this in order to
force the piece to auction, thus eliminating the risk of someone
outbidding you at the last minute. However, I heard that a piece with
five consecutive bids by the same person _doesn't_ go to auction -- it
goes directly to the person who put the five bids on it. Is this true?
It would seem pretty unfair if that were the case, because that means
nobody else gets a chance to bid on it.
--
___________________________________________________________________
"Don't blame me. I wanted to talk about cool furries."
Xydexx Squeakypony - http://www.smart.net/~xydexx/welcome.htm
Glen Wooten
cmelv...@aol.com wrote:
: However -- I believe there was at least -one- piece in the Saturday
: auction where a bidder overbid himself on the sheet; whether this was
: accidental or intentional I don't know, nor do I know if he bid the entire
: sheet.
There was one piece that went to the Saturday auction that had the last 2
bids by the same person, I put this down to someone not keeping track of
the things he was buying (he jumped himself by $10, as I recall...)
There did appear to be a bit of a problem with people jumping themselves
at the show, and while it's not against the rules (as it's pretty silly
to do it, no need to make a rule against it...), it is a bit unethical -
or at least very unfair, both to other bidders and to the artist. I'm
pretty sure that there will be an amendment to the rules next year...
--
Glen Wooten
(jag...@netcom.com)
(alternate: jag...@pro-amber.cts.com)
cmelv...@aol.com
In article <5c8mn7$11...@news3.realtime.net>, c...@bga.com wrote:
>Apparently there's this phenomenon of trying to get pieces by lurking in
>the art show until the last minute, watching one or more pieces, and if
>anybody writes another bid below yours you quickly write a higher bid in.
>I don't know how much of this is done to get pieces that simply don't get
>enough bids to go to auction, and how much is done by people who are
>planning not to attend the auction & thinking their rivals probably won't
>either. Given the length of the auction I guess I can sympathize. I
>haven't seen this last minute horde phenomenon at other cons I've been
>to, but whatever.
The main purpose of "stalking the bid", as so many do, is simply to
make sure that you're the highest bidder on a piece that you really want.
There were quite a few of us in the show during the last hour simply
making sure we weren't being outbid, and to check on which, if any, of the
pieces we wanted went to the auction. (And, of course, many of the
artists were there to see how well their respective panels were doing.)
Any piece that I was outbid on on the sheet, I went and defended in the
auction. (Usually successfully.)
Trot Fox
Terry Whittier wrote:
>
> Dr. Cat (c...@bga.com) wrote:
>
> : (Disclaimer: When bidding in an auction, it is not necessary to wave a
> : banana in the air while shouting one's bid in order to get the
> : auctioneer's attention.)
>
I wonder if Dr Cat has ever had a Banana Banchee?
(I've only had the virgin version TYVM...) ;)
--
Trot Fox / My sanity is saved and threatened
http://web2.airmail.net/trotfox5/ / by the absorption of much Fantasy.
Brian Henderson
cmelv...@aol.com wrote:
> The point is well taken, though. I suspect that the people tending
>the art-show would be checking the slips beforehand (they did this
>periodically to see if anything had reached the auction point) for any
>such misuse, and, if the rules do indeed rule out such a practice, then
>the bid sheet would be rendered invalid and a new one set up. Probably
>the violator would be found and reprimanded; probably would have his
>bidding rights revoked as well. (Someone from the con could better
>address this; I'm making reasonable assumptions here, but don't know if
>this is actually the procedure they follow.)
I had one question though about a possible loophole that perhaps no
one has considered.
There was one Roz Gibson piece this year that got me thinking about
this. On that piece, the minimum bid was $50 and someone bid that
amount. The second bid was $500.
Now according to the rules as I've seen them, if an invalid bid is put
on a piece of art, the person before would get the piece. If, as an
example, the Roz Gibson piece, the $500 bid was invalid for some
reason, whoever bid the minimum bid would get it.
So what is to stop someone from bidding the minimum bid and then
following that up with an invalid bidder number and an outrageous bid
that no one will beat? If I put down a bid of $20 on a piece and then
bid $2000 from a non-existent bidder number, do I get the piece for
$20 with no chance of competition?
Something to think about.
-Brian
Rachel Cawley
In <5c88sl$th3$1...@news.smart.net> xyd...@smart.net (Karl Jorgensen)
writes:
>Another question regarding the art auction:
>
>What happens when the same person puts five consecutive bids on a
piece?
>(i.e., they outbid themselves by $1 each time). I hear this is
frowned
>upon by the art show staff. My guess is people would do this in order
to
>force the piece to auction, thus eliminating the risk of someone
>outbidding you at the last minute. However, I heard that a piece with
>five consecutive bids by the same person _doesn't_ go to auction -- it
>goes directly to the person who put the five bids on it. Is this
true?
>It would seem pretty unfair if that were the case, because that means
>nobody else gets a chance to bid on it.
con. I believe on several of his pieces too. In my opinion that art
was *stolen* because it went for a very very low amount that had
no chance of being raised.
I know the artshow is understaffed and have alot of responsibility
but I do hope they come up with some sort of rule against this.
Maybe making that person pay the after artshow bid?
Cataroo
cmelv...@aol.com
In article <32e9117c...@news.linkline.com>, BHend...@linkline.com
wrote:
>So what is to stop someone from bidding the minimum bid and then
>following that up with an invalid bidder number and an outrageous bid
>that no one will beat? If I put down a bid of $20 on a piece and then
>bid $2000 from a non-existent bidder number, do I get the piece for
>$20 with no chance of competition?
Again, I would think (making another reasonable assumption, giving
the con the benefit of the doubt) that someone would check the bidder
number of such an outrageous bid -- just in case. Everybody who had a
bidder number had to register for it. I doubt a phony number would have
gotten very far.
More troublesome would be somebody using another person's number.
But I think this would be routed out fast as well. There were some
duplicate numbers accidently given out this year that were quickly rounded
up and sorted out; I expect a phony would soon be discovered.
David Schneberger
While we are talking art show questions I have a one.
Can one find what they made on their work? I didn't see the final bids
on my pieces?
cmelv...@aol.com
cmelv...@aol.com
In article <32e9b9e5...@news.linkline.com>, BHend...@linkline.com
wrote:
>Even if we don't use a really ridiculous bid, I saw a lot of people
>making $50-75 bid increments, even on relatively small min bid items,
>did anyone question that? If you don't catch it until Sunday
>afternoon when people were picking up art, what would they do?
I don't really see any problem here, though. If a person really
wants to bid that high in order to ensure that he gets the piece, where's
the harm? That's the idea of bidding. So long as it's a genuine bid, and
he fully intends on bidding.
I was out bid on one of the KEVIN & KELL originals by someone who
actually doubled my bid. The minimum was $100, which I bid, and he
immediately went to $200. That was annoying, I admit, but I know who it
was, and I know that the bid was real and that he bought the piece after
the show. So it was my loss, but his and Bill Holbrook's gain. (I got
one of the other K&K originals instead.)
Even on the smal pieces, I don't see it as a problem, not at those
increments. It all falls under what the artwork is worth to the people
bidding on it. It might be silly depending on what they're throwing away,
but it's their choice.
Sean Malloy
c...@bga.com (Dr. Cat) wrote:
>Karl Jorgensen (xyd...@smart.net) wrote:
>Anyway, the person who did the consecutive bids thing wanted to defend
>some pieces that were across the room from each other. Rather than
>repeatedly bouncing back and forth through the crowded room, he had an
>idea. He asked at the art show desk if he was allowed to follow up his
>own bids with higher ones on the same bid sheet, and they said yes. So
>he figured that by filling the bid sheet with one dollar increments he
>would end up placing a bid only four dollars higher than the minimum bid
>& would guarantee that the piece would go to the auction, which he was
>planning to attend & where he was quite willing to compete for those
>pieces with any other interested bidders. Then he could go to the other
>side of the room and calmly stand vigil over the other pieces he wanted
>to defend & not have to keep running around the room. That was his plan.
Then he was stupid. The way to do that is to put down _four_ bids,
raising yourself each time. If no one else bids on the piece, you get
it at your last bid. If someone else bids, that's the fifth bid, and
with two bidders on the bid sheet, it goes to auction.
--
Sean R. Malloy | American Non Sequitur
Naval Medical Center | Society
San Diego, CA 92134-5000 |
mal...@cris.com | "We may not make sense,
srma...@snd10.med.navy.mil | but we do like pizza"
*NOTE* Remove the '_' in my email address for replies;
it is there to stop automatic remailers
cmelv...@aol.com
In article <terminotaur-25...@204.83.169.143>,
termi...@dlcwest.com wrote:
> Can one find what they made on their work? I didn't see the final bids
>on my pieces?
The con generally sends an accounting within a few weeks.
Roz Gibson
In article <19970125172...@ladder01.news.aol.com>, cmelv...@aol.com
says...
Umm...try a month or two. Last year one peice I did that went for a goodly
sum at the art auction had the buyer back out of paying for it, and I didn't
find out untill I got my check a couple months later. Luckily for me the
person who was outbid at the auction was willing to buy it for a slightly
lesser price, but I'm still peeved that the art show didn't even TELL me about
this until I called to inquire why my check was much less than it should have
been.
Roz
>
>
Bruce Wilhite
Glen Wooten <jag...@netcom.com> wrote in article
<jaguar1E...@netcom.com>...
> Glen Wooten
If ConFurence staff cannot clear the art show room - and keep it clear -
like was done at CFEast, then I see nothing unethical about jumping
yourself and putting a piece into auction where you can defend. The rumor
I heard during the con, before the art show ended, was that certain art
show volunteer staff see nothing wrong in putting down the very final, last
bid, on a bid sheet that has not been filled up, after all is closed up on
Sunday. It appears to be viewed by some volunteers as 'one of the perks of
the position'. This was told to me by one person, and so I consider it in
the rumor category.
If I HAVE TO HAVE A PIECE (which did not happen at CF8), I intend to
register for the con twice, pay twice and so get two member numbers, and
then apply for two bidder numbers. Then I will jump myself all day.
Seems more than fair - I pay for the con twice, and the piece goes to
auction where the artist typically gets the best deal (though not always).
Maybe I will give this scheme a try at CF9. Either that or convince a
friend to jump me with their own bidder number. Bottom line is the room
should be cleared, and art show volunteers need to play by the same set of
rules the rest of us live with on con Friday, then on Saturday, then for
two hours on Sunday.
By the way - I think CF8 Art Show Staff did a great job this year; great
show, lovely art, fun con. Better art show lighting would be appreciated
for CF9, however.
-Bruce Wilhite
Brian Henderson
cmelv...@aol.com wrote:
> Again, I would think (making another reasonable assumption, giving
>the con the benefit of the doubt) that someone would check the bidder
>number of such an outrageous bid -- just in case. Everybody who had a
>bidder number had to register for it. I doubt a phony number would have
>gotten very far.
Even if we don't use a really ridiculous bid, I saw a lot of people
making $50-75 bid increments, even on relatively small min bid items,
did anyone question that? If you don't catch it until Sunday
afternoon when people were picking up art, what would they do? It's
too late to do anything but give it to the person who made the initial
bid since you can't prove *THEY* did anything improper.
-Brian
Dr. Skorzy MacFarlaighn
Brian Henderson wrote:
> Oh, and I agree, it is perfectly valid if it's a valid bid, but what
> if it isn't? The art show staff has better things to do than check
> every single bid every day against the valid bidder numbers. The
> purpose of putting a large bid on a piece is to discourage others from
> bidding against you, to show everyone that you are serious about
> winning the piece.
I don't think it would be that taxing to the artshow staff to take a
gander around the artshow and eyeball the bidsheets for suspicious
looking bids. It would take one person maybe 10-15 minutes to check
every bidsheet in the artshow (comparing an artshow to the one of CFE2's
size).
I think this occasional "policing" is a reasonable checkpoint for the
artshow staff.
>
> So we're back to people making minimum bids, then adding a false
> larger bid on the same piece and getting the piece at minimum after
> the show because no one caught it at the time.
Perhaps the false larger bid may not be "large" enough to send up
warning flags. In this case, it slips through.
-Skorzy
--
J. Scott Rogers (Dr. Skorzy MacFarlaighn / rat-Biorg Physician)
UMASS Medical Center
Dept. of Biochemistry ** sko...@ma.ultranet.com **
Program in Molecular Medicine ** jeff....@ummed.edu **
+----------------------------------------------------+
| "The Home for Tenured Graduate Students" |
| http://www.ummed.edu:8000/pub/j/jrogers |
+----------------------------------------------------+
| "Tales from the Biorg Universe" |
| http://www.ummed.edu:8000/pub/j/jrogers/tftbu.html |
+----------------------------------------------------+
cmelv...@aol.com
In article <32e9117c...@news.linkline.com>, BHend...@linkline.com
wrote:
>So what is to stop someone from bidding the minimum bid and then
>following that up with an invalid bidder number and an outrageous bid
>that no one will beat? If I put down a bid of $20 on a piece and then
>bid $2000 from a non-existent bidder number, do I get the piece for
>$20 with no chance of competition?
Again, I would think (making another reasonable assumption, giving
the con the benefit of the doubt) that someone would check the bidder
number of such an outrageous bid -- just in case. Everybody who had a
bidder number had to register for it. I doubt a phony number would have
gotten very far.
cmelv...@aol.com
cmelv...@aol.com
In article <01bc0a9f$f3652060$2ee41fcc@home486>, "Bruce wrote:
>I see nothing unethical about jumping
>yourself and putting a piece into auction where you can defend.
But if you already have the high bid, then what's the point? You
don't need to defend it in auction, unless somebody else takes the high
bid from you.
>The rumor
>I heard during the con, before the art show ended, was that certain art
>show volunteer staff see nothing wrong in putting down the very final,
last
>bid, on a bid sheet that has not been filled up, after all is closed up
on
>Sunday. It appears to be viewed by some volunteers as 'one of the perks
of
>the position'.
I hadn't heard of that -- and that -does- put a twist on things. I
don't know about 'perks'... that seems to me to be an unfair advantage,
and certainly not one known to the rest of the bidders. It's especially
unfair if the bidder believes the piece he wanted was safe and didn't need
to follow it to the auction.
I don't want to discourage the staff from bidding on the artwork the
same as the rest of us... but I sincerely feel that they should be subject
to the same conditions as the rest of the con-goers in regards to bidding:
when the show closes, no more bids!
Glen Wooten
Roz Gibson (r...@huzzah.org) wrote:
: In article <19970125172...@ladder01.news.aol.com>, cmelv...@aol.com
True - the standard time has been about 2 months (contrary to what may be
said - last year the average time the convention took to get cheques to
people was around 2 months, which is a pretty long time... {CFE2 got
cheques out to artists within 2 weeks, which was great...})
AE
mal...@cris.com (Sean Malloy) wrote:
>Then he was stupid. The way to do that is to put down _four_ bids,
>raising yourself each time. If no one else bids on the piece, you get
>it at your last bid. If someone else bids, that's the fifth bid, and
>with two bidders on the bid sheet, it goes to auction.
Exactly, I suggested the same to the person involved that same
evening, he had honestly not thought about that option, he had a good
idea, just not the best idea, I'd strongly suggest that method to
anyone else in the future, perfectly legal and no-one gets hurt in any
way.
Brian Henderson
cmelv...@aol.com wrote:
> I don't really see any problem here, though. If a person really
>wants to bid that high in order to ensure that he gets the piece, where's
>the harm? That's the idea of bidding. So long as it's a genuine bid, and
>he fully intends on bidding.
Oh, and I agree, it is perfectly valid if it's a valid bid, but what
if it isn't? The art show staff has better things to do than check
every single bid every day against the valid bidder numbers. The
purpose of putting a large bid on a piece is to discourage others from
bidding against you, to show everyone that you are serious about
winning the piece.
So we're back to people making minimum bids, then adding a false
larger bid on the same piece and getting the piece at minimum after
the show because no one caught it at the time.
-Brian
David G. Bell
In article <5c88sl$th3$1...@news.smart.net>
xyd...@smart.net "Karl Jorgensen" writes:
> Another question regarding the art auction:
>
> What happens when the same person puts five consecutive bids on a piece?
> (i.e., they outbid themselves by $1 each time). I hear this is frowned
> upon by the art show staff. My guess is people would do this in order to
> force the piece to auction, thus eliminating the risk of someone
> outbidding you at the last minute. However, I heard that a piece with
> five consecutive bids by the same person _doesn't_ go to auction -- it
> goes directly to the person who put the five bids on it. Is this true?
> It would seem pretty unfair if that were the case, because that means
> nobody else gets a chance to bid on it.
That's an interesting question -- would it be worth cross-posting into
alt.fandom.cons or some other con-running-related newsgroup?
--
David G. Bell -- Farmer, SF Fan, Filker, Furry, and Punslinger..
Dear Reader, as a result of severe delays in news articles being made
available to Demon Internet customers, this article may appear
ridiculously late, and ask or answer questions already asked or
answered. This lengthy .sig is temporary. Current backlog 54h+
Darren J. Hanson
On 25 Jan 1997 09:09:03 GMT, "Bruce Wilhite" <Ba...@ix.netcom.com>
wrote:
> If ConFurence staff cannot clear the art show room - and keep it clear -
> like was done at CFEast, then I see nothing unethical about jumping
> yourself and putting a piece into auction where you can defend.
Within reason, this can (and was) done. Unfortunately, this year
Jazmyn decided that the Art Show was going to be closed one piece of
art at a time. So AFTER the room had been cleared by Security, she
invited people BACK into the Art Show. And I'm sure that (A) not
everyone returned and (B) that some bids were placed when people came
back into the room.
What would work best is for Security and Art Show staff to make a
single, unified sweep of the room with people being asked to step away
from the panels as the sweep reaches them.
> The rumor
> I heard during the con, before the art show ended, was that certain art
> show volunteer staff see nothing wrong in putting down the very final, last
> bid, on a bid sheet that has not been filled up, after all is closed up on
>Sunday.
I have *NEVER* heard of this happening and I can assure you that there
is *NO* policy to this effect. The closest that has ever happened is
Art Show staff placing the very *first* bid on a piece after the show
closes Sunday. That is, on art that nobody else bid on the entire time
the show was open that would otherwise be being returned to the artist
unsold. Perhaps that is wrong, but I fail to see any real harm being
done by it.
__
\/ dj
cmelv...@aol.com
In article <32e9b9e5...@news.linkline.com>, BHend...@linkline.com
wrote:
>Even if we don't use a really ridiculous bid, I saw a lot of people
>making $50-75 bid increments, even on relatively small min bid items,
>did anyone question that? If you don't catch it until Sunday
>afternoon when people were picking up art, what would they do?
I don't really see any problem here, though. If a person really
wants to bid that high in order to ensure that he gets the piece, where's
the harm? That's the idea of bidding. So long as it's a genuine bid, and
he fully intends on bidding.
Scratch
Ba...@ix.netcom.com says...
>The rumor I heard during the con, before the art show ended, was that
>certain art show volunteer staff see nothing wrong in putting down
>the very final, last bid, on a bid sheet that has not been filled up,
>after all is closed up on Sunday. It appears to be viewed by some
>volunteers as 'one of the perks of the position'. This was told to
>me by one person, and so I consider it in the rumor category.
Ah, gotta love the rumor mill. :) Actually, I recall reading
another posting a day or two ago on this topic... From what I
understood from that post, the art show volunteers *could* bid
on a piece after the art show had closed, but only if that piece
had not recieved *any* bids on it. In other words, if no one
else wanted the art, they could purchase it for the minimum
bid price. I don't have a problem with this policy, except
in cases where a piece has an after show purchase price which
is higher then the minimum bid.
If the art show staff was upping bids by $1 on pieces that already
have 1-3 bids on them, I think they would have been called on
it already.
Scratch
Karl Meyer
cmelv...@aol.com wrote:
:
: >Even if we don't use a really ridiculous bid, I saw a lot of people
: >making $50-75 bid increments, even on relatively small min bid items,
: >did anyone question that? If you don't catch it until Sunday
: >afternoon when people were picking up art, what would they do?
:
: I don't really see any problem here, though. If a person really
: wants to bid that high in order to ensure that he gets the piece, where's
: the harm? That's the idea of bidding. So long as it's a genuine bid, and
: he fully intends on bidding.
I jumped the bid on a couple of Animalympic cells by like $40 each to try
to make sure I'd get them without having to go to the auction. It worked.
Did I pay too much? Maybe, but I'd have bid that high in the auction for
those particular cells so to me they were worth that price. I have no
compunction against doubling or even tripling a bid on a piece to lock it
down. Since I'm fully prepared to pay that price if I get the piece I see
nothing wrong with doing that and am not all that concerned if somebody
gets upset about it. After all, they could always outbid me by $1 at the
last minute or put on a 5th bid and send the piece to auction (I also try
to be the fourth bidder when I jump the bid like that.)
D. J. Green
In article <19970125172...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
>>yourself and putting a piece into auction where you can defend.
>
>don't need to defend it in auction, unless somebody else takes the high
>bid from you.
Because there are far too many people who will leave a piece that they want
unbid-on until the absolute last minute of the art show. I've lost three
pieces that, up until the last 10 or so minutes of the art show, I had the
only bids on, but, when I went to pick up my art purchases afterward, they
weren't there (this last time, I lost every piece I had a bid remaining on
that way, which meant that I spent an hour and a half waiting in line to be
told that I had no art waiting for me, which did not put me in a particularly
good mood).
Personally, I find it extremely rude that people wait until the last
possible minute to put a bid on a piece that they've shown up until that
time no interest in, when someone else has a bid on it. I've felt for
several years that one shouldn't have to stand around and defend pieces that
one has one's bid on to the death--if two people both want it that badly,
for pity's sake *bid* on it and send it to the auction!
--
"Big Bird meets Salvador Dali has been brought to you by the numbers L and
), and by the letter 3."
cmelv...@aol.com
cmelv...@aol.com
cmelv...@aol.com
In article <01bc0a9f$f3652060$2ee41fcc@home486>, "Bruce wrote:
>I see nothing unethical about jumping
>yourself and putting a piece into auction where you can defend.
But if you already have the high bid, then what's the point? You
don't need to defend it in auction, unless somebody else takes the high
bid from you.
>The rumor
>I heard during the con, before the art show ended, was that certain art
>show volunteer staff see nothing wrong in putting down the very final,
last
>bid, on a bid sheet that has not been filled up, after all is closed up
on
>Sunday. It appears to be viewed by some volunteers as 'one of the perks
of
>the position'.
I hadn't heard of that -- and that -does- put a twist on things. I
cmelv...@aol.com
In article <5cg3j1$s...@shell3.ba.best.com>, nebu...@shell3.ba.best.com
wrote:
>Because there are far too many people who will leave a piece that they
want
>unbid-on until the absolute last minute of the art show. I've lost three
>pieces that, up until the last 10 or so minutes of the art show, I had
the
>only bids on, but, when I went to pick up my art purchases afterward,
they
>weren't there (this last time, I lost every piece I had a bid remaining
on
>that way, which meant that I spent an hour and a half waiting in line to
be
>told that I had no art waiting for me, which did not put me in a
particularly
>good mood).
But that's why you need to go to the auction. If you have the last
high bid, then you don't need to defend it with another high bid (which
strikes me not only as needlessly foolish, but a bit unethical as well);
but you can't assume that it will be safe until after the auction itself
is passed. Either make plans to hit the auction, have someone attend and
bid for you, or find out if the piece actually went to auction. On
Sunday, at least, they posted a list of the pieces that went to auction on
the auction door.
>Personally, I find it extremely rude that people wait until the last
>possible minute to put a bid on a piece that they've shown up until that
>time no interest in, when someone else has a bid on it.
It's not that cut and dried. A lot of people wait to see how their
cash is going to hold out for the con. Usually, I've waited until the
last minute to decide if I could really afford to plop down that much cash
on a piece of art.
Also, nearly everybody is waiting to see who, if anybody, is going to
bid on the same piece. It's a stalking game, not wanting to make the
first move, afraid that if you do, somebody else will pounce on the same
item right away and start bidding it away from you.
I've felt for
>several years that one shouldn't have to stand around and defend pieces
that
>one has one's bid on to the death--if two people both want it that badly,
>for pity's sake *bid* on it and send it to the auction!
No, I don't quite agree. I had the fourth bid on two separate
pieces, and I was not about to send them to auction if I could avoid it --
I didn't want to have to pay a higher price if I didn't have to. If I
could get it for, say $75, instead of paying $100 (or even $80), then I'll
be satisfied. And I certainly don't want to take the chance that it'll
draw the attention of someone else who'll then try to bid against me for
it.
(As it was, both pieces got sent to the auction anyway, and I did
have to fight for them -- and won -- but if I could have saved the
additional $50, I would've been happier.)
Dr. Skorzy MacFarlaighn
Kay Shapero wrote:
> So, what DO people think of after show sales? Is there any real point to
> them? After all, even the art show staff can bid during the show like
> everybody else.
I never fully understand the need for one. If nobody bidded on an
artwork during the show (this includes the Con staff), why would they
afterwards? The "going...going...GONE" stress is stupid because the
artist him/herself isn't going to fall off the face of the earth after
the con.
Besides, if I see a piece of artwork in a show, but have doubts about my
financial liquidity until after the auction, then I'll just contact the
artist directly after the con. I'll ask if the piece in the show was
"still available" and then make an offer.
Sure, the con doesn't get a cut at this point, but the artshow is closed
now, isn't it?
I've obtained artwork before this way, and more frequently than not I've
gotten the piece for just the "minimum" bid. The artists doesn't want
to lug it back home, you have cash...end of story. Again, everybody wins
in this situation.
So, no. I don't think a "after auction" sale is necessary. It ties up
the Con-staff who are more interested in getting things wrapped up
anyways. I don't think the number of after-auction sales is worth the
effort (cash intake-wise). Best approach is to go to the artist.
Kay Shapero
On <Jan 26 06:50>, scr...@itch.com (Scratch) wrote;
s>had not recieved *any* bids on it. In other words, if no one
s>else wanted the art, they could purchase it for the minimum
s>bid price. I don't have a problem with this policy, except
s>in cases where a piece has an after show purchase price which
s>is higher then the minimum bid.
FWIW, if the art show is over, then the price paid for otherwise unsold art
should be the after show purchase price, regardless of who's buying it.
The one time I ever took advantage of something like the above, that's what
I did.
Which brings to mind something I've been wondering about: SHOULD there be
an after show price at all? In order for it to mean much of anything it
requires that there be enough art show staff to properly guard the room
after the sold art is removed at the same time that sales are taking place
elsewhere. And, of course, for the hotel not to suddenly inform the art
show that the room is needed early next day so that the show has to be down
by 5 o'clock or so, like happened this year... :(
Dr. Cat
Sean Malloy (mal...@cris.com) wrote:
: Then he was stupid. The way to do that is to put down _four_ bids,
: raising yourself each time. If no one else bids on the piece, you get
: it at your last bid. If someone else bids, that's the fifth bid, and
: with two bidders on the bid sheet, it goes to auction.
While your suggestion clearly is an improvement over his idea, I hardly
think he was "stupid" not to think of it. Especially considering that the
problem that arose (which your method would clearly have avoided) is only
obvious in hindsight. You have the benefit of hindsight in making your
suggestions, he had no opportunity to know that while making his decision.
The other advantages of your system - the possibility of saving the piece
from getting fought on in auction, the saving of one dollar per piece if
nobody else is interested anyway - probably aren't issues for this fellow as
much as for many other people. He wanted to see the artist get good money
for his work, and I suspect seeing that come out of his own pocket or maybe
even losing some of the pieces to someone else weren't as big an issue as
seeing the artist do well to him.
He's not stupid, but you are, perhaps, a bit rude.
*-------------------------------------------**-----------------------------*
Dr. Cat / Dragon's Eye Productions || Free alpha test:
*-------------------------------------------** http://www.bga.com/furcadia
Furcadia - a new graphic mud for PCs! || Let your imagination soar!
*-------------------------------------------**-----------------------------*
(Disclaimer: If you save a dollar, you CAN buy many bananas with it.)
Dr. Cat
D. J. Green (nebu...@shell3.ba.best.com) wrote:
: Because there are far too many people who will leave a piece that they want
: unbid-on until the absolute last minute of the art show.
: Personally, I find it extremely rude that people wait until the last
: possible minute to put a bid on a piece that they've shown up until that
: time no interest in, when someone else has a bid on it.
I think it's kinda crazy, and I've only seen it at CF of all the cons I've
been to. My thinking on trying to get pieces, purrticularly if I hope to
get them without going to auction but even then, is to go around on the
FIRST day of the con and put minimum bids on them all. I figure if there
are any bidders that only will go for an uncontested piece and won't bid on
something they think they might have to fight for, I've just scared them all
off and only have to deal with the other types of bidders as competition.
:X) The counter-reasoning would be if there were a type of bidder who
doesn't want uncontested pieces and will only bid on pieces someone else
wants in order to try to take them away, in which case my strategy would be
bad. But I have a hard time believing there's any such critter out there.
I also can't see any detriment to my strategy as far as bid size - I can't
possibly get the pieces for any LOWER than the minimum bid, which is what
I'm making under my strategy. And if someone's going to fight me for the
piece, whether in some last-minute frenzy in the art show or at the actual
auction, I reckon how high they're willing to go and how high I'm willing to
go are gonna be anout the same whether we do it spread out over a few days
or all at the last minute. Not doing it all at the last minute just makes
it more convenient for us, for the art show staff, and for all the other art
show attendees.
For that matter, I'd imagine it would be easier to keep everything running
on schedule & smoothly if the art show staff could know what most of the
pieces to be pulled for auction were going to be well in advance, rather
than most of the pieces only getting enough bids for that at the last minute
- requiring the staff to then do lots of work at the last minute.
I guess some people want to be sneaky, and get a piece with the third or
fourth bid & steal it away from someone who would have re-raised the bid but
wasn't there & didn't know they'd been outbid on the sheet at the last minute.
I can see a FEW people trying that strategy. But dozens, or even a
hundred? There was an awful big swarm of people in the art show when I went
up there late sunday to look at the pieces I hadn't even had a chance to
look at. (I didn't bid on anything this year.) Can there really be that
many people thinking they can pull this trick on someone? Or are there
really just a few people trying it, and a TON of people trying to protect
themselves from someone else pulling that trick on them? I would think that
for every furry who really saved a piece of art for themselves that way,
there'd be five or ten who were in their trying to protect a piece that
nobody tried to sneak away from them with a last minute bid anyway! Crazy
stuff.
*-------------------------------------------**-----------------------------*
Dr. Cat / Dragon's Eye Productions || Free alpha test:
*-------------------------------------------** http://www.bga.com/furcadia
Furcadia - a new graphic mud for PCs! || Let your imagination soar!
*-------------------------------------------**-----------------------------*
(Disclaimer: There isn't a banana in my pocket, I'm just glad to see you.)
Karl Meyer
Dr. Cat (c...@bga.com) wrote:
:
: I think it's kinda crazy, and I've only seen it at CF of all the cons I've
: get them without going to auction but even then, is to go around on the
: FIRST day of the con and put minimum bids on them all.
With 5 bids to go to auction I'd rather be the second bidder on any pieces
that I really want if there is anyone else bidding on it at all. The
reason for this is then I can defend my bid with the fourth one. Since I
don't do auctions this defending bid is likely going to be high enough
that if the piece does get a fifth bid I wouldn't have likely got it
anyway. Since I generally don't bid on the super popular pieces, this
strategy worked quite well.
: I guess some people want to be sneaky, and get a piece with the third or
: fourth bid & steal it away from someone who would have re-raised the bid but
: wasn't there & didn't know they'd been outbid on the sheet at the last minute.
: I can see a FEW people trying that strategy
It was tried on the piece I most wanted. I put a 2nd bid on it with a
reasonable jump in the bid on it on saturday. I went up during the last 10
mins of the show on Sunday to check on my bids and with less than 5 mins
left I went to check on a couple other pieces to see if anyone had outbid
me on them. Was back in less than a minute and a third bid with like a $5
raise on a piece that was already at $100 had appeared on the piece I
wanted. This wasn't by the one who'd bid first either. I simply jumped the
bid another $20 and moved back a bit to see if it got sent to auction. It
was a 3d piece and I would likely have skipped art pickup and let CF bill
me and ship me the art after the con had I not got it. As it was I saw the
person I suspect put the last minute 3rd bid on the piece take one look
and walk away. I admit to a small bit of satisfaction at seeing that even
though it meant a wait in a seemingly unmoving line for art pickup later.
I was also darn sure I had one of the art show staff orange highlight my
last bid so no 5th bid could get snuck in after the close of the show. As
soon as that was done I left.
: themselves from someone else pulling that trick on them? I would think that
: for every furry who really saved a piece of art for themselves that way,
: there'd be five or ten who were in their trying to protect a piece that
: nobody tried to sneak away from them with a last minute bid anyway! Crazy
: stuff.
Maybe so but there is also a certain intimidation factor when somebody is
obviously watching their most prized piece like a hawk. I'd have to want a
piece pretty badly to outbid somebody under those circumstances.
Benjamin Keen
c...@bga.com (Dr. Cat) writes:
>For that matter, I'd imagine it would be easier to keep everything running
>on schedule & smoothly if the art show staff could know what most of the
>pieces to be pulled for auction were going to be well in advance, rather
>than most of the pieces only getting enough bids for that at the last minute
>- requiring the staff to then do lots of work at the last minute.
Something I wanted to throw out here:
Along with the minimum bid, there would be a threshold price, perhaps
artist-specified, perhaps calculated in a standard way from the
minimum bid. The new rule would be, is if there is more than one bid
on the bid sheet greater than or equal to the threshold, the piece
would automatically go to auction.
Example: Piece A has a minimum bid of $10, and a threshold of $30.
Bidder 343 bids $10.
Bidder 476, who really wants the piece, bids $30.
Now, if noone else bids on the piece, then bidder 4 gets it. It
doesn't go to the auction at all.
If bidder 53 comes along and bids $35, then the piece goes to the
auction, and 476 and 53 and anyone else interested can fight it
out. Bidder 53 has the last bid sheet bid, so if nobody on the auction
floor wants it, she gets the piece.
If bidder 26 wants to come along and write $50 down on the sheet, then
fine; they hold the default bid at the auction, and 476 and 53 have a chance
to compete there for the piece.
This method would remove a lot of the stupidities and inconveniences
involved in 'guarding' a piece.
After all, why do we put pieces in the voice auction anyway? The true
criterion is 'is there significant interest in the piece from a
variety of people.' The 5 bids rule is one way of doing it; this new
rule is relatively simple, and would combine easily with the 5 bids
rule . Folks wouldn't need to be so anxious about 'losing' a piece
they really really wanted to get; it wouldn't be difficult to
guarantee that the piece went to auction if someone overbid them. The
art auction staff would have a better idea of which pieces were going
to auction.
The disadvantage to this is that more pieces go to auction. However,
they're probably pieces that should be in the auction anyway. Dr.
Cat's friend could have achieved his goal just by bidding at the
threshold level, ensuring that either he got the item at that price or
had a chance to defend it at auction.
The advantage to this is that there is less confusion, and
strategizing, and subterfuge, and artists get more money. There's not
a *whole* lot more bookkeeping, and throughout the auction the staff
could, say, cruise through the art show with a highlighter marker and
mark the bid sheets of items that would go to auction.
-BJK
Benjamin Keen
fer...@enteract.com (Karl Meyer) writes:
>Benjamin Keen (ke...@mathstat.usc.edu) wrote:
>: Along with the minimum bid, there would be a threshold price, perhaps
>: artist-specified, perhaps calculated in a standard way from the
>: minimum bid. The new rule would be, is if there is more than one bid
>: on the bid sheet greater than or equal to the threshold, the piece
>: would automatically go to auction.
>Unfortunately this would a)be a pain for those who don't wish to spend all
>day in the auction. b) send way too many pieces to auction since most
>artists are well aware that pieces tend to sell for higher prices in the
>auction and would therefore have an incentive to set a low threshold
>value.
That's why I said that perhaps it should be calculated mechanically
from the minimum bid. Say, $50, or three times the minimum bid,
whichever is more. And the bid sheet would still dominate. If you
don't want to go to the auction, just write down the most you're
willing to pay for the piece.
Of course, it would be a pain for folks who don't want to spend all
day in the auction. They're going to spend all day in the buying line
anyway. Is it better to spend all day periodically hovering over
those pieces one wants? There's an element of gamesmanship in that
activity that seems a bit unneccessary. This is a way to eliminate
this. The costs in terms of extra hassle and inconvenience might be
too high.
>On a side note, If there were some way to know in advance what order
>pieces would come up in the auction it would be a little easier to figure
>about when one should go if one were only interested in a particular
>piece. The only way this is ever likely to happen though is if the art
>show adopts computers to help keep track of pieces and the bids on them.
Oh, heck, just assign each piece a serial number on checkin, and take them to
auction in numerical order. Announce that 'We will be auctioning at
least so and so many pieces per hour, and there are 50 items until
number 300 comes up, 100 until number 367 comes up, 150 until number
444 comes up' every 25 pieces or so. So someone can come in,
recall that they want to try for number 600, and say, "Well, if I come
back at 2:30, then they should be about 20 items shy of the one I'm
looking for."
Compiling the information necessary to make such announcements'd be
not really hard, and could probably be done with pencil and paper.
-BJK
cmelv...@aol.com
In article <5cke5v$a...@news3.realtime.net>, c...@bga.com wrote:
>I guess some people want to be sneaky, and get a piece with the third or
>fourth bid & steal it away from someone who would have re-raised the bid
but
>wasn't there & didn't know they'd been outbid on the sheet at the last
minute.
>I can see a FEW people trying that strategy. But dozens, or even a
>hundred? There was an awful big swarm of people in the art show when I
went
>up there late sunday to look at the pieces I hadn't even had a chance to
>look at. (I didn't bid on anything this year.) Can there really be that
>many people thinking they can pull this trick on someone? Or are there
>really just a few people trying it, and a TON of people trying to protect
>themselves from someone else pulling that trick on them? I would think
that
>for every furry who really saved a piece of art for themselves that way,
>there'd be five or ten who were in their trying to protect a piece that
>nobody tried to sneak away from them with a last minute bid anyway!
Crazy
>stuff.
I think it's more likely that most people were simply waiting to see
it they really wanted to spend the money on a selection, or whether they
could afford to, and were waiting untill the last minute to decide.
Karl Meyer
Benjamin Keen (ke...@mathstat.usc.edu) wrote:
: Along with the minimum bid, there would be a threshold price, perhaps
: artist-specified, perhaps calculated in a standard way from the
: minimum bid. The new rule would be, is if there is more than one bid
: on the bid sheet greater than or equal to the threshold, the piece
: would automatically go to auction.
Unfortunately this would a)be a pain for those who don't wish to spend all
day in the auction. b) send way too many pieces to auction since most
artists are well aware that pieces tend to sell for higher prices in the
auction and would therefore have an incentive to set a low threshold
value.
The number of bids to go to auction has steadily gone up to try to limit
the pieces going to auction to a reasonable amount. I doubt a system that
would cancel this effort would likely be implemented. The last minute
hover in the art show has been a tradition and in my opinion isn't harmful
since it's generally very difficult to 'guard' more than one or two
pieces. This allows many to get the piece they most want. As long as the
art show staff is willing to mark the final bids as they did this year
before making people leave I see no problem with the last minute on paper
bid wars. At least those end at a set time unlike the auction.
Sean Malloy
c...@bga.com (Dr. Cat) wrote:
>Sean Malloy (mal...@cris.com) wrote:
>: Then he was stupid. The way to do that is to put down _four_ bids,
>: raising yourself each time. If no one else bids on the piece, you get
>: it at your last bid. If someone else bids, that's the fifth bid, and
>: with two bidders on the bid sheet, it goes to auction.
>
>While your suggestion clearly is an improvement over his idea, I hardly
>think he was "stupid" not to think of it. Especially considering that the
>problem that arose (which your method would clearly have avoided) is only
>obvious in hindsight. You have the benefit of hindsight in making your
>suggestions, he had no opportunity to know that while making his decision.
Except for the fact that I've done the 'raise yourself to the last bid
before auction' trick before; it cuts back severely on the perceived
requirement to hover around the Art Show at closing. If a piece I was
interested in had gotten several bids, but it was still a few bids
short of going to auction, would raise myself by entering bids until
one more would send it to the auction. I've never done it starting
with a blank bid sheet, though; that deprives you of information about
the amount of interest the piece draws, which you want in order to
plan your bids.
And it provided a useful tool when I worked the Art Show at the 1986
WesterCon; by never having the send-to-auction bid on a piece, the art
show staff didn't have to face claims that we would put down bids
after the show closed. Computerizing the art show also helped -- the
bid sheets were NCR paper; you wrote your bid down, tore off the top
sheet, and brought it to the art show desk, where one of us would
enter your bid into the computer, which could show all bids
timestamped on entry for each piece. When the art show closed, we
printed a list of all the pieces going to auction and checked them
against the bid sheets as we took pieces down. Winning bids were noted
and the pieces taken down and sorted. At the art auction, we had
someone in the auction with a radio headset talking to someone at an
entry terminal recording final bids and bidders; as soon as the all
pieces came back from the auction, we could print lists of bidders'
pieces and purchase totals, and had the pieces set out for pickup.
--
Sean R. Malloy | American Non Sequitur
Naval Medical Center | Society
San Diego, CA 92134-5000 |
mal...@cris.com | "We may not make sense,
srma...@snd10.med.navy.mil | but we do like pizza"
*NOTE* Remove the '_' in my email address for replies;
it is there to stop automatic remailers
cmelv...@aol.com
In article <32f3cbbe...@news.cris.com>, mal...@cris.com wrote:
> Computerizing the art show also helped -- the
>bid sheets were NCR paper; you wrote your bid down, tore off the top
>sheet, and brought it to the art show desk, where one of us would
>enter your bid into the computer, which could show all bids
>timestamped on entry for each piece.
I don't quite follow how this worked... was there still a record of
the bids made remaining with the entry, so the next interested party would
know how much to overbid?
cmelv...@aol.com
In article <5cmlhs$p...@mathstat.usc.edu>, ke...@mathstat.usc.edu wrote:
>Of course, it would be a pain for folks who don't want to spend all
>day in the auction. They're going to spend all day in the buying line
>anyway. Is it better to spend all day periodically hovering over
>those pieces one wants? There's an element of gamesmanship in that
>activity that seems a bit unneccessary.
mmmm.... no. I would much prefer to hover over the pieces while
they were still in the art show. I don't mind the "gamemanship" in
stalking the bid anywhere as near as much as I mind remaining in the
auction all day waiting for my selections to come to bid (since I'll
likely want to get back to my table or need to meet with somebody for
lunch or a business meeting) -- it's a little easier to plan such things
around the art-show, or around a shorter or livelier auction.
And I don't see a longer auction to be an equitable swap for the long
periods waiting in line to pay for the art, either.
Ronni Asrouch
Dr Cat wrote:
> I guess some people want to be sneaky, and get a piece with the third or
> fourth bid & steal it away from someone who would have re-raised the bid but
> wasn't there & didn't know they'd been outbid on the sheet at the last minute.
> I can see a FEW people trying that strategy. But dozens, or even a
> hundred? There was an awful big swarm of people in the art show when I went
> up there late sunday to look at the pieces I hadn't even had a chance to
> look at. (I didn't bid on anything this year.) Can there really be that
> many people thinking they can pull this trick on someone? Or are there
> really just a few people trying it, and a TON of people trying to protect
> themselves from someone else pulling that trick on them? I would think that
> for every furry who really saved a piece of art for themselves that way,
> there'd be five or ten who were in their trying to protect a piece that
> nobody tried to sneak away from them with a last minute bid anyway! Crazy
> stuff.
Actually this year I actually watched the Art Show/ Security LITERALLY
stop the jerks pulling the after Show Closes Bids on sheets and removing the offending entries RIGHT there
on the spot. There were a few real scumbags trying to pull off the $.50 cent more bids, on some pieces.
And there was the one individual who literally placed his numbers all in the slots, forcing it out from
anyone else bidding, till Security caught that one too.
This convention as a whole, for when it comes to the art auction has been rather cut throat. I've learned
at least for myself to come prepared to do battle for some pieces. I wish more artists though would make
more prints of the pieces. There were several _PRINT_ pieces in the Art Short that were just that limited
prints. No business cards, no way to contact the artist to buy one more of the prints.
ARTISTS:
Please, when submitting prints to shows, include cards or some way to contact you. I know LA Williams
address only because I own two pieces, but there were two new artists (Who ever did the Lovely Fox/Vixen
Medieval Piece) I have NO clue to locating! I would love to buy prints.
Just my little two bits
Sean Malloy
NCR paper -- the multi-color multi-part form material (top sheet
white, next sheet goldenrod, next sheet pink, etc.) that doesn't
require carbon paper to make copies. There were, if I remember
correctly, six layers on the bid sheets -- five bids took a piece to
auction, with the bottom layer remaining with the piece until it was
either returned to the artist unsold or transferred to the buyer. It
also gave us a visual cue on the bidding; if a bid form in fifth-bid
color came in, it told us that a piece was going to go to auction.
We got seriously fatigue-high working that art show; we had shut down
to go to dinner Saturday night around 2100 after we had finished
pulling sold and auction pieces, and came back around 0100 to pick up
some stuff that we'd left there. We saw some balloons floating on the
ceiling, and one of us took out the Edison 'dart' (actually, hollow
soft-rubber bullets) guns and shot it. *plonk*. I said "No, that's not
how you do it", took a tiny piece of piano wire, stuck it on the nose
of the bullet, and shot another balloon. *pop*. This was hilarious. He
tried it. *plonk*. I showed him what he was doing wrong. *pop*. We
killed all the balloons, then sent the fourth member of our group out
for more balloons for us to kill.
That wasn't the most hilarious part of the evening, though. When we
got back the next morning, the security guard on duty told us that the
guy he relieved had picked up the dart gun from where we had left it
on the table, and while playing with it had shot himself in the head
with it (if you hold the muzzle against your eye and pull the trigger,
it's possible to hurt yourself, but point-blank shots are no harder
than flicking your finger at someone).
And they let these security guards carry loaded firearms. We were
clearly still fatigue-laden; we thought this was _hilarious_, and it
was fully five minutes before we were in any condition to start toting
pieces over to the auction room.
AE
BHend...@linkline.com (Brian Henderson) wrote:
>sha...@humboldt1.com (Scott Shannon) wrote:
>
>>IMO, I think a person _should_ be allowed to up their own bids, but one
>>person should _not_ be allowed to fill up the entire bid sheet with their
>>own bids. Four bids, tops. Then, if someone else wants the piece, they
>>can place the fifth bid, and send the artwork to the voice auction.
>
>Then you wouldn't like my suggestion, which would be that any person
>with more than two consecutive bids on a piece be BANNED from winning
>said piece when it goes to auction. While I disagree with the way CF
>rules were interpreted, doing what you did, no offense, goes against
>the spirit of what the art show is supposedly all about.
No, what he did was tone to protect himself from being victimised by
people who are willing to snoop around at the last minute and snitch a
piece for only a minimal bit increase, which IMHO goes far more
against the spirit of the auction, of course, he should have put in 4
bids, not 5, but as we all know, hindsight's 20/20
Brad Austin
Chuck Melville wrote:
> I'm still having difficulty understanding -why- anyone should want to
> outbid themselves. Wanting to send a piece to auction is a nice gesture
> for the artist, but it stinks when you're the buyer.
If you have the last bid on a piece and it's the first,
second, or third bid on the sheet, someone else cound up
your bid by one dollar right before the sale closes and
get the piece without it going to auction, even though
you are presumably willing to outbid the other bidder
given the chance. If you've only bid on one piece, you
can stand next to it and guard it, but this doesn't work
if you have two or more pieces in different parts of the
room you need to guard. Some people would rather get a
piece in auction at a higher price than risk not getting
it at all. Clear now?
Brad Austin
Phoenix, AZ USA
<ar...@dancris.com>
Plushophilia home page: http://www.dancris.com/~artax
c.groark
In article <5cr104$l...@home.humboldt1.com>,
Scott Shannon <sha...@humboldt1.com> wrote:
>Quite so. All I intended to do was to force the pieces to go to auction.
>I never imagined that, just by filling up the bid sheet with $1 incremental
>bids, I'd win the pieces outright. I considered this to be unfair to others
>who also might've wanted the artworks in question, and _most_ unfair to the
>artist. I told the art show representative as much, but she was adamant-
>the pieces would not go to auction as I'd intended, and I would have to buy
>them for what I believed to be an unfairly low price...
>
If the con doesn't change the rules, try this instead: Get a friend. Go
to the bid sheet. You bid first, third and fifth. Friend bids second and
fourth. Five valid bids: piece goes to auction.
This rule had better be changed though. From the sound of things, CF
pretty much lives or dies by the artists. This is designed to piss then
off royally and that is not a smart move.
Charlie
Richard Chandler
Well, I just got the "bill" two days ago for a piece I won in the art show
but didn't pick up, so they're much more on top of it this year.
The only problem is, I DID go to the art show pick-up, but they only had
one piece for me. But considering the fouled up conditions they had to
work with, especially dealing with being prematurely evicted from the art
show room, they did an excellent job this year.
--
On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog... but they can tell right
off the bat if you're an idiot! -- Me
http://www.teleport.com/~mauser/ Gallery Web Page
"Yeah, I've got ADD, wanna make something of.... oooh, cool. Look!"
cmelv...@aol.com
In article <32f2380...@news.cris.com>, mal...@cris.com wrote:
>> I don't quite follow how this worked... was there still a record of
>>the bids made remaining with the entry, so the next interested party
would
>>know how much to overbid?
>
>NCR paper -- the multi-color multi-part form material (top sheet
>white, next sheet goldenrod, next sheet pink, etc.) that doesn't
>require carbon paper to make copies. There were, if I remember
>correctly, six layers on the bid sheets -- five bids took a piece to
>auction, with the bottom layer remaining with the piece until it was
>either returned to the artist unsold or transferred to the buyer. It
>also gave us a visual cue on the bidding; if a bid form in fifth-bid
>color came in, it told us that a piece was going to go to auction.
Ah! Okay, got it!
cmelv...@aol.com
In article <5cr1la$o...@home.humboldt1.com>, sha...@humboldt1.com wrote:
>IMO, I think a person _should_ be allowed to up their own bids, but one
>person should _not_ be allowed to fill up the entire bid sheet with their
>own bids. Four bids, tops. Then, if someone else wants the piece, they
>can place the fifth bid, and send the artwork to the voice auction.
I'm still having difficulty understanding -why- anyone should want to
outbid themselves. Wanting to send a piece to auction is a nice gesture
for the artist, but it stinks when you're the buyer. Some of us spent
plenty on the art auction as it was without the prices being artificially
boosted. I don't want to be spending $100 if I can get the piece for $90.
If somebody had placed three or four consecutive bids immediately after
mine simply for the sake of sending it to auction, I would have been
-very- irritated. It's one thing to contest against someone in a bidding
war; it's another thing entirely (and quite unfair) when that person bids
out of turn by bidding against himself.
Brian Henderson
sha...@humboldt1.com (Scott Shannon) wrote:
>IMO, I think a person _should_ be allowed to up their own bids, but one
>person should _not_ be allowed to fill up the entire bid sheet with their
>own bids. Four bids, tops. Then, if someone else wants the piece, they
>can place the fifth bid, and send the artwork to the voice auction.
Then you wouldn't like my suggestion, which would be that any person
with more than two consecutive bids on a piece be BANNED from winning
said piece when it goes to auction. While I disagree with the way CF
rules were interpreted, doing what you did, no offense, goes against
the spirit of what the art show is supposedly all about.
-Brian
Dr. Cat
Sean Malloy (mal...@cris.com) wrote:
: c...@bga.com (Dr. Cat) wrote:
: >Sean Malloy (mal...@cris.com) wrote:
: >: Then he was stupid. The way to do that is to put down _four_ bids,
: >While your suggestion clearly is an improvement over his idea, I hardly
: Except for the fact that I've done the 'raise yourself to the last bid
: before auction' trick before; it cuts back severely on the perceived
: requirement to hover around the Art Show at closing. If a piece I was
I don't see what relevance it has that you've done it before. If you
thought of it ten seconds ago, my friend wasn't stupid to not have thought
of it, if you thought of it ten years ago, he wasn't stupid not to have
thought of it. Just because you've been doing it as far back as the
1986 Westercon doesn't mean my friend should be presumed to have heard of
the idea; clear he hadn't. I *said* it was a better idea, you don't have to
keep proving that.
*-------------------------------------------**-----------------------------*
Dr. Cat / Dragon's Eye Productions || Free alpha test:
*-------------------------------------------** http://www.bga.com/furcadia
Furcadia - a new graphic mud for PCs! || Let your imagination soar!
*-------------------------------------------**-----------------------------*
(Disclaimer: I am not wearing underwear on my head. I promise.)
(You know, if we were all stupid, I bet we'd get along great. Because
nobody would be smart enough to figure out that anyone else was wrong about
anything, so what would we argue about?)
Dr. Samuel Conway
Sean Malloy wrote:
>
> c...@bga.com (Dr. Cat) wrote:
> >Sean Malloy (mal...@cris.com) wrote:
> >: Then he was stupid. The way to do that is to put down _four_ bids,
> >While your suggestion clearly is an improvement over his idea, I hardly
> >think he was "stupid" not to think of it.
>
> before auction' trick before;
Um...forgive my ignorance, but isn't this against the rules?
Something about "fixing" bids and denying the artist a chance at winning
a
competitive price on a piece, as well as eliminating fair competition
from
other bidders, just seems a bit immoral to this old, prudish gentleman.
-- Kagemushi
cmelv...@aol.com
In article <5cstck$l...@rat.org>, Brad wrote:
>If you have the last bid on a piece and it's the first,
>second, or third bid on the sheet, someone else cound up
>your bid by one dollar right before the sale closes and
>get the piece without it going to auction, even though
>you are presumably willing to outbid the other bidder
>given the chance. If you've only bid on one piece, you
>can stand next to it and guard it, but this doesn't work
>if you have two or more pieces in different parts of the
>room you need to guard. Some people would rather get a
>piece in auction at a higher price than risk not getting
>it at all. Clear now?
Not really... I still consider it an unfair practice, and I still
think it's foolish to outbid yourself. ("Never use an Ace when a Deuce
will do.")
First of all, the fear that someone is going to outbid you by a
dollar is unsupported. As I recall the bidding rules, there were minimum
bids in effect at all times, depending upon the price range the piece fell
into. (For instance, art that was over $50, you had to bid by at least $5
increments; over $150, you had to bid $10 increments.) This was true for
the auction, and it was true for the art show. The only pieces that could
possibly be outbid by a dollar were those with a very low minimum bid to
begin with.
As for guarding more than one piece, well, those are the risks you
take. I was guarding a total of seven pieces, and I kept a close eye on
all of them right up to the auction (and I lost out on one in the auction
itself). That's the way it goes; you take turns making bids, and you give
the other guy a chance to take his shot. Sneaking in an extra bid out of
turn is a cheat.
D. J. Green
In article <32f3a2a0...@news.student.utwente.nl>,
AE <a.deb...@student.utwente.nl> wrote:
>"Dr. Samuel Conway" <flog...@nni.com> wrote:
>
>>Sean Malloy wrote:
>>>
>>> Except for the fact that I've done the 'raise yourself to the last bid
>>> before auction' trick before;
>>
>>Um...forgive my ignorance, but isn't this against the rules?
>>
>>Something about "fixing" bids and denying the artist a chance at winning a
>>competitive price on a piece, as well as eliminating fair competition from
>>other bidders, just seems a bit immoral to this old, prudish gentleman.
>>
>>-- Kagemushi
>
>buy it at $3 over minimum price if no-one else is interested, Where
>he would have gotten it for minum price if he hadn't filled up the
>first four, and the piece goes to auction if more than one person is
>interested, where pieces generall tend to bring better prices than
>they would just in the art show. The only thing that's really wrong
>with this tactic is that it brings more pieces to an already busy
>auction, if more people start practicing this method.
Because some people don't want to go to the auction to try to get a piece
that they want. If the rules were intended such that the second bid, and
not the fifth, drove the piece to auction, they'd be set up that way.
Supposing someone bid $30/31/32/33 on a piece, and someone else came by, and
liked the piece, and would have bid $40 or $50 on it, but they didn't want
to have to go to the auction for it. That's cost the artist around $10 or
so; instead of tbe bids going $30/$35/$40 or maybe even $30/$40/$45/$50,
they made it to $33--all by the same person--and then stopped.
AE
Dr. Cat
: that they want. If the rules were intended such that the second bid, and
: not the fifth, drove the piece to auction, they'd be set up that way.
: Supposing someone bid $30/31/32/33 on a piece, and someone else came by, and
: liked the piece, and would have bid $40 or $50 on it, but they didn't want
: to have to go to the auction for it. That's cost the artist around $10 or
: so; instead of tbe bids going $30/$35/$40 or maybe even $30/$40/$45/$50,
: they made it to $33--all by the same person--and then stopped.
Well, I guess some people would be dissuaded from bidding on any bid sheets
with four bids if they weren't gonna go to the auction. I wouldn't be though.
If I saw a piece with a 4th bid of $33 that I was willing to bid $40 or $50
on if the sheet had fewer bids, I would STILL be willing to write $40 or $50
down as the fifth bid and then just not go to the auction. I'll come to the
art show pickup afterwards, and either it'll be there with my other pieces
that didn't go to auction or it won't. Reasons it might be there could be -
A) the guy that wrote $33 down had decided not to go to the auction either,
so I won. B) The guy that bid $33 went to the auction but wasn't willing to
go higher than $35 on that particular piece anyway, so I won.
On the other hand, it could be that the guy goes and bids $60. Or that even
with neither of us there, some third party at the auction takes an interest
and grabs it away from both of us. So? The net consequence to me is that I
didn't get the piece, which is EXACTLY what would have happened to me if I'd
left that fifth spot blank and let the $33 be the high bid. So what've I got
to lose if the worst case is exactly what happens if I do nothing at all?
Actually I might consider that worst case a little better anyway, 'cause the
artist gets more money. And if I were petty enough to dislike people who
compete against me or who up their own bids, I might get a cheap thrill out
of the fact that they end up leaving the cone with a little less money, too.
Luckily I'm a highly evolved being who's above that. Right? Right? C'mon
guys, I can't hear you, somebody please say 'Right' back to me!
*-------------------------------------------**-----------------------------*
Dr. Cat / Dragon's Eye Productions || Free alpha test:
*-------------------------------------------** http://www.bga.com/furcadia
Furcadia - a new graphic mud for PCs! || Let your imagination soar!
*-------------------------------------------**-----------------------------*
(Disclaimer: No outbid I.)
AE
Karl Meyer
Dr. Cat (c...@bga.com) wrote:
: On the other hand, it could be that the guy goes and bids $60. Or that even
: and grabs it away from both of us. So? The net consequence to me is that I
: didn't get the piece, which is EXACTLY what would have happened to me if I'd
: left that fifth spot blank and let the $33 be the high bid. So what've I got
: to lose if the worst case is exactly what happens if I do nothing at all?
I guess if somebody is playing games with the bid sheets there would be
nothing at all wrong in ptting the 5th bid in to at least have a chance at
it even if you had no intention of going to the auction. As a rule I don't
feel quite right about sending a piece to auction if I don't plan to be
there.
Richard Chandler
As someone who often spends his Sundays in the dealer's room, behind a
table, I'm usually reluctant to bid on a piece which seems destined to go
to auction, since if it goes, unless it's completely ignored, I'm
guaranteed to lose it. Yet I have to reserve part of my art-buying budget
to pay for it if I DO get it.
In general, if *I* were the one setting art show rules, multiple
consecutive bids by the same bidder would be considered a single bid, and
that each write-in is simply a correction to the earlier bid. But in any
case, I'd strongly discourage any attempt to manupulate the normal, fair
bid/auction process. If you can't play by the rules in the art show,
don't play.
cmelv...@aol.com
In article <5d0bqt$m...@shell3.ba.best.com>, nebu...@shell3.ba.best.com
wrote:
>Supposing someone bid $30/31/32/33 on a piece, and someone else came by,
and
>liked the piece, and would have bid $40 or $50 on it, but they didn't
want
>to have to go to the auction for it. That's cost the artist around $10
or
>so; instead of tbe bids going $30/$35/$40 or maybe even $30/$40/$45/$50,
>they made it to $33--all by the same person--and then stopped.
And it does happen. One of Roz Gibson's pieces jumped from a $50
first bid to $500 on the second bid. One of the Kevin & Kell originals by
Bill Holbrook jumped from $100 to $200 on a single bid. Look how much
money each artist would have lost if the sheets had been maxed out with $1
bids.
AE
cmelv...@aol.com wrote:
>
> And it does happen. One of Roz Gibson's pieces jumped from a $50
>first bid to $500 on the second bid. One of the Kevin & Kell originals by
>Bill Holbrook jumped from $100 to $200 on a single bid. Look how much
>money each artist would have lost if the sheets had been maxed out with $1
>bids.
Yes, and the Roz Gibson Piece went to auction anyway and went for $800
in the end. I don't see a therry reputed here.
Jazmyn Concolor
>> >Sean Malloy (mal...@cris.com) wrote:
>> >: Then he was stupid. The way to do that is to put down _four_ bids,
>> >: raising yourself each time.
>> >
>> >While your suggestion clearly is an improvement over his idea, I hardly
>> >think he was "stupid" not to think of it.
>>
>> before auction' trick before;
>
>Um...forgive my ignorance, but isn't this against the rules?
>
>Something about "fixing" bids and denying the artist a chance at winning
>a
>competitive price on a piece, as well as eliminating fair competition
>from
>other bidders, just seems a bit immoral to this old, prudish gentleman.
>
>-- Kagemushi
Sorry, but it takes more then one bidder to send a piece to auction. Five
bids from the SAME bidder are not valid and only caused those pieces to be
rejected for auction, thus the bidder harmed the artist in this way. It was
concidered a posibility to REMOVE the extra bids and encourage others to bid,
but the problem was discovered far too late.. Its a problem between bidder and
artist now, since it was the bidder's fault, not ours. We can't police EVERY
bid sheet in the show with limited staff. If another con goer had caught the
problem early and reported it to us, we might have put a stop to it. It has
not yet been decided if the bidder who attempted to bid a piece to auction by
bidding five times (bidding against himself, no other bidders) will be punished
by being banned from bidding next year..
Yes...It is illegal to 'singlehandedly' bid a piece to auction, which is why
the pieces never appeared in the auction...It is just common sense in auction
situations and noone has ever done this before now at CF..Being as we never
thought anyone would be so boneheaded as to attempt it..:)
Jazmyn Concolor
In article <5d2r46$h88$1...@linda.teleport.com>,
Richard Chandler <mau...@teleport.com> wrote:
>
>As someone who often spends his Sundays in the dealer's room, behind a
>table, I'm usually reluctant to bid on a piece which seems destined to go
>to auction, since if it goes, unless it's completely ignored, I'm
>guaranteed to lose it. Yet I have to reserve part of my art-buying budget
>to pay for it if I DO get it.
>
>In general, if *I* were the one setting art show rules, multiple
>consecutive bids by the same bidder would be considered a single bid, and
>that each write-in is simply a correction to the earlier bid. But in any
>case, I'd strongly discourage any attempt to manupulate the normal, fair
>bid/auction process. If you can't play by the rules in the art show,
>don't play.
>
This is how we saw it...4 corrections to an earlier bid and NOT five bids,
since all consecutive bids were by the same bidder. Thus the pieces treated
like this did NOT go to auction. 75 pieces in the first and 95 in the
second auction are enough without adding illegaly bid pieces to the pile.
Next year, to bring things under control and shorten the auctions a bit, '6'
bids will be required instead of 5 for a piece to go to auction.
Bruce Wilhite
Well, then, Brian I would appreciate your telling me WHAT your version
of 'the spirit of the art show' is about.
From an artist's viewpoint, about the best thing that can happen in the
art show is to make SATURDAY NIGHT AUCTION. That is where folks still
have some money, and things can get really wild.
I flew down to the con with an artist who was overjoyed to see his piece
make Saturday night auction; and I was hugged at CF-East by an artist
when I happened to mention I put one of her pieces into auction by being
the last bidder. She made $175 in auction on that one, by the way.
-Bruce
Bruce Wilhite
So, just to make sure I understand things, it is considered illegal to
jump one's own bid NOT because it hurts the artist (since a simple
change in interpretation of the rules would mean the piece will go to
auction even with just one bidder), BUT rather because the con can't
afford to have TOO many pieces in auction.
Obviously, from the auctions I have seen and how folks toss money around
at auction, most artists would strongly PREFER to see their pieces in
auction. Seems like the fear is: fans of the artists would quickly
start filling up the bidder sheets to make them the most money.
Am I correct in understanding where this rule is coming from?
-Bruce
cmelv...@aol.com
In article <5d0bqt$m...@shell3.ba.best.com>, nebu...@shell3.ba.best.com
wrote:
>Supposing someone bid $30/31/32/33 on a piece, and someone else came by,
and
>liked the piece, and would have bid $40 or $50 on it, but they didn't
want
>to have to go to the auction for it. That's cost the artist around $10
or
>so; instead of tbe bids going $30/$35/$40 or maybe even $30/$40/$45/$50,
>they made it to $33--all by the same person--and then stopped.
cmelv...@aol.com
In article <32f5043e...@news.student.utwente.nl>,
a.deb...@student.utwente.nl wrote:
>Yes, and the Roz Gibson Piece went to auction anyway and went for $800
>in the end. I don't see a therry reputed here.
That was a different piece altogether. The piece I mentioned was
sold at the $500 second bid; nobody overbid it.
(...what kind of a repute does your therry have, anyway?)
Karl Meyer
Jazmyn Concolor (jaz...@netcom.com) wrote:
: not yet been decided if the bidder who attempted to bid a piece to auction by
: bidding five times (bidding against himself, no other bidders) will be punished
: by being banned from bidding next year..
I sure hope not since the person in question did ask one of your staff if
raising one's own bid was allowed and was told it was. It's already been
pretty well established that they weren't malicious in intent so why
punish them. Simply add the rule that consecutive bids by the same bidder
are against the rules and get one with more important stuff.
:
: Yes...It is illegal to 'singlehandedly' bid a piece to auction, which is why
: the pieces never appeared in the auction.
Well then you need to clarify that self raising one's own bid isn't
allowed and make sure your staff knows this since they apparently were
under the impression that it was ok to do.
Karl Meyer
Jazmyn Concolor (jaz...@netcom.com) wrote:
: This is how we saw it...4 corrections to an earlier bid and NOT five bids,
: since all consecutive bids were by the same bidder. Thus the pieces treated
: like this did NOT go to auction. 75 pieces in the first and 95 in the
: second auction are enough without adding illegaly bid pieces to the pile.
: Next year, to bring things under control and shorten the auctions a bit, '6'
: bids will be required instead of 5 for a piece to go to auction.
Sounds good to me. I don't go to the auctions so the more pieces bid out
in the art show the better from my point of view. This will also encourage
placing the first bid on pieces since then one gets the last bid before
sending the piece to auction in a bid war with one other person (at least
if raising one's own bid isn't allowed.)
Karl Jorgensen
In alt.fan.furry Scott Shannon <sha...@humboldt1.com> wrote:
: IMO, I think a person _should_ be allowed to up their own bids, but one
: person should _not_ be allowed to fill up the entire bid sheet with their
: own bids. Four bids, tops. Then, if someone else wants the piece, they
: can place the fifth bid, and send the artwork to the voice auction.
At the very least, any piece with five bids _should_ go to auction. I was
very nervous that someone was going to outbid me at the last minute
(even though nobody else had bid on the other two pieces I got, the
Heather Bruton piece got its 4 remaining bids in the last hour of the
auction) and was tempted to fill the sheet as well.
If someone fills in four bids that works a lot better for all involved: If
nobody puts the fifth bid on, the art goes to the fourth bidder; if
someone puts a fifth bid on it goes to auction.
At any rate, the art auction committee seriously needs to reevaluate the
rules for bidding. The loophole definitely needs to be fixed.
___________________________________________________________________
"When I left the hotel, everything came off except my con badge."
-- Brian Henderson, on improving furry fandom's image
Xydexx Squeakypony - http://www.smart.net/~xydexx/welcome.htm
Karl Jorgensen
In alt.fan.furry Karl Meyer <fer...@enteract.com> wrote:
: Well then you need to clarify that self raising one's own bid isn't
: allowed and make sure your staff knows this since they apparently were
: under the impression that it was ok to do.
Even better, have it listed on the sheet that gets distributed at the art
auction (the one with the Personal Bid Record and all that on it) so there
is no question about it.
Brad Austin
Karl Meyer wrote:
> Well then you need to clarify that self raising one's own bid isn't
> allowed and make sure your staff knows this since they apparently were
> under the impression that it was ok to do.
As I understand Jazmyn's clarification, there's no rule
against raising one's own bid, only that a sequence of
any number of consecutive bids by the same person is
interpreted as equivilent to a single bid for the purposes of
the five-bids-to-go-to-auction rule. So the reason that the
pieces on which the person filled up the bid sheets didn't go
to auction was that there was really only one bid on them, not
five, and that anyone could have added additional bids and
competed for the pieces. The problem was that people thought
there were already five bids when there were not.
One thing I would like clarified though is if it is
permissible in general to put a sixth or subsequent bid on a
bid sheet. I don't see why that would be objectionable, as it
would only save time when the piece finally goes to auction.
Assuming this is permissible, it might be helpful if the bid
sheets actually had slots to accomodate bids beyond the fifth,
as then people would not be under the impression that five
slots on the sheet being filled means they are locked out
from bidding until the auction.
That still wouldn't solve the problem of people placing a
second, third, or fourth bid at the last minute of the sale
though, which is at least as much a violation of the spirit of
the sale as trying to force a piece to go to auction.
Brad Austin
Phoenix, AZ USA
<ar...@dancris.com>
Plushophilia home page: http://www.dancris.com/~artax
Brian Henderson
mau...@teleport.com (Richard Chandler) wrote:
>As someone who often spends his Sundays in the dealer's room, behind a
>table, I'm usually reluctant to bid on a piece which seems destined to go
>to auction, since if it goes, unless it's completely ignored, I'm
>guaranteed to lose it. Yet I have to reserve part of my art-buying budget
>to pay for it if I DO get it.
I agree. As someone who has always worked the art auction (this is
the first year that I haven't), I've never actually been able to bid
on anything and that means that the vast majority of pieces I want
that have gone to auction have gone without me.
This year, I didn't win anything, every single piece I bidded on was
sent to auction (after the art show was closed BTW, by a single person
who went around *AFTER THEY ANNOUNCED AN END TO BIDS* and outbid me on
every single piece.) I was so pissed off that I didn't bother even
complaining, it wouldn't have done a bit of good.
-Brian
Terry Whittier
Brian Henderson (BHend...@linkline.com) wrote:
: This year, I didn't win anything, every single piece I bidded on was
: sent to auction (after the art show was closed BTW, by a single person
: who went around *AFTER THEY ANNOUNCED AN END TO BIDS* and outbid me on
: every single piece.) I was so pissed off that I didn't bother even
: complaining, it wouldn't have done a bit of good.
If you don't complain, the situation cannot improve. You have only
yourself to blame.
As people were being herded out of the show before the second auction,
I had a chance to watch to see if anyone was putting any after-closing
bids on anything. I did, in fact, see someone start to write a bid on
something that was in the 1/4 of the room closest to the front and main
exit. I sidled up to this person quickly and told him that he shouldn't
do that and that if he continued, I would have to notify the art show
staff. He thought about it for a second and then crossed-off his
partially-completed bid. After I watched him leave, I alerted one of the
staff who was going around with a high-lighter to mark the last bids on
the bid sheets. I showed her the bid sheet and she high-lighted the last
real bid.
The practice at the show was to highlight the last bid on the sheet. If
there are any pieces that you suspect foul play on, you can always ask to
see the actual bid sheet and see where it has been highlighted.
Of course, there is always the chance that you did not "guard" your
bids right up until the final second of bidding. It is perfectly legal
for someone to come along behind you before the end of bidding and
out-bid you. All it takes is two seconds to write a bid.
--
--------------------------------------------
From Terry Whittier in San Jose, CA
--------------------------------------------
cmelv...@aol.com
In article <32F560...@worldnet.att.net>, Bruce wrote:
>From an artist's viewpoint, about the best thing that can happen in the
>art show is to make SATURDAY NIGHT AUCTION.
Here's an artist's viewpoint. I didn't have anything in the show
this year, but I have participated in past shows. Yes, I -love- for my
pieces to go to auction; that means it'll most likely make a few more
bucks. But, no, I don't want people to place three or four consecutive
bids in order to do me a 'favor' by sending it to auction -- especially if
they do it with $1 bids. For one thing, it means the piece is going to
auction at a very low price to start with, and the bidding may not go much
higher. (Or it might; you can't really predict with 100% assurance. But
I think it's more likely it'll keep to the lower end of the bidding
scale.) For another, you may be blocking someone who might have placed a
higher bid on the piece (as in the case of Roz Gibson). For a third, I
just consider it unfair to make more than one bid at a time, and I would
rather be fair to all, than have one person send my piece to auction
simply to do me a favor. I appreciate the thought, but no thanks.
(There's also the ego factor; I can feel better about a piece going
to auction if a -lot- of people bid on it, rather than just one
well-meaning soul.)
cmelv...@aol.com
Brian Henderson
whit...@netcom.com (Terry Whittier) wrote:
> If you don't complain, the situation cannot improve. You have only
>yourself to blame.
Oh, I'll complain now, but at the time, it would have been his word
against mine since none of the art show staff was around to see it. I
didn't feel like pursuing the matter.
-Brian
cmelv...@aol.com
In article <5d3t7c$o...@rat.org>, Brad wrote:
>One thing I would like clarified though is if it is
>permissible in general to put a sixth or subsequent bid on a
>bid sheet. I don't see why that would be objectionable, as it
>would only save time when the piece finally goes to auction.
>Assuming this is permissible, it might be helpful if the bid
>sheets actually had slots to accomodate bids beyond the fifth,
>as then people would not be under the impression that five
>slots on the sheet being filled means they are locked out
>from bidding until the auction.
But, wait a minute... A sixth bid wasn't permitted. That's why
there were only five slots. After the fifth bid was made, the piece -was-
locked until the auction. That's why the people working the show were
crossing the bid sheets with an orange marker after a fifth bid was
reached; to indicate that bidding was closed until the auction.
What Jazzmyn is talking about now is that they wil change the rules
and sheets for next year and that six bids -will- be allowed.
Karl Meyer
Terry Whittier (whit...@netcom.com) wrote:
: The practice at the show was to highlight the last bid on the sheet. If
: see the actual bid sheet and see where it has been highlighted.
I basically guarded the piece I most wanted and made very sure that my
final bid was highlighted before I left. I don't think there are many
people that do the bid after the bell thing but there always seem to be a
few (though I think there are far fewer real incidents of this than some
say there are.)
dreiss
Jareth shall make a point, from now on, to watch his own work
in the art show; If'n any of my pieces have been run up by the
same bidder, I would rather personally destroy the piece then
let the immoral bastich take it home.
I, for one, will never attend another auction at CF. Too long,
too disorganized. Heck, I've heard *a lot* of people saying that they
would rather buy prints in the dealer's room then buy the original
in the show, simply because the 4 hour wait online to pick up artwork
isn't worth the aggrivation. Me, I'll just have everything mailed
to me if'n I bid on anything for now on. The only sane option.
Pushing something to auction is a good way to have the piece
be ignored, these days. People only go to the auction to buy
the pieces that they already were interested. There is far too much
quantity of artwork these days for 'impulse' buys in the auction. It
is far more likely to run up a high bid on the bidding in the art show
then to run up the bidding in the auction. Unless, of course, an artist
knows who the big bidders are and draw pictures that pander to those
furs... :)
If there was a piece I wanted in the art show, I make a point of
outbidding the previous bidder by at least $10. Outbidding one's
self *deprives* the artist of several dollars, minimum since I and
many others simply won't go to the auction anymore
Outbidding one's self is insulting to the artist and completely
against the idea of having bidding at all. If there is only one person
in the entire con who is interested in the picture enough to bid
on it...Then there should be only one bid on the piece. The bidding
should reflect the audience's interest in the piece, not just one
individual's perception.
Hmm. Hey, CF organizers...Could I put that on the bottom of my
contract when I sign in my artwork? 'The Artist Reserves the Right to
spray paint this piece or artwork solid black in protest of outbidding
one's self.'?
-- Jareth Atian
Dr. Cat
Brad Austin (ar...@dancris.com) wrote:
: Assuming this is permissible, it might be helpful if the bid
: sheets actually had slots to accomodate bids beyond the fifth,
: as then people would not be under the impression that five
: slots on the sheet being filled means they are locked out
: from bidding until the auction.
This might have some merits, as it seems to me a lot of the complications
and last-minute frenzies at Confurence might be coming from the people
who want to win certain pieces buy don't want to attend the art auction.
This way if they see a piece with a 5th bid of $80 and know it's going to
auction, and they're thinking "Man, I would be willing to re-up that bid
all the way to $150 to get that nifty tiger but I'm not going to the
auction", they could just write down $150 as the 6th bid and hope maybe
they really were the one that was willing to spend the most on that
piece, and they'll get it. Or they could write down $100 and take their
chances. Either way, the arists would probably end up with more money as
pieces would tend to start at higher prices in the auction. Certainly
wouldn't be likely to lead to the artists making less money.
*-------------------------------------------**-----------------------------*
Dr. Cat / Dragon's Eye Productions || Free alpha test:
*-------------------------------------------** http://www.bga.com/furcadia
Furcadia - a new graphic mud for PCs! || Let your imagination soar!
*-------------------------------------------**-----------------------------*
(Disclaimer: The Confurence art show almost always has images of other
species than tigers, the above was just chosen as an arbitrary example.
Please don't get the false impression that furry con art shows are
lacking in species diversity.)
Dr. Cat
Karl Meyer (fer...@enteract.com) wrote:
: As a rule I don't feel quite right about sending a piece to auction if
I do. Rather than leave a piece that's one bid short of auction, and let
it go for, say, $40... If I bid $50 on it and then don't go to the
auction... Maybe the $40 bidder will show up and bid $60. Net result,
the artist makes $20 more than if I hadn't bid. Or maybe there are no
bids at auction and I get it for $50. Net result, the artist makes $10
more than if I hadn't bid. I think getting more money to the artists is
the main point of the auction, and I did that, so I don't feel bad either
way. If anything, I might feel bad about deciding "I will deny you the
guarantee of making at least $10 more on this piece because I won't send
a piece to an auction I'm not attending."
*-------------------------------------------**-----------------------------*
Dr. Cat / Dragon's Eye Productions || Free alpha test:
*-------------------------------------------** http://www.bga.com/furcadia
Furcadia - a new graphic mud for PCs! || Let your imagination soar!
*-------------------------------------------**-----------------------------*
(Disclaimer: Drawings of old bananas seldom go for as cheap as $60 at
Confurence art shows, the numbers were just chosen randomly to make a point.)
Karl Meyer
Richard Chandler
Another thought. If you want an artist to make more money, don't try to
rig the auction and hope that someone else will give more money. If you
want artist X to make $50, you have the ability right there on the bid
sheet to give that artist $50.
Dr. Cat
Richard Chandler (mau...@teleport.com) wrote:
: Another thought. If you want an artist to make more money, don't try to
: rig the auction and hope that someone else will give more money. If you
: want artist X to make $50, you have the ability right there on the bid
: sheet to give that artist $50.
Isn't that what I just suggested, writing down $50 on the bid sheet?
*-------------------------------------------**-----------------------------*
Dr. Cat / Dragon's Eye Productions || Free alpha test:
*-------------------------------------------** http://www.bga.com/furcadia
Furcadia - a new graphic mud for PCs! || Let your imagination soar!
*-------------------------------------------**-----------------------------*
(Disclaimer: I am scratching my head, but it doesn't help me understand.)
Foxy
On Mon, 3 Feb 1997, dreiss wrote:
> I, for one, will never attend another auction at CF. Too long,
> too disorganized. Heck, I've heard *a lot* of people saying that they
> would rather buy prints in the dealer's room then buy the original
> in the show, simply because the 4 hour wait online to pick up artwork
> isn't worth the aggrivation.
Actually, as an aside, I made $45 in original sales in the art show.
Compare this with $56 on art prints.
The guy definately has a point..
/------------------------------------------------------
---Foxy!--- / "We must infiltrate, integrate with humans, using our
kp...@coventry.ac.uk / superior talents to gain control of their politics,
fo...@tigerden.com / their media of communication, their legends, their
Artist, furry fan / beliefs, so that, when the times comes, they will have
and Vulpophile! / been seduced to the acceptance of the inevitable, the
-----------------/ era of foxes."
dreiss
A suggestion re: the 'aftershow' price...
One thing that I've seen other well-run con art
shows do is stop bidding on saturday night, instead of
letting bidding go on through sunday. The art show was
open until late in the evening, but this still allowed
them all sunday morning/early afternoon to work on paperwork
and organization to get ready for the auction on sunday
afternoon.
The art show was still open on sunday, 'though any
artwork that had been brought to auction had been taken down.
On sunday is when the 'after auction' prices were valid. People
could still 'outbid' the after auction price, but whoever wrote in
the last (and highest) bid on the bidsheet simply had to pay for the
piece at that price at art pick up. On sunday, there wasn't a 'cap' of
only 6 bids allowed on the bid sheets, but rather if'n the sheet was
full a bidder just asked the art show staff to put up a new sheet.
By sunday late-afternoon (when it was time for
art pick-up), all of the paperwork had been completed and
artwork organized by bidder number. All the buyer had to
do was show up and pay.
It seems to me that having only one auction (with the
bidding closing on saturday night) would not lengthen the time
of the auction by that much; After all, there would still be
plenty of 'bidding' going on in the artshow on sunday, just writing the
bids in on the bidsheets.
It would allow the art show staff all saturday evening to get
ready for the auction. On sunday afternoon, there wouldn't be a second
auction to deal with, so the art show wouldn't have to close quite as
early. The 'aftershow' bidding could continue later, allowing for the
fans to enjoy the artshow longer on sunday. Further, it doesn't seem to
take as long to organize artwork on sunday, if'n one only has to look at
the bidder sheet to know who has purchased a piece, instead of having to
deal with the entire ordeal of auction paperwork...
Anyone else have suggestions or ideas?
-- Jareth