Looking at bidding in HR Harmer auction. They offer bids as ebay live auctions absentee bids, on their website as a mailed bid, on stampauctionnetwork live bidding and on ebay live bidding.

I had a quick look at day 1 of the auction currently running. Live looks to be the way to go, but with 1000 lots a day lasting over 6 hours it doesn't seem possible to predict when your lot will be up with any certainty. The ebay platform looks to be a bit faster, but I suspect it costs more (20%). Any ideas how much Stampauctionnetwork charge?

Also how do the absentee bids work?

The starting bid for one auction is listed at $210, but it's currently at $270. Does this mean a $270 bid has been mailed in, or is it that there are two or more bids, with the second-highest one at $260 for this to happen. If you mail in a bid for $300 on a $200 start, will they start your bid at $200, and then bid you up in $10 increments to a maximum of $300 against any other bidders?

Having participated in a live British auction recently, no, you cannot accurately predict when things are going to come up for live bidding. I was a bit disappointed on the British auction because there were a couple of Bank of Ireland notes that I wanted to bid on, but came back from a meeting like 15 minutes after the live bidding closed so I missed them, but I did get a Memorial Plaque in the auction.

With some, Heritage, and Goldbergs and Spink, you are FAR better off bidding on their site directly and saving yourself the 5% fleaMarket tax that they charge. I cannot honestly say I like Spink, and I do not care much for Goldberg, because when they close you cannot see the results right away like on Heritage and Stacks. My Spink auction bids were "misplaced" when I bid on their site. With Heritage and Stacks, everything is very clear. With Goldbergs, you better keep checking on your bids in your account file, somehow they mysteriously disappear, reappear etc. So I thought I got o/b on something in the Millennia collection, but to my surprise I actually was successful.

I looked at the Harmer stuff but I haven't yet seen anything yet, since it is mostly specimens, remainders etc. and I tend to avoid them.

HTH

Thanks.

The HR Harmer stuff is indeed mostly specimens, which I also generally ignore, but some are unissued/specimen-only notes, which are more interesting. I'm not desperate to buy, but will go for a good price.

E.g., there are some at $300 opening bid which last time sold for around $800. If I were to mail in say $500, assuming there are no other mailed-in bids, would that mean I would start off the auction with a proxy bid of $300, and then if there is any live competition they would continue bidding up to my $500? I wouldn't want it opening at $500, it seems like a big waste if that's what they do.

Psst. Look at google.com, find their site, open the bidding form and bid away there, because it is 15% commission, not 20% like that online fleaMarket.

They want me to provide two credit references to them.

I am signed-up here http://www.stampauctionnetwork.com/ which seems to be HR Harmer's preferred live bidding site but it's not clear how much they will charge me and how to pay.

On what happens if the item opens at $300 and I bid $500 and there are no other bids, do I pay $300 or $500. It looks like on the stampauctionsite at least, that you might actually pay $500. They have two figures, Your Bid, and Max Bid, looks like if you bid Your Bid '$300', and Max Bid '$500', they will start off at $300 and go up to $500. It says '"Up to" or "Ceiling" bids may be placed by entering a higher bid in the "Max Bid" input box'

I can see why people prefer ebay, they didn't ask for any confirmation that I'd just placed a bid (for the future auction), it wasn't till I'd placed it that I realised I'd bid $50 over the start price, perhaps unnecessarily, and the bids can't be removed.

It's also not really clear how you pay, hrharmer have payment terms, but no mention on the auction site, I assume that the live auction site counts as a 'mail bidder'. It's +2% for Visa, so ebay is only 3% more.

I cannot say for HR Harmer, but with references it is fairly easy to establish credit with auction houses, some even take CC's up to a certain amount, usually $5K or $10K.

hmm, looks like I have just spent $2,350 on six banknotes (plus premium).

They had two of each note on sale. I paid $375-$425 for each one. In the last auction they had the same. Last time the notes went for $600-$700. Whether that's the result of increased supply or what, I'm not sure. I wasn't anticipating buying anything, but the prices turned out to be lower than I anticipated, so I've just spent a couple of thousand dollars.

I bid on the stampauctionnetwork, quite exciting with the live audio stream.

Might got to do with the general global economy where the buying power has been affected and people are just selling whatever they got.

Well these are from the American Banknote Company archives (actually Security Banknote Printing Company). They are Indonesian notes, which also appear on ebay through their live auctions (I guess auction prices will drop when ebay stop their live auctions). I wouldn't have thought the market would have dropped: Indonesia has actually benefited on balance because of the commodities boom.

I am assuming when they came up last time people were excited and thought they were near-unique, but now they have come up two auctions in a row there's a chance they have dozens in store, and people get frightened.

If the number on the market doubles, as they did between this auction and last, I don't think prices should halve: the price obviously falls, but the number of potential buyers increases so the decrease is not proportional to the increase in supply. The suspicion must be they are releasing two at a time.

Or perhaps that is just me being paranoid.

Just pity the people that boght at $600-$800/piece.

The way they set that up with doublets of notes, not even consecutive in many cases is baffling. Part of the problem is that not many people are going to bid on something with two non-consecutive notes to have both. Most annoyingly for me, their site froze up for me, and I had to do the other option. So now I have an extra of a particular note that I will sell later on. I wonder that the ABNCo archived material would have been better sold by Stacks, they have much much more expertise in this arena than HR Harmer does.

I believe they would have made more commission by separating some of these lots instead of combining them. That way they could get two high bids, instead of one for both items, which turned out to be less than catalogue for the both on the item I was interested in.

Hmm?

I am looking at the Indonesian lots here

http://www.stampauctionnetwork.com/ha/ha298579.cfm#366 (and on the next page).

There are two series, 1948 and 1949, and denominations, 1, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100 rupiah.

They had two of each note, in twleve separate lots.

The last time they auctioned them they had one of each of the twelve different notes, and a set of the six 1948 and a set of the six 1949. The singles last time fetched better prices than the combined lot, unsurprsing really, so this time they sold them in singles only.

FWIW, the only Indonesian stuff I've seen on Stacks sold at a small fraction of what they'd fetch in Singapore or Jakarta.

And to think...

I had to wait through all the Indonesian stuff that you were interested in, whilst I was waiting for a mere few lots ahead Where it was the same scenario, but with issued notes, not proofs etc. Had to buy two to get one.

I'm guessing you went for this lady

No, someone a lot more attractive.